The preponderance of the Hungarian inhabitants in medieval and premodern times can be inferred from the descriptions of some travellers visiting Alba Iulia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, such as Pierre Lescalopier and David Frölich, who stated that the inhabitants of the city were Hungarians.

The Hungarian community of Alba Iulia was concentrated in two distinct areas of the city. Many lived in the fortress, where the upper classes and clergy had their houses, while others resided in the main neighbourhood of the outer city, St Mary. This area was home to commoners, but also to wealthier citizens from among whose numbers the majors, judges, jurors and members of local administration were elected.

The changes to Transylvanian society around the mid-sixteenth century affected the population of Alba Iulia as well. After the adoption of the Reformation by Hungarian society, in 1556, the Roman Catholic Bishopric was abolished and its properties were secularised. The former episcopal palace became residence of the princes of Transylvania, and the cathedral was used by the Protestants.

However, not all members of the Hungarian community embraced the Reformation; some chose to remain Catholic, and from 1579 their spiritual life taken care of by the Jesuits, who received permission to settle in the outer city, in St Mary neighbourhood, where they received the ministrations of the parish church. In 1584, Jesuit Ferrante Capeci stated that there were 300 Catholic families in Alba Iulia. This number should be treated with caution, whilst bearing in mind that the Catholics from Alba Iulia were not only Hungarians, but also Italians, Poles, Slovaks and Croats.

In the first decades of seventeenth century, the Hungarian community of Alba Iulia increased in number due to the presence nobles invited to join the princely household. Some of them settled in the fortress, whole other chose to stay in St. Mary street, on the western side of the outer city.

Alba Iulia’s blossoming as the capital of Transylvania came to a sudden end in the second half of seventeenth century, due to the destruction wrought by Ottoman and Tartar assaults in 1658 and 1661-1662. All inhabitants were affected, and some decided to leave the city forever. The 1673 census indicates that 112 of 255 households in the western area of the outer city were abandoned.

In the eighteenth century, the Hungarian community’s evolution was affected by measures taken by the new authorities soon after the incorporation of Transylvania into the Austrian Empire. In 1716, the Calvinists were forced to give up their former cathedral to the Roman Catholic Bishopric, which had just been re-established. However, the event that affected the Hungarian community most was the relocation of the population from the medieval city to a new emplacement, necessitated by the construction of the Vauban fortification (1715-1738). Many citizens, especially noblemen and well-off burghers, refused the relocation, preferring to leave Alba Iulia and move to other cities like Cluj or Aiud.

In the new emplacement, the Hungarians were allocated a neighbourhood in the central area, called on the plans Ungrische Stadt (Hungarian city), situated between Lipoveni neighbourhood and Heiuș suburb. The community, facing the challenges of beginning over, was weakened both economically and numerically. Moreover, after the retrocession of the cathedral, they had no church.

One of the first measures adopted to bring the Hungarian community’s life back to normal was the construction of a chapel in a central area to replace the missing church. This chapel was used until 1757, when the construction of a new church began on the same site. The new church was finished in 1761. In 1766, the Reformed Hungarian community of Alba Iulia consisted of 469 inhabitants, and we know that a Hungarian school functioned in the second half of eighteenth century.

For Hungarian Catholics, this period was a felicitous one. After the retrocession of the cathedral and the episcopal palace, in 1753, the Theological Seminary was established. Statistically, the Catholic Hungarians were more numerous than the Reformed Hungarians. In 1763 there were 839 Catholics, and in 1790, 624. Not all Catholics of Alba Iulia were Hungarians. Many officials, members of the administration and officers of the Imperial Army were Austrian or simply citizens belonging to different ethnic groups.

In the nineteenth century, the number of Hungarians of both allegiances increased, as shown by census records. In 1850, the Hungarian population of the city was 1,009, representing 18,65% of a total population of 5,408. In 1880, there were 2,520 Hungarians, 34% of the total of 7,338 inhabitants.

After the unification of Transylvania with Romania, on 1 December 1918, the situation of the Hungarian community changed radically, diminishing in the total population. In 1920, there were 2041 Hungarians, that is, 21,16 % of a total of 9,645. In 1941, the number of Hungarians dropped to 1,391 (9% of a total of 15,489). This tendency reversed in the first years of the Communist regime, as the Hungarian population grew to 1,875 in 1977. Currently, according to the 2011 census, the Hungarian community in Alba Iulia numbers 1,010 inhabitants, representing 1.59 % of the 65,536 inhabitants. (C.A.)