ABSTRACT
The study examines the history of the town of Caransebeş and its urban elite after the fall of Timișoara into Ottoman hands in 1552. Integrated into the Principality of Transylvania, Caransebeș remained the main urban agglomeration in the south-west of the Principality, preserving its status as a market town throughout the period. The inhabitants were mostly Romanian, but also comprised a large number of nobles who chose to live in the town. The noble families, established in the town since the fifteenth century, entered the town council in large numbers; by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this noble elite controlled almost all the administrative functions of the town, with none of the head judges being elected among the townsfolk.
