History of Erdőd (Ardud)

In documents the place is found under different names: Herdeud, Erdeud, Erdeod, Arded and Ardud. Initially, the name of Herdeud meant forestry, a setting located in the woods, mentioned under this name since 1319 in the donation that the king of Hungary Carol Robert D’Anjou had made to the Satmar fortress.

Afterwards, the name suffered ethimological modifications until it came to the name Erdod (in Hungarian, before1918), Erdeud, Arded (in Romanian, after 1918) and Ardud, its present denomination.

Traces of human life in these places were to be found in the Neolithic epoch, the proof is the ax made of stone that had been discovered around the village and exhibited at the school museum. These traces continued in the bronze epoch and, this time, the proof is a bronze ax, which was discovered in Ardud and exhibited at the same museum.

The oldest documentary certification of this place is in ‘Registrum Varadiense’, in 1215, where it appears under the name Herdeud, as one of the most important settings from the Satmar area; it even had a parish that, according to the documents of the time, was led by the archpriest Abel.

Ardud was among the three important settings from the Satu Mare county, together with Satu Mare and Mediesu Aurit, which had a fortress before the great Tartar-Mongolian invasion, and the place is mentioned under the name of castrum Herdeus since 1215.

Afterwards, Ardud underwent major developments and became a district (Distictus Erdeud) in the Satmar borough in 1378. In 1392, its existence as a district from the Satmar area is mentioned again, together with the Mediesu Aurit district. Its population was almost entirely Hungarians and the people lived in 10 Hungarian villages.

The setting continued to develop and its importance grew, until it became headquarters of the feudal territory, and in 1509 it is mentioned as a fair (Oppidium Erdeud), as three important roads crossed the place: Hrip-Ardud, Satu Mare-Ardud and Terebesti-Ardud.

As a consequence, Ardud became an important economic, agricultural and commercial center. These were wood processing workshops, blacksmiths and cooper centers. As a market place, Ardud became an important center for trading agricultural products and tools. Besides its economic importance, it was also an administrative center – headquarters of the feudal territory with fortress and a district of the Satmar borough.

Beginning with the 14^th century, the most representative of the Dragffy family was Dragffy Bertalan, who participated in the battle from Campul Painii (the Field of Bread), near Orastie in 1479, together with the leader of the borough Timisoara, Pavel Chinezul (Pavel the Chinese).

Later on, after he became Prince of Transylvania (1493-1499), he helped Stefan the Great with whom he was related (they were in-laws) - he gave him 12.000 soldiers to help him in the battle against the Polish invasion lead by Ioan Albert (1497).

Dragffy Bertalan is the one who had built the stone fortress from Ardud in 1481, replacing a little fortress. In 1482 the building of the church, which was to be finished in 1545, began.

During the spread of the religious reform, of Lutheranism and Calvinism, Ardud became one of the most important centers of Protestantism in Hungary and Transylvania.

The introduction of the reform is owed to the activities of the reformer Devai Biro Matyas, Batizi Andras and Kopacsi Istvan who worked under the direct protection of the borough leader Gaspar Dragffy, the grandson of Dragffy Bertalan.

Gaspar Dragffy was among the first noblemen from Transylvania who adopted the reform. The first synod of the Protestants from Hungary and Transylvania under the presidency of Kopacsi Istvan, a priest from Ardud took place on the 20^th of September 1545 in Ardud.

The second synod of the Protestants was also organized in Ardud, on the 24^th of February 1555. There was also a preparatory school for protestant priests.

After the disappearance of the Dragffy family there was a cruel fight for the occupation and the domination of Ardud and its surroundings. As the last representative of this family, György, died as a young man, Ardud came to be under the control of Ioan Sigismund, the Principle of Transylvania.

He conquered the fortress in 1565, after a 40-day siege, being helped by Pasha of Buda and the leader of Timisoara. His army was formed by 25.000 soldiers and 15.000 Turkish. They fought against General Swendy Lazar. King Maximilian of Austria who had occupied the North of Transylvania and the fortress of Ardud sent him there to offer help.

