Břecštejn Castle
| Břecštejn | ||
|---|---|---|
 Interior walls |
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| Alternative name (s): | Stejn, Břečtejn, Bruštejn, Zilvarštejn, Silberštejn, Stein, Brettstein, Brecstein, Brzeczstein, Bröckstein, Silberstein | |
| Castle type : | Höhenburg, rocky location | |
| Conservation status: | ruin | |
| Place: | Hrádeček | |
| Geographical location | 50 ° 35 '1.7 " N , 15 ° 49' 41.8" E | |
| Height: | 502 m nm | |
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The castle Břecštejn , also Břečtejn , Bruštejn , Zilvarštejn or Silberštejn (German castle Silberstein , formerly Brecstein , Brzeczstein , Brettstein or Bröckstein ) is the ruin of a rock castle east above the settlement of Hrádeček in the Okres Trutnov in the Czech Republic .
geography
Břecštejn is located in the Giant Mountains foothills in the area of the Hrádeček Nature Park . The ruin rises on a wooded, steep cliff above the valley of the Silbersteiner Bach. Towards the east, the Pilníkovský potok ( Pilnikauer Bach ) breaks through the mountains in Hell ( Peklo ). In Hell, a hundred meters below, there are three ponds of Hell at the foot of the castle hill. The Křížový vrch (511 m) rises to the southeast.
history
The first written evidence of the new Brecstein Castle was in the Trautenauer Lehntafeln in 1455 as the possession of the Vladiken Nykl Silber ( Mikuláš Zilvár ) von Pilníkov . However, it is much older.
The Stein ( Stejn ) castle was probably located on the site of Břecštejn in the 14th century . Its owner, the knight Otto von Stein ( Otto Lapide ), donated three Huben Land in Oblanov to the Lords of the Cross of the Holy Sepulcher on the Zderaz for their Trautenau monastery. Stein Castle probably went under in the 14th century.
The castle was probably rebuilt in the 1420s by Nykl's father, Johann I. Silber ( Jan I. Zilvár ), and from 1421, during the occupation of Trautenau by Jan Žižka, it served as a base for the Hussites , on whose side the silver stood.
In the course of the 15th century silver acquired extensive goods in the Krkonoše foothills and reached the height of its power around 1500. On June 30, 1522, King Ludwig II Adam I. Silber approved the release of his estates Brecstein, Pilníkov and Vlčice from the feud under the lordship of Trautenau. Adam I. Silber gave the castle the new name Silberstein in 1532 . His son Johann followed him from 1550 to 1553. After his premature death, Adam's brother Christoph Silber von Silberstein († 1575) reigned. He made the Renaissance fortress Vlčice his main seat. Silberstein Castle was not very representative to him because of its small size, and he abandoned it to decay. Christoph's daughter Beatrix Eleonora von Lobkowitz also gave up Pilníkov Castle in 1581.
From 1609, most of the reign belonged to Adam III. Silver from Silberstein, a son of Beatrix Eleonora's cousin Adam II. Silver. Because of his participation in the Bohemian uprising , the goods were Adam III. Confiscated after the Battle of White Mountain on November 15, 1622 and sold by the Bohemian Chamber to Albrecht von Waldstein in 1623 . Waldstein sold the rule to the imperial colonel Daniel Hebron in 1627. During the Thirty Years War , the castle was completely ruined by the Swedes in the 1630s. In 1638 the Polish nobleman Jakub Weyhler acquired the rule, followed by his daughter Cecilie Eleonora Breuner. When Johann Adolf I, Prince of Schwarzenberg, acquired the rule of Vlčice with the town of Pilníkov from the Breuner in 1675, Silberstein Castle was described as desolate. Between 1677 and 1685, Johann Adolf I had the village of Silberstein laid out in the corridors of the abandoned Silberstein Meierhof in the bottom of the Silbersteiner Bach ; he allowed the new settlers to extract the building material from the castle ruins.
After the Arnau flax spinning mill manufacturer Johann Franz Theer acquired the rule of Vlčice / Wildschütz in 1790, he had the castle ruins freed from bushes and secured in 1794 and a large wooden octagonal arbor built on the site of earlier wooden structures. At the same time, Theer had a sandstone-paved path to the ruin prepared and a new entrance broken. Since then, the entrepreneurial family has referred to itself as Theer von Silberstein . The subsequent owners of the ruins were Johann Baptist Theer, Josef Karl Theer and Adolf Karl Theer. The latter bequeathed his goods to the universities in Prague and Vienna in a will in 1861. In 1868 the goods were sold to the Liebau entrepreneur Hugo Wihard and from 1916 the castle ruins belonged to Friedrich Reimann.
In 1969 the ruins of the balcony were demolished. In 2005 an initiative to save the castle ruins failed because it was not included in the 3720 objects on the list of national cultural monuments. It has not yet been included in the list of cultural monuments.
Name derivation
Different theories exist for the origin of the name Brecstein, which was in use between 1455 and 1532 . On the one hand, the wooden superstructures are used for this, from which the name, as well as the later name form Brettstein, comes from prkenný hrad (Bretterburg). On the other hand, Simon Hüttel already derived the name Brzeczstein from the "evergreen grass Brzecz ". This refers to ivy, which is called břečťan in Czech . Thus the castle name could also be interpreted as "ivy stone". Since the ruins were overgrown with common ivy until 1794 and the shrub is still found there today, both variants are possible.
From 1532 the new name Silberstein is documented, in addition there was also the Czech name form Zilvarštejn , which is based on the epitaph of Johann the Elder. Ä. Silver from Silberstein on Silberstein and Pilnikau ( Jan st. Zilvar ze Zilvarštejna ) is preserved in the tower of the Church of St. John the Baptist in Dvůr Králové nad Labem .
Legends
The Trutnov chronicler Simon Hüttel described in his 1593 written genealogy of sex Silvar that here in 1056 by the progenitor of silver, Wolf Ulstadt silver, the castle Brzeczstein to have been founded. However, Hüttel's related representations in the family tree cannot be proven and are in contradiction to the documentary tradition, which shows that this part of the former border forest was only settled in the 13th century by the Moravian family of Schwabenitz . The portrayal of Hüttels was also taken over by Johann Gottfried Sommer and Franz Xaver Maximilian Zippe.
Building description
Břecštejn was built as a residential castle of the Silesian type. A rock wall that fell almost vertically towards the northwest offered natural protection. To the east and southeast, the castle was protected by a double wall with a moat . The upper part of the castle was wooden.
The high remains of the castle wall, the cylindrical keep and the palace as well as the castle cellar have been preserved. The ruin is in a very bad condition.
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.riesengebirgler.de/gebirge/orte/Ortsnamen.htm
- ^ Johann Gottfried Sommer , Franz Xaver Maximilian Zippe : The Kingdom of Böhmen. Represented statistically and topographically. Volume 3: Bidschower Kreis. Calve, Prague 1835, p. 209.
Web links
- Description on hrady.cz
- History of the castle (PDF file; 86 kB)
- Geological description