In the twelfth cen­tu­ry, on the site of the cur­rent Fagaras fortress there was a wood­en for­ti­fi­ca­tion sur­round­ed by a moat.

It was destroyed by fire, as shown by archae­o­log­i­cal exca­va­tions car­ried out on the occa­sion of some restora­tions. In the 14th cen­tu­ry, a for­ti­fied citadel was built on the site of the pre­vi­ous build­ing, the pur­pose of which, most like­ly, was to bet­ter pro­tect the peo­ple from attacks by the invad­ing hordes.

Among the most notable such inva­sions of the Tran­syl­va­nia region was the Tatar inva­sion in the peri­od 1241–1242. The dam­age then caused was sig­nif­i­cant in many impor­tant pop­u­lat­ed areas, includ­ing Sibiu. Such peri­od­ic events prompt­ed these set­tle­ments to build for­ti­fied medieval fortress­es so that they could pro­vide bet­ter pro­tec­tion to their inhab­i­tants and their prop­er­ty. They main­ly con­sist­ed of strong walls built of stone and brick, as well as tow­ers from which sol­diers could eas­i­ly spot any poten­tial threat to the fortress.

Thus, the Fagaras fortress had stone and brick walls arranged in a quad­ran­gle shape. In each of its cor­ners, 4 watch­tow­ers are built, plus anoth­er one on the east­ern side of the fortress. The mon­u­men­tal struc­ture includ­ed an impres­sive num­ber of rooms — 85 in total. Due to its strate­gic posi­tion, the Fagaras fortress was an object of inter­est for the rulers of the Roman­ian ter­ri­to­ries. At the end of the 16th cen­tu­ry, it became the seat of ruler Mihai Viteazul, who was the first ruler to unite the three Roman­ian provinces. It was also a meet­ing place for armies before major bat­tles took place in our ter­ri­to­ries.

In the next cen­tu­ry it became the res­i­dence of the princes of Tran­syl­va­nia and the admin­is­tra­tive and polit­i­cal cen­ter of the region. It is under­go­ing exten­sive restora­tion work as well as var­i­ous addi­tions. In addi­tion to the changes made to the walls, the moat around the fortress was expand­ed and filled with water from the Olt Riv­er. This was a com­mon prac­tice in the case of for­ti­fied fortress­es, designed to increase the degree of pro­tec­tion against poten­tial attack­ers.

Around 1721, the Fagaras Citadel became the head­quar­ters of the Roman­ian Church Unit­ed with Rome, which is a cult com­pris­ing church­es of the Greek Catholic denom­i­na­tion, of the Byzan­tine rite, from the east­ern (east­ern) region of the world. How­ev­er, after 1737 the res­i­dence was moved to Sam­bata de Sus, respec­tive­ly Blaye. Since 1948, after the estab­lish­ment of the com­mu­nist regime in Roma­nia, the old medieval fortress became a prison for polit­i­cal pris­on­ers. After 1965, large-scale restora­tion work took place here, which last­ed 12 years.