Location: Diósgyőr Map
Constructed: 12h century
Diosgyor Castle is situated in a town of Diósgyőr in Hungary. Diosgyor Castle was originally constructed in the 12th century, but during Mongol invasion (1241- 42) it was razed to the ground. New Diosgyor Castle was probably reconstructed by the orders King Bela IV. In the late 16th century invading Ottoman armies captures the citadel along with surrounding lands. By the time the Christian armies retook back Diosgyor Castle it was in ruinous conditions. It was abandoned and used by local peasants for their purposes. Many of lower structures and walls were taken apart and used for construction of other buildings. Only in 1953 the reconstruction project have began in Diosgyor Castle.
History of Diósgyőr and the castle
The area has been inhabited
since ancient times: in the cave of the opposite Castle Hill, stone
tools and animal bones made in prehistoric times were found, and on
the hill of the castle, traces of a Bronze and Iron Age settlement
were found. A 9–10. From the 16th century, corrugated vessels and
piles of beams and beams were found. This settlement from the time
of the conquest was surrounded by earthworks and ramparts.
Around 1200, Anonymus first mentions the name of Diósgyőr, although
he is still in Győr form: “after leaving Szerencset with his army of
Prince Árpád, which is called Győr. ” The castle was first housed in
a fortification in the 12th century, but archaeologists have not
found a trace so far; it was presumably an earthen castle that was
destroyed during the Tartar invasion - according to some, this
castle may not have stood on its present location, but on Castle
Hill.
The present castle is probably in the IV. It was built
by Béla's Ernye ban after Ákos's initiative. This structure has an
oval floor plan as was the custom of the time (it was a structure of
about 40 × 35 m with a round old tower), an opposite corner tower
and a polygonal outer castle. A stone bridge with a stone pillar led
through the moat to its north-facing entrance. Ernye's mansion
probably stood on the site of the later Pauline monastery.
The castle was mentioned in 1316 as Wywar or Újvár, which also
suggests that it was built on the site of an earlier earthen castle.
This year, Ernye's grandchildren turned against Károly Róbert, took
part in the battle of Debrecen on the side of Borsa Kopasz (1317),
so the king confiscated their castle and donated it to his beloved
devotee, Dózsa Debreceni from Transylvania. Between 1319 and 25, it
was owned by Miklós Szécsi, a Croatian ban, and then became part of
the Drugeth family. According to a 1330 list, the village belonging
to the castle paid 12 garas taxes, suggesting that it belonged to
the richer settlements of the county. At the next major
construction, the lower level of the walls was built of the
demolished material of this castle. It has been a royal castle since
1340 - usually owned by queens. From that time on, he was also the
bishop of Borsod and mostly even one or two neighboring counties. It
also had three additional royal castles under its jurisdiction:
Dédes,
Tile,
Also regrec.
The heyday of the castle of
Diósgyőr began during the reign of King Louis I. He turned here more
and more often since the 1360s. The castle gained importance in 1370
as one of the stops on the road from Hungary to Krakow, the capital
of Poland (Louis the Great's mother, Elizabeth Lokietek was a Polish
princess, Louis the Great herself became a Polish king in 1370). The
king, who increasingly neglected Buda, made Diósgyőr its third seat
besides Visegrád and Zólyom, rebuilt and modernized the castle.
Multiple articulated defense rings surrounded the actual castle,
which was built around a rectangular courtyard, with a spiers on top
at each corner. The rooms on the ground floor served economic and
storage purposes, the suites on the first floor, and the knight's
hall of 13 × 25 meters, which was a two-nave hall supported by three
columns. Its construction was already completed during the reign of
the daughter of Louis the Great, Mary, who was then the owner of the
castle. The irregularly grounded outer perimeter wall, reinforced
with specially arranged double towers, is reminiscent of Roman
castrum. The castle was surrounded by four-meter-deep moats, and its
water was fed by hot springs. The only builder known by the name of
the castle is Master Ambrus.
In 1364, the city of Miskolc and
its surroundings were annexed to the Diósgyőr estate. ~ In 1370,
King Louis the Great signed the first European letter of donation
declaring a city (Kassa) a “free royal city”. On November 26, 1381,
in the castle of Diósgyőr, in the presence of Venetian ambassadors,
the king ratified the previously concluded peace of Turin, in which
the city of Venice committed itself to hoist the Anjou flag on St.
Mark's Square on Sundays and public holidays. The event is captured
by a panopticon in the north-eastern tower of the castle of
Diósgyőr.
With the dissolution of the Hungarian-Polish
personal union, Diósgyőr lost its significance, and from then on it
was a holiday resort for Hungarian queens. Owners line:
Lokietek
Erzsébet
Kotromanić Erzsébet
Queen Mary
Borbála Cillei
Elizabeth of Luxembourg
Katalin Podjebrád
Beatrix of Aragon
Candale-i Anna
Anna Jagelló
Mary of Habsburg
The last queen to live here, II. Louis was his wife, Mary of
Habsburg. In 1546 he resigned in writing from the castle, which by
then had been occupied by the Transylvanian voivode. As the Turkish
threat approached, the north side of the castle was fortified.