During the fight the entire fortress was knocked down. However, Ardud remained a domain of the Principle until 1629, when the Principle Rakoczi the 1^st donated it to baron Karoly's widow, Zsengrei Berbala; later on, Mihaly Apafi donated it to the magnate Karoly Laszlo, in 1663.

In 1730, Count Karoly Sandor (in 1711, after the peace from Satu Mare, the Habsburgs gave the title of Count to the Karoly family as a reward for having betrayed the uprising of Francisc Rakoczi the 2^nd) replaced the old fortress with a castle-fortress.

This castle-fortress had a square form, and in corners it had round-shaped, high and strong towers. These towers were endowed with crenels and their dominant elements were the Gothic ones. The domenial chair was situated in the fortress, and in the basement there were 8 chambers (cells) for the convicts.

Toto Karoly Sandor colonized the Swabian from Ardud. The first colonizations started in 1726 and continued until the end of the 18^th century. 308 families are told to have been brought in Ardud, but not all of them remained there.

Some of them left for Homoroade or other neighbouring places, others repatriated. The Swabian colonists brought from the Wurtemberg area by Count Karoly Sandor, with the approval of the King of Austria Carol the 6^th had been brought with the purpose of fully valorizing the resources of these lands.

These valorifications satisfied the Count; meanwhile the approval of the House of Habsburg came with the purpose to enforce the German element and the Catholicism in Transylvania, but also to prevent the reform.

Soon, serious conflicts of economic and religious nature arouse between the newcomers and the Hungarian inhabitants. They fought over the ownership of these lands, of the arable territories, the hay fields and forests, of a mill that had been built in 1711 and they also fought over the ownership of the church.

As Count Karoly Sandor intervened, the conflict ended with the victory of the newcomers. As a consequence, the Hungarian from Ardud had to leave for places such as Ghirisa Dobra and Viile Satu Mare (1769).

In what religion was concerned, the Roman-Catholic Church maintained its supremacy. As the time passed by, the Swabian adopted the Hungarian traditions, especially the Austro-Hungarian dualism, and they kept the Roman Catholic cult up to the present day.

Along the time, other Hungarians, Romanians and Jews settled in Ardud. A record from 1865 mentions 1582 Roman-Catholics, 268 Greek-Catholics, 74 Calvinists and one Lutheran.

In what regards the four-towered castle with its underground cellars suffered serious deteriorations. The Hungarian Count Karoly Lajos took down the roof of the castle, as he had to pay a large tax during the provisional state. Some renovations had been made in 1896, but the castle fell into ruins again.

After the 2^nd World War the castle was completely destroyed and many of the houses around the area had been built from the materials that remained after the demolition of the castle.

Only the tower from the southwest part of the fortress still stands up, but this tower is also threatened by deterioration and degradation.

In the 18^th and 19^th Century, Ardud became an important economic and administrative center; there was a county court, a bank, a mill, shops; a hospital was built in 1890, the railway was introduced in 1872 and a drug store was opened in 1893.

Likewise, an intense cultural and spiritual life developed in Ardud. A confessional school of the Roman-Catholic parish functioned beginning with 1484. A six-grade school for girls and a kinder garden started to function in 1897.

At the beginning of the 20^th Century, Ardud and the other places surrounding it went through major developments. The Romanians from Lapus, Somcuta, Dej and Chiuiesti were colonized in order to work the lands for the Hungarian Counts. The agricultural production also developed in this period. Each householder owned 5 to 10 cattle and the richer ones owned even 15 to 20 cattle. At the same time, the handcraft wares developed.

The reannexation of Transylvania to Hungary had made in 1940 after the dictate from Vienna

After the Russian-Romanian ocupation 1944 october, Ardud entered a process of economic transformations as part of the communist area. As it was an agricultural area, the first transformations were related to agriculture. Therefore, in 1950, the Public Agricultural Householding was established on the lands that had been expropriated from the important landowners Nagy Sandor, Benedek Novak Pap Lajos. On the 6th of August 1950, the Agricultural Household for Production (which later on, became the Agricultural Co-Operative Farm) took birth, formed by 42 families and owning an area of 172 hectares. In the same year the Mechanization and Tractor Station was established.