This thesis focuses on the diplomatic strategies employed by the three main Transylvanian Saxon towns of Sibiu, Brașov, and Bistrița during the second half of the reign of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary (r. 1458–90) and the era of the Jagiellonian kings Vladislaus II (r. 1490–1516) and Louis II (r. 1516–26). Over this period these German-speaking towns, located on the eastern frontier of the Kingdom of Hungary, consolidated their control over their respective territorial hinterlands and – primarily under the leadership of Sibiu – coalesced into the Universitas Saxonum, a single estate enjoying the same privileges and subject directly to the king. While incorporating the considerable body of historiography focusing on the Saxons’ legal and socio-economic development in this era, this thesis seeks to demonstrate the significant everyday effort which the Saxon leading strata devoted to pursuing their political objectives and entrenching their privileged legal status. It presents Saxon diplomacy as a balancing act spread across three distinct but interconnected theatres, and intends to show how the seemingly distinct elements of this amounted to a cohesive programme of political representation characterized by conscious calculation and the need to remain responsive to new developments.

The thesis is split into three sections of two chapters each. Section I provides a comprehensive overview of the main themes and trends which characterized the Saxon councils’ communicative activity in three primary theatres: the Hungarian royal court and Voivodate of Transylvania (chapter 1) and the transcarpathian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia (chapter 2). Section II discusses the personnel through which the Saxons’ political programmes were articulated, beginning with the members of the civic elites in each town who undertook their most important missions to the Hungarian royal court (chapter 3), before turning to the non-elite personnel whom the councils hired as messengers and legal representatives (chapter 4). Section III then looks at the multifaceted use in Saxon diplomacy of petitions and other written documents (chapter 5) and of gifts (chapter 6).