JOURNEYMENS’ HOUSE

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The medieval European guilds had also workers who learnt to become master stonemasons or butchers or something else. These were the journeymen, the helpers of the members of the guild. In medieval Europe there was the tradition and obligation of an initiation trip of the journeyman in a town at a certain distance from his origin town. Thus the journeyman traveled, learnt, discovered the world and came back home with a new perspective on life, on the European cultural world.

Today Sibiu is the easternmost town which maintains this tradition of the journeymen. Yearly stonemasons, rivers or ironsmiths come to Sibiu from all Europe but especially from the German environment and learn the profession through a series of restorations ordered for the monuments of Sibiu.

The house was built over the zwinger which linked the first fortification circle to the third one of the the medieval citadel. For this reason the building has four floors in the Lower Town and only two in the Upper Town. The interesting elements of the house are the two wind flags, one of 1690 and the other dated 1743. The building burnt in 1977 but it was renovated and during the renovation process paintings of Renaissance influence were discovered. In recent years the building has been renovated and has become one of the main monuments of Sibiu.