Maichau Castle
| Maichau Castle | ||
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 Maichau Castle (Author Valvasor , 1679) |
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| Creation time : | first mentioned in 1161 | |
| Castle type : | Hilltop castle | |
| Conservation status: | Burgstall | |
| Standing position : | Count | |
| Place: | Podgrad | |
| Geographical location | 45 ° 44 ′ 16.7 " N , 15 ° 12 ′ 13.5" E | |
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The castle Maichau (Slovene: Grad Mehovo) was first mentioned in the 1161st Only a few ruins have survived from the castle, which was once one of the largest, most powerful and oldest castles in Krain .
location
The abandoned hilltop castle stood on a conical hill above the village of Podgrad, eleven kilometers south of Novo mesto and just under two kilometers west of the fork in the road that leads over the Gorjanci to Metlika . From the hill one overlooks a large part of Lower Carniola to the north , and to the west the view extends to the Steiner Alps / Kamniške planine . However, the Gorjanci block the view towards Metlika (Bela krajina) and Croatia.
history
Maichau Castle was built before 1162. It is known that it was owned by the Counts of Weichselberg until 1209 . It was inherited from her relative Hemma von Gurk . Therefore it can be assumed that Hemma had the castle built. The Counts of Weichselberg used the castle as a starting point for their conquests to Hungary and Croatia. Later it was the administrative seat of the conquered territories. The place Črnomelj was administratively subordinate to the castle in 1277.
The following emerges from a document that was issued at the end of the 12th century, but which is sometimes described as falsified: “Stephan Ursin, son of Nikolo, relative of the Counts of Gorizia , has in the time of the Hungarian-Croatian King Béla III . (1173–1196) who defeated Albert von Maichau - meaning Albert von Weichselberg - who attacked the Hungarian border areas. "
Maichau starting point for conquering the Bela krajina
At the time of the Counts of Weichselberg, Maichau was a castle on the border with Croatia. From there they went to work with strong forces, drawn from their surrounding castles Kronovo (Cronowe) , Čretež (Reutenberg) , Mirna (Neudegg), Hmeljnik (Hopfenbach) , Prežek (Preisseck) , Mokro polje (Nassenfeld) , Litija (Liechtenberg near Littei ) and others, campaigns of conquest south towards the Kolpa River . At that time the borders of Carniola were extended beyond the Gorjanci to the areas of today's Bela krajina . Military actions were carried far into Croatia via the Kolpa , but they failed, and the forces of the Vistula were pushed back again via the Kolpa River. In any case, since about the year 1200 the Kolpa became the border between Croatia and Carniola in its course from the Gottscheer forests to the foreland of the Gorjanci.
Maichau (Mehovo) at the time of the Turkish invasions
At the time of the Turkish invasions, which began in Carniola at the beginning of the 15th century and became more and more threatening, the area around Maichau (Mehovo) was particularly hard hit. In that epoch the Turks , coming from the area of Vinica , advanced past Maichau to the area of Novo mestoV and into the valley of the Krka . From there they either moved in an easterly direction to Kostanjevica na Krki and the Šentjernej plain , or they advanced in the opposite direction along the Krka to Žužemberk and then via Zagradec and Šmarje to Ljubljana. Another possibility was the route via Mirna Peč , Trebnje along the Temenica to Stična , and then via Višnja Gora and Šmarje to Ljubljana.
At that time the castle was not only an important military base. It was also a station in the chain of the entire warning system. As soon as Turkish units approached, large, widely visible fires were kindled in fixed locations and mounted messengers from Maichau to Hmeljnik and from there to Sv. Peter near Žužemberk, Primskovo, to Višnja gora, Magdalenska gora near Šmarje and from there to Ljubljana Castle with appropriate reports.
Insurgent farmers conquer Maichau in 1515
In 1515, the year of the Windischen peasant uprising , Maichau was taken by the peasants along with other castles. Valvasor describes the dramatic events as follows:
- “When the Crainerian peasant uprising occurred in 1515, which attacked and destroyed many castles; It was also the turn of this Maichau, which overcame these furious fellows with a storming hand, on May 17th, or, according to Andrer Fürgabe, on Ascension Day, the two Mündorffer brothers, if they held this rule as a pledge, namely Mr. Balthasar von Mündorff and Mr. N. von Mündorff, Mr. Marx von Clissa, the last of his name and tribe, together with Mr. Casper Werneckhern, who all in all valiantly protect this castle, tumbling over the walls alive and into a miserable death, when these fall miserably and blow miserably the ghost have to; followed by other fifteen noblemen who were evenly sacrificed by the hands of these strangling devils. The heads of which they separated from the trunk and both thrown over the walls.
