The Ciuc‑basin, the former Csík‑seat in medieval times, is located at the eastern periphery of Transylvania, at the border region of the medieval Hungarian Kingdom. Due to its geographical position, it creates a real opportunity to examine the centre – periphery relations, especially because it has preserved almost unchanged the medieval network of settlements and churches. The geographical situation limits the areas available for the human habitation and, in the meantime, compared to the central or the more exposed regions, there are no abandoned churches or deserted settlements. Therefore, the preserved medieval settlement system offers a good opportunity to analyse several aspects of the ecclesiastical topography. This region appeared in the written sources only at the beginning of the 14th century, when 15 churches were mentioned in the Ciuc‑basin (and two more at Gheorgheni and Cașin). These parish churches had, very probably, contemporary subordinated filia villages lacking their own churches. From the 16th‑17th century sources, the number of such filia settlements can be estimated to around 50. A church network could not have been formed without a solid demographic background, although one faces a methodological problem: how far back into the past should we go when taking into consideration the parish churches and their subordinated villages, given the fact that in the written sources they appeared at a later date? The research of place names revealed the fact that local toponymy has several layers, typologically and chronologically different, and some of them seem to originate prior to the 13th‑14th centuries. At the same time, archaeological research (excavations and field work) identified several 11th/12th‑13th century sites even in the filia villages mentioned in documents only in the 16th century. The archaeological material was dated not just by observed analogies but also by independent 14C AMS dates. The archaeological (and toponymic) data supports the affirmation that the settlement system on which the parish network could have formed existed in the 12th century. The archaeological excavations of the last two decades documented pre‑Gothic periods at all investigated churches, although the chronology of these earlier periods is ambiguous or impossible to establish because the dating elements were missing. Ciuc remained Catholic throughout its entire history, with churches and their surrounding cemeteries used continuously from the construction date until the present. Newer, deeper and larger graves systematically destroyed medieval graves, therefore most investigated graves around the medieval churches of Ciuc are relatively recent. Fortunately, in some cases, under later architectural elements (such as buttresses) or in undisturbed places, early graves containing 12th century artefacts/grave goods were documented, with this date also confirmed by 14C dates. Based on this, one can presume that the first churches (some of them of wood?) were built during the 12th century. The parish network was most surely in place by the beginning of the 14th century, and continued to function almost unchanged till the 18th‑19th centuries, when some earlier filia villages obtained parish rights and built new churches of their own. The ratio of the medieval parish churches to villages was 1:3 on average, but this represents a mean value obtained from variable ratios ranging from 1:1 to 1:6. The church network was surprisingly dense, with the distance between two churches of ca. 4‑5 km, and all settlements were within a radius of 5 km from at least one parish church. Chapels were also important elements in the ecclesiastical topography. The first were built in the 14th century outside the villages, but the modalities and the reasons of their construction are not really known. The second group of chapels appeared inside the filia villages in the 15th‑16th centuries. In this case, the motivation can be easily guessed: they were built at the initiative of the local elite and community. The main reason was to create possibilities to have local Masses instead of walking regularly to the neighbourhood parish church. Naturally, those chapels became key elements in the process of founding new parishes in the modern periods, when the present‑day ecclesiastical organisation got its final shape.

Keywords: medieval churches, history of Transylvania, Ciuc‑basin, Csík‑seat, ecclesiastical topography, medieval settlements