Lemberk Castle

Lemberk Castle

The Lemberk Castle (German Lämberg Castle ) is located northeast of Jablonné v Podještědí on a hill of the Lusatian Mountains above the Panenský potok valley in Okres Liberec , Czech Republic .

history

The first news of a festival in Lämberg comes from the first half of the 13th century. Jaroslav from the noble family of the Markwartinger , since 1239 burgrave of the fortress Königstein in Saxony , and his brother Gallus I von Lämberg ( Havel z Lemberka ; Latin Gallus de Yablonni ) were initially joint fiefs in the rule of Gabel . To protect against the Mongols , they built a stone castle before 1241, which was named after the coat of arms of their family, the Löwenberg , from which Lämberg developed. This castle construction proved its worth when parts of the Mongol army fled via northern Bohemia after the battle of Liegnitz .

Gallus I von Lämberg was an advisor at the court of King Wenceslaus I , who enfeoffed him in 1248 with the Glatzer Land in recognition of his services , where he was burgrave of Glatz from 1252–1253 . There he founded the city of Habelschwerdt . He was married to Zdislava von Lämberg, who was canonized in 1995 . The Dominican monasteries in Gabel and Turnau were founded on her initiative .

Hasko ( Hašek ) von Lämberg († 1398), imperial councilor at the court of Charles IV , was the last owner of Lämberg from the Markwarding family. During the Hussite Wars , the owners changed quickly, mostly belonging to Lusatian or Saxon noble families. Only the lower part of the tower with a Gothic window remained from the originally built castle .

In 1518, the Upper Lusatian Vogt Wilhelm II of Ileburg ( Eulenburg ) bought the neglected rule with the depopulated villages. After his death in 1538, the rule went to his wife, later to his daughter Anna († 1554), married to Heinrich I von Kurzbach . Ileburg's grandson Heinrich II von Kurzbach inherited the rule, bought additional villages, settled farmers, built a mill, sawmills, a beer brewery and a hammer mill. Around 1570 he had the castle converted into a renaissance castle; The western Renaissance wing with its Gothic layout of the rooms comes from this period.

In 1581 Lämberg Castle came to the Berka von Dubá von Neufalkenburg, in 1600 to the Burgraves of Dohna . Further extensive modifications followed; the coffered ceiling in the knight's hall, which depicts the fables of Aesop with 77 pictures , probably dates from this period.

Castle garden

In 1623, Lämberg Castle came into the possession of Albrecht von Waldstein , later Duke of Friedland, through purchase . Shortly before his murder on February 25, 1634 in Eger , he sold it to the imperial field marshal Johann Ludolf von Breda . Between 1660 and 1680, his descendants commissioned artists and builders from Holland and Italy and had Lämberg Castle expanded into their family residence in the early Baroque style. The north and east wings were erected and the palace was given a new facade richly decorated with stucco elements and reliefs. At the same time, a summer house with a garden was built near the castle. Lämberg Castle is one of the largest and oldest monuments of fortress architecture in Bohemia . It has an almost square floor plan with wide courtyards, a drawbridge, a fortified house, a mighty tower with a baroque dome, a knight's hall, kemenaten, vaults and a kitchen with an open hearth.

In 1726, the Counts of Breda sold the Lämberg estate with the associated villages to Count Philipp Josef von Gallas. From this in 1757 his nephew Christian Philipp von Clam-Gallas inherited the rule. At the beginning of the Seven Years' War , on April 21, 1757, between Prussian and Austrian troop units, the battle at Reichenberg took place and a field hospital was set up at Lämberg Castle. More than 1,000 soldiers died here as a result of poor supplies; she is remembered by a wooden cross at her burial site in the nearby forest. During the Napoleonic Wars and the German War of 1866, Lämberg Castle was used as a military hospital. A mass grave of the cholera dead is known to this day. Furniture from the castle furnishings was burned back then, probably for disinfection reasons.

The Clam-Gallas family , most of whom stayed in Prague, had the castle, which was almost desolate from the Seven Years' War, restored. Count Clam-Gallas donated the undeveloped land behind the garden wall to the associated local community for the construction of a school, which was completed in 1796 and existed until 1879. After the end of the First World War in 1918, Lämberg Castle was fully furnished again. After a land reform in Czechoslovakia , the furnishings of the hunting lodges in the Jizera Mountains were brought to Lämberg. The inventory of the expropriated Palais Clam-Gallas in Prague followed later .

After the death of the last male descendants of the Clam-Gallas family, Lämberg Castle passed to the daughter Gabriele von Auersperg . She owned the castle until it was expropriated by Czechoslovakia in 1945. The building was administered by the Czechoslovak Monuments Office and was also used as a store for items from other castles in Bohemia.

Lemberk Castle was opened to the public as a museum on June 11, 1992. In addition to the castle rooms, a St. Museum dedicated to Zdislava von Lämberg with memorabilia from her life.

literature

• Victor Pinkava: History of the town of Gabel and the Lämberg Castle in Bohemia. Fork 1897.
• Hans-Ulrich Engel: Castles and palaces in Bohemia. Based on old templates, 2nd edition, Weidlich, Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-8035-8013-7 , p. 48; Fig.p. 174.

Web links

• Description of the castle on Hrady.cz (Czech)
• Description of the castle (German)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Joachim Bahlcke , Winfried Eberhard, Miloslav Polívka (eds.): Handbook of historical sites . Volume: Bohemia and Moravia (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 329). Kröner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-520-32901-8 , p. 109.

Coordinates: 50 ° 46 ′ 38.8 "  N , 14 ° 47 ′ 16.4"  E