AT A GLANCE
Why go?
The Arany Griff Rend – the Order of the Golden Griffin – is a living-history association in Odorheiu Secuiesc (Székelyudvarhely), in the Székely Land of central Romania. Founded in 2012 and led by the historian Sashalmi-Fekete Tamás, it is the first Székely medieval-reconstruction group in Transylvania, dedicated to reviving the combat arts, dress and courtly culture of the 14th and 15th centuries. Rather than a museum behind glass, it is a working order of performers who train, demonstrate and run interactive medieval programmes, and its base at "Vár" ties it to the old fortress whose ruins give the town its skyline.↗
For a visitor, the appeal is participation: sword and halberd demonstrations, archery, Renaissance circle dances and theatrical encounters staged against fortresses, fortified churches and manor houses. Drawing on local archaeology, the 1536 decree on Székely armaments and the region's St Ladislaus frescoes, the Order turns the medieval history of this one-time royal Székely seat into something you can watch, try on and photograph.
An order that fights for a living
The Golden Griffin is not a costumed parade but a martial-arts school with a historian at its head. Regular training began on 1 October 2012, and the company reconstructs how Székely, Hungarian and wider European warriors of the 1400s actually fought and dressed – the sword, the two-edged longsword, the war hammer, the halberd, free fighting, duelling and archery. Their kit is not invented: it is based on the collections of the Székely National Museum, the 1536 diet at Târgu Mureș that listed the arms each social class of Székely warrior had to bear, archaeological finds across the Székely Land and the medieval wall-paintings of local churches.