Castles & ruins 41: Křivoklát castle, CZ

 

Křivoklát Castle is first mentioned in The Chronica Boemorum (1119–1125) by Cosmas of Prague as the place of imprisonment of Otto the Black, a claimant to the Czech crown; his captor was his own cousin Wenceslaus I, who got the crown after knocking off a couple more relatives. Back then the castle was called “New,” apparently having just been built on Wenceslaus’s orders.

Since then the castle is known as the private property of the Bohemian kings, and—naturally—a prison for especially “favored” criminals: less fortunate members of royal families (including Charles IV—locked up there by his own father), leaders of the nobility, archbishops fallen from grace, and Hussite commanders. They sat there for years in dreadful conditions, in starvation towers; the castle also had a torture chamber with a full arsenal, and it wasn’t idle.

It is said that one of the towers was built with a special room for musicians who played there everyday – so wailing and cries of tortured prisoners would not disturb the castle owners. Another tower – Black tower – is still haunted by tormented prisoners ghosts, you can hear their weeping even during the day; the tour-guides say: “Whoever once enters the Black Tower and hears the weeping will never laugh the same again.”

Imprisoned here was the well-known alchemist of Rudolf II (1552–1612)—the Englishman Edward Kelley (aka Talbot, a pupil of the famed occultist John Dee). Kelley’s audacity and level of fraud would have made Count Cagliostro jealous, yet the meticulous Rudolf (or more likely his courtiers, fed up with the emperor’s antics with astrologers and magicians of every kind) finally exposed him and threw him into a tower at Křivoklát, promising to release him the moment the alchemist produced the philosopher’s stone to turn everything into gold. 

Kelley was more occupied with escape than with any stone, but luck failed him again: during an escape attempt he broke his leg, was caught, beaten, and then—by order of the emperor—released. He didn’t live long afterward and died in poverty and disgrace.

The castle was a place where royal treasures were kept safe, incl. royal jewels. Here as well major state documents were created, like the law code of Charles IV, Majestas Carolina, and many other documents.

The royal castle was packed with people—retinue, soldiers, craftsmen—everyone milling about from morning till night. Naturally, as in any busy place, fires broke out often, but each time the castle was rebuilt even more beautifully than before.

The castle remained inhabited until 1929, when its last owner, Karl Egon II of Fürstenberg, sold it to the Czechoslovak state. Since then it has been a state museum with plenty of interesting things: a library with about 50,000 manuscripts and maps, weapons from different eras, paintings, icons, furniture, tapestries, and other dust collectors of all centuries. 

The castle-museum is interactive: manuscripts in the library aren’t locked behind glass—you can read them (under librarians’ supervision, of course); armor and weapons can be tried on and tested during knightly tournaments and medieval fairs; on Renaissance days you can watch and take part in performances, and so on. 

If you feel like it, you can even live there yourself: every year for the season (May–September) they invite anyone who wants to be “part of the team”—as guides, workshop assistants, starving prisoners in the tower, and so on—join in. Křivoklát appears in many fairy tales, historical films and series, not only Czech ones. It is definitely worth visiting, especially during some action, just check the castle events page and come: hrad-krivoklat.cz

from above: Krivoklat castle