Žumberk Castle: A Medieval and Renaissance Fortress in Czechia
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Czechia
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Bohemia
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page12 sections
History
Žumberk Castle is a ruined hilltop fortress in Czechia, standing beside the settlement of Žumberk on a spur above the right bank of a stream. Its origins have been associated with the late thirteenth century, although construction is also dated to the first half of the fourteenth century. The castle developed through medieval and Renaissance phases and became the centre of a landed estate comprising Žumberk and numerous dependent villages.
Medieval origins and noble holders
The castle’s original German name was Sunenberg, also rendered Sonnenberg and later Sommerberg. The first written reference dates from 1318, when Pilunk of Žumberk was brought before the Bohemian provincial court, the kingdom’s high court, over damage inflicted on Vikart of Polná in Nížkov, Sirákov, and Poděšín. These clashes belonged to the conflict between John of Luxembourg, king of Bohemia from 1310 to 1346, and his rival Frederick of Habsburg in the struggle for the Bohemian crown. A document explicitly referring to the castle itself dates from 1487.
During the second half of the fourteenth century, Žumberk belonged to the Lords of Boskovice. In 1380, Vaněk of Žumberk, also known as Vaněk of Boskovice, exercised the patronage rights of the church at Skalice, giving him the right to nominate or approve clergy for its benefice.
Kuník Kavalec of Žumberk held the castle in 1401 and died the following year. His heir, Jan Kavalec of Žumberk, was among the nobles who signed a protest in 1415 against the execution of Jan Hus at Constance. Hus was a Bohemian religious reformer whose death helped trigger the Hussite movement. Jan was last mentioned in 1419, while his probable son and successor, Vaněk Kavalec, attended the assembly at Čáslav in 1440. The Kavalecs later sold Žumberk.
Fifteenth-century transfers
In 1445, Žumberk belonged to Jetřich of Řestok, who supported George of Poděbrady in his struggle with the Strakonice Unity, a political alliance opposed to the future Bohemian king during disputes with parts of the nobility. Several members of Jetřich’s family used the byname “of Žumberk,” although their exact relationships are unknown.
A later holder was Mikuláš Buchovec of Buchov and Žumberk. In 1473, he transferred the village of Jezbořice and its appurtenances to his son Štěpán, and the castle may have formed part of that transaction. Žumberk subsequently passed to Mikuláš of Holohlavy. In 1487, Mikuláš mortgaged part of his property for 500 kop of groschen. The estate then included the town of Žumberk and the villages of Smrček, Hořeček, Pavlovice, Bošov, Švihov, Strkov, Vranov, Bratroňov, Krupín, Věžky, Rváčov, Prostějov, Částkov, and Všeradov. In 1493, he also bought Bylany from Štěpán of Buchov.
After 1493, Mikuláš Trčka of Lípa, Matěj Salava of Lípa, and Jindřich Haugvic of Biskupice acquired Žumberk and sold it to Jan Janovský of Soutice. In 1509, the outlaw Jiří Bachovský burned the town of Žumberk and the fortified manor at Lukavice. Jan sold Žumberk, Lukavice, and several villages to Mikuláš the Younger Trčka of Lípa in 1510, but the transaction was soon annulled. Jan Janovský the Elder was again associated with Žumberk in 1512, and his namesake son lived there in 1520.
The Janovský family and Renaissance rebuilding
Žumberk was later held jointly by the brothers Aleš and Petr Janovský of Soutice and their uncles Karel and Hynek. Karel and Hynek divided the castle, town, and associated villages, among them Prostějov, Částkov, Bošov, Švihov, Havlovice, Hůrka, Krupín, Bratroňov, Ctětín, Strkov, Vranov, Rváčov, Všeradov, and Podlíšťany. Between 1534 and 1544, ownership passed to Hynek. Because he died without children, his sister Kateřina inherited the property.
On 30 December 1552, Kateřina Janovská of Soutice granted the castle and its appurtenances to her husband, Ctibor Mazanec of Újezdec, while stipulating that he would take possession only after her death. Their daughter Markéta of Újezdec inherited the estate. When she died in 1587, it passed to her widower, Václav Záruba of Hustířany. Around 1590, Václav commissioned a rebuilding of the castle in the Renaissance style, which drew on the forms and principles of classical antiquity and had spread through Central Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Inheritance disputes and the Záruba estate
Václav died between 1606 and 1610, leaving a succession dispute among Markéta’s children, Karel the Younger, Ctibor, Jiří, and Hedvika Záruba of Hustířany. The brothers excluded Hedvika, drove away livestock, and removed much of the movable inheritance. A court decision of 2 July 1615 awarded Hedvika her share and ordered her brothers to pay 6,900 Meissen groschen for wrongful possession. Hedvika died on 9 August that year. Her husband, Fridrich of Berbisdorf, inherited half the castle and sold it on 24 September to Václav Záruba of Hustířany of Třebovětice.
A second inheritance dispute ended in 1617 after all the direct participants had died. Fridrich received monetary compensation, while Ctibor’s half passed to his youngest half-brother, Jindřich Záruba of Hustířany. On 6 March 1623, Jindřich’s mother, Ludmila Zárubová of Lobkovice, bought Václav’s half for 10,000 Meissen groschen and later transferred it to her son. Jindřich thereby became the sole owner.