- With this their cruelty did not yet end; even though those who resisted were executed, but the underage two sons of Mr. Balthasar von Mündorff also had to become victims of battle to the fury of these angry men. After strangling the children, it was the turn of the mother Martha, a born Phaffoitscherin: who she completely undressed and therefore naked and only out through the gate of the castle, to the bloodthirsty - waiting peasants outside, in their open murder claws, like a sheep among the people, who broke her neck miserably too. There was still a very small daughter left: the death would not have escaped if her caretaker, an old woman, did not bring her as prey. ”(Valvasor gives Hieronymus Megiser as the source .)
In Valvasor's report, however, it does not occur that some time before that Marko von Clissa, who was commissioned by the Carniolan estates to ask Croatia for support against the rebellious farmers, had around 500 Carniolan peasants and children rounded up before his departure and then brought them into Croatia sold.
In addition, when reading documents, Valvasor seems to have mixed those from Maichau with those from Brežice (Rann) . Only the two brothers Mündorff, the wife of Balthasar with the children and Caspar Wernegkh were present at Maichau that day. Marko von Clissa sought refuge in Brežice Castle, where fate overtook him, as Valvasor near Maichau described.
When they met on May 14th in Novo mesto, the farmers decided to march on Maichau. They were led by a Mündorffer farmhand. At that time the castle was not guarded out of carelessness, so the farmers didn't have much trouble getting hold of it. The two Mündorff and Caspar von Wernegkh were beheaded, the two sons strangled. Balthazar's wife Martha was dressed in peasant clothes and hunted to work in the fields, and the young daughter was taken by an old woman.
These events were also processed literarily by Slovenian poets. Anton Aškerc (1856–1912) created the ballad Tlaka - Frondienst (1888) in the cycle Stara pravda - old law. Janez Trdina (! 1830–1905) describes his version of the events of May 17, 1515 in his work Sprehod v Belo krajino (Walk into the White Mark), published only in 1912.
Owners, owners and castle administrators
The first documented owner of the castle was a Hartwig - Hartwic de Micho in 1162, who appears as a witness in a document. Whether he was a ministerial or an early ancestor of the Weichselberg is uncertain. After Albert von Weichselberg's death, almost all of the property went to the Andechs due to the marriage of his daughter Sophie to Heinrich von Andechs , then Margrave of Istria. They remained owners until 1228. The Duke of Austria, Friedrich II. Von Babenberg , followed until 1246 , then the Spanheimers until 1269 . In 1277, Rudolph von Habsburg handed Maichau over as pledge to Albert Count von Görz-Tirol . And Maichau handed them over to the Counts of Cilli . In 1456, after the death of the last Cillier, the castle fell to the latter due to the inheritance contract between the Counts of Cilli and the Habsburgs .
In 1472 Ludwig von Kosiack and 1490 Caspar von Khreig were employed as administrators. At the beginning of the 16th century, Balthasar von Mündorff appears as a pledge holder, and between 1540 and 1548 Hermann Püchler. Ivan Lenković (1549), commander in chief at the military border, followed as the owner, and in 1587 his grandson and governor of Carniola, Georg Lenković. Other owners were Karl von Jurić (1603) and Baron Ernst von Paradeiser (1619), captain of Senj and von (Safe Stone) Žumberak . He was followed by his two sons, Johann Ernst († 1688), captain zu Sicherheitsstein and Georg Siegmund (1675), captain zu Otočec (Ottotschatz) . At that time the castle already lost its strategic importance. The new owners preferred to give up Maichau. They built a new, more comfortable castle about five kilometers northwest of it on level ground, which they called Ruperčvrh (Ruprechtshof) . The masonry of Maichau Castle was used as building material for the new building.
photos
- Johann W. von Valvasor: copper engraving in Die Ehre des Herzogthum Crain, Vol. 2, XI. Book , p. 359
Individual evidence
- ^ Atlas Slovenije, p. 189, grid square B1
literature
- Dušan Kos: Vitez in Grad (Knights and Castle) , Ljubljana 2005, ISBN 961-6500-82-1
- Branko Reisp: Grad Mehovo (Maichau Castle) , No. 51 of the guide series “Kulturni in naravni spomeniki Slovenije” (Cultural and natural monuments of Slovenia), Ljubljana 1975
- Majda Smole: Graščine na nekdanjem Kranjskem (Lords of the former Carniola) , Ljubljana 1982
- Johann W. von Valvasor: The Honor of the Duchy of Crain, Vol. 2 . Trofenik-Verlag, Munich 1971 (reprint of the Nuremberg edition 1689).
- Bogo Grafenauer : Kmečki upori na Slovenskem (Peasant Uprising in Slovenia) , Ljubljana 1962