Džbán Castle (Central Bohemia)
| Džbán Castle | ||
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 Remains of the western castle wall |
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| Alternative name (s): | Čbán, Držemberk | |
| Castle type : | Höhenburg, spur location | |
| Conservation status: | Castle stable, ditches and remains of walls | |
| Place: | Lhota pod Džbánem | |
| Geographical location | 50 ° 12 '53 " N , 13 ° 42' 51.9" E | |
| Height: | 510 m nm | |
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The Džbán Castle , also known as Čbán or Držemberk , was located west of the village of Lhota pod Džbánem in the Džbán Mountains in the Czech Republic . Her real name is unknown.
geography
The remnants of the abandoned spur castle are opposite the Mutějovice railway station and the branch line leading from the Rakovník – Louny railway to the former Perun mine at the end of a long ridge on a spur above the Vrata gorge. To the north of the ruin is the Džbán railway tunnel. Surrounding villages are Domoušice in the north, Filipov in the northeast, Lhota pod Džbánem in the east, Perun and Mutějovice in the south and Kounov in the west.
history
At the place of the castle there was already an early castle site of the Hallstatt culture . Later a Slavic castle was built on the spur in the border forest, which probably served to protect the tribal area of the Přemyslids against the Lutschanen .
A large and powerful castle complex was built in its place around the 13th century, about which no written evidence is available. It is believed that it was either built in the 1st half of the 13th century and King Wenceslas I served as a hunting castle before the Křivoklát Castle was built, or that it was built at the transition from the 13th to the 14th century. It may also be used to guard the path leading through the gorge. A keystone found in the ruins bore the year 1273, but whether this was the year it was built cannot be proven.
Nothing is known about the fall of the castle either. A layer of ash found during the forestation as well as red-burnt stones indicate destruction by a fire. During archaeological excavations, however, it was also found that the deep moat had severely damaged the geological substructure of the Pläner plateau and that two cracks had occurred in it. It is therefore also likely that the castle had to be abandoned again at the end of the 13th century due to the loss of its statics. According to another opinion, it was destroyed in 1318 during the fighting between Wilhelm Zajíc von Waldeck and King John of Luxembourg between Žatec and Rakovník .
The first written mention was made in 1516 in the Rakovník town book in connection with the supply of stones from the limestone quarry near the desert castle in Čbán. Václav Hájek z Libočan named it in 1541 in his Bohemian Chronicle after the name of the Džbán mountain range at that time as Čbán Castle .
Structural system
The 200 × 300 meter complex with a triangular-like polygonal floor plan, surrounded by slopes to the north, west and south, consisted in the core of a fort of French design with dimensions of 60 × 45 meters, the peripheral buildings of which were surrounded by mighty mantle walls made of plans. The front of the castle with three round towers , of which the southern one was the largest, faced the east side. The castle fountain is said to have been in one of these towers . There was probably another square tower on the west side. The so-called Grafensteig led to the castle from the southeast . A deep ring moat with walls surrounded the complex on all sides.
The remains of the three round towers were preserved until the 19th century. Due to the dismantling of Pläner, the ruins were badly damaged at the transition from the 19th to the 20th century.
Today, numerous remains of the wall and smaller relics of one of the round towers and parts of the moat and wall have been preserved on the site. As a result of the area being forested, the entire castle complex is overgrown with high forest.