Jindřich Záruba died in 1646, after which his widow, Dorota Salomena Bechyňová of Lažany, administered the estate. Their underage son Rudolf Václav Záruba took possession in 1655. Rudolf Václav and his wife, Marie Maxmiliána of Lisov, had a son named František Antonín Záruba. After Rudolf Václav’s death, Marie Maxmiliána continued to manage the property for their underage son.
František Antonín married Voršila Františka of Vrtby but died without heirs or a will in 1685. The inheritance therefore returned to Marie Maxmiliána, who left her property to the unmarried Rudolf Josef of Lisov and Stranová. After her death in 1694, Rudolf Josef sold Žumberk and Libanice to Count Josef František of Schönfeld on 20 December 1700 for 120,000 Hungarian florins. Schönfeld incorporated the properties into the Nasavrky estate.
Decline and conservation
After 1700, the castle deteriorated but remained partly habitable. A physician named Devoty lived there from 1760 to 1770, leaving because of the buildings’ poor condition. The structures were then dismantled for building material. In the nineteenth century, the Auerspergs built a large agricultural court over the former outer bailey. A water reservoir was constructed in the northeastern part of the castle in 1901, destroying that section of the core and its outer wall.
The Czech Tourist Club acquired the ruin in 1926. Following land reform, the owner of the adjoining agricultural court restricted passage through it, and approaches to the castle were consequently limited to narrow paths across neighbouring land. The owner was required to allow building materials to be transported for possible repairs. Work begun by the club in 1940 soon stopped because workers and materials were unavailable, but it resumed in 1941.
The castle passed to the Czechoslovak Sokol Community, a national physical-education and civic association, on 3 March 1950. It was transferred to the state through the Regional National Committee in Pardubice on 1 January 1953. Minor repairs took place before the mid-1950s and again in the late 1970s. The municipality of Žumberk acquired the ruin in the 1990s and has since carried out minor maintenance. Žumberk Castle has been protected as a cultural monument since 1964, and the municipality remains its owner.
Remains
The castle had a two-part plan, with a fortified core and an outer bailey, or subsidiary enclosed area outside the main stronghold. The outer-bailey ground is now occupied by the later agricultural court. The roughly pentagonal core stood behind a neck ditch, a ditch cut across the narrow approach to a spur, and was enclosed by a curtain wall with a weaker outer wall that created a zwinger, the defensive zone between two walls.
Enclosure and defensive works
Approach and outer bailey
The southern approach followed the ridge of the spur, while broad, deep water defenses protected the northern, eastern, and southeastern sides. A ditch may once have surrounded the outer bailey, although the later alterations have left no surviving trace of it. The approach probably entered from the north. From the bottom of the neck ditch, a passage slopes toward a cellar beneath the agricultural court, then continues by stairs into a rock-cut space measuring 7 by 4.5 by 4 metres. Some of these cellars may belong to the period when the castle was in use.
Core walls and zwinger
The neck ditch continued into side ditches along the eastern and western sides of the core. The outer defensive wall was founded on the ditch bottoms or their slopes, and substantial sections survive northeast of the neck ditch and along the western and southeastern sides. Large quantities of brick in the southeastern section belong to the Renaissance rebuilding, when the wall may have been altered or shifted.
The core’s curtain wall is approximately 2 metres thick and is reinforced by about 75 centimetres at the northwestern corner. Its face preserves the imprint of a stairway leading to the wall walk, the passage along the top of a fortification wall. The wall walk was lined with battlements, whose raised sections between the openings survive only in slight traces, although more were visible in mid-twentieth-century photographs. A small gate near the stairway gave access to the zwinger. The core gate itself survives at most as a terrain remnant and two masonry blocks visible when vegetation is absent.
Palace and later residential additions
The principal palace originally occupied the southern side of the core, the best-protected part of the spur. It probably served as the main residential and defensive building. The first arrangement may have consisted of a single storey beneath a hipped roof, which slopes down on all sides. During a second building phase, the palace was raised by one storey, and the outer wall was raised with it. The gaps between the battlement merlons were then blocked.
A third phase expanded the living quarters, especially along the western side, and may also have extended the palace eastward. The joint between the earlier palace wall and the later extension remains clearly visible from the zwinger. The courtyard surface has risen considerably since the beginning of the twentieth century, leaving the recess intended for the ground-floor ceiling beams only 0.3 metres above the present ground level.
The western wall survives to the height of the second storey and retains traces of interior plaster. During the Renaissance rebuilding, the southern corner of the palace was strengthened with a battered outer wall, whose outer face slopes outward to thicken the base, built against a construction joint. Window openings were also altered. A window in the southern wall of the south palace is probably Renaissance in origin, although its present appearance reflects twentieth-century repairs.
Decorative remains and altered fabric
Plaster survives on the palace and western wing, including traces of sgraffito, a decoration made by scratching through one layer of plaster to reveal a contrasting layer beneath. The principal surviving fabric consists of sections of both enclosing walls and the ruin of the palace. The northeastern part of the core and its outer wall were destroyed when the water reservoir was built in 1901, while the former outer-bailey area was transformed by the agricultural court.
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