After 1526, Sebestyén Pemfflinger became his castle ambassador.
In 1540, the colonial Zsigmond Balassa took a pledge from King
Ferdinand for 20,000 gold forints. The family converted the former
castle palace into a fortress, and a rondelle was built in Italian
style in front of the north-west tower. The slender towers were
replaced by squat bastions. The entrance was moved to the west side,
and a pentagonal Italian bastion was built next to the royal
staircase. At that time, the three-story dungeon was also raised.
This was the last major reconstruction in the history of the castle.
After the death of Zsigmond Balassa, the castle was inherited by his
wife, Borbála Fánchy, and after his death it was redeemed by the
king. From 1564 a whole series of pawnbrokers followed one another,
and the castle began to decay. In the second half of the 16th
century, the castle was added to the border line. His small guard
could not prevent the Turks from burning and looting him in 1544,
and then, together with the surrounding villages, forcing Miskolc to
pay taxes.
In 1596, the Turks captured Eger and defeated the
Christian armies next to Mezőkeresztes. Then soon (in 1598) Diósgyőr
also fell, and his lord became the pasha of Eger, but then the
Christians quickly recaptured him. Their unfavorable location could
not be improved, but they tried to confirm with external defenses:
on the most defenseless north side, the double gate tower of the
outer castle was converted into a covered cannon stand,
a large
rondella was attached to the north-east tower,
a polygonal
bastion was built for the northwest tower,
a hussar castle was
erected in front of the gate to the west.
At the beginning of the
17th century, the parliament ordered its expansion and maintenance
in a series of resolutions, but these provisions remained on paper
until 1660. The salary of the guard faltered, the walls collapsed -
but the Turkish siege of 1650 was still repulsed. In 1673 the roof
of the castle burned down. At that time the castle was barely
habitable. By the end of the century, it had lost all its military
value. The kuruc no longer played any role in the fighting.
By 1703, its three sides were already heavily ruined; the fourth was
tidied up by the owner, Baron Haller. In 1730, the wing, which also
included the chapel, was still usable, the others were not cared
for. In 1756, the crown estate of Diósgyőr wanted to transform it
into a wine house, but in the end nothing came of the plans; the
ruins were used by the population of the area as a quarry. In 1784,
the county applied for and received permission to mine stones from
the castle wall to build the Sajó Bridge. Worship services were
still held in the chapel for a time, but by 1820 it was also
scattered.
Although the two settlements were connected by bus
from 1903 and by tram from 1906, a 1932 guidebook mentions Diósgyőr
as an adjoining village with Miskolc. On January 1, 1945, Diósgyőr
was officially annexed to Miskolc, at which time Nagy-Miskolc,
formed from historical Miskolc, Diósgyőr and the surrounding
settlements, was established. Diósgyőr and Miskolc were first
connected by the factory being built between them, then the two
settlements became more and more merged, nowadays only a sign
indicates the border of the former historical Diósgyőr.
Exploring the castle
In 1934–36, scientific excavations had
already taken place in the castle. Restoration of the castle began
in 1953, between 1955 and 1961 a several-meter-high embankment was
carried out of the castle, and at that time only the
life-threatening ruined parts were repaired. Archaeological
excavations also began in 1960. The rondelle was arranged by
architect Károly Ferenczy. In 1962, the National Monument
Inspectorate took over the management of the excavation, and Ilona
Czeglédy entrusted it with further excavation. The Diósgyőr Castle
Museum was established in August 1968 to present the excavated
monument and a large number of finds. In the north-east of the four
towers (the tower of the former royal suite) there was then a castle
history exhibition, an arms exhibition and a panopticon
commemorating the peace of Turin with wax figures of King Louis the
Great and the Venetian ambassador; in the north-west there was a
lookout tower, and on the ground floor there was a coinage (still in
operation), where the tourist could make a commemorative medal for
himself; the southeast tower (the former queen suite) is intact but
closed to tourists (mostly as a locker room for Castle Games
actors); the southwest tower is ruined.
The cultural significance of the castle today
The main venue
of the Kaláka Festival (formerly Kaláka Folk Days, Kaláka Folk
Festival) was the Diósgyőr Castle between 1980 and 2011,
The
tourist attractions of the castle include a slightly larger
panopticon in the outer castle, here six life pictures provide an
insight into the everyday life of medieval Diósgyőr. The castle
hosts the castle games of Diósgyőr twice a year, during which the
age of Louis the Great is revived, knightly tournaments and other
performances can be seen, and a medieval fair takes place next to
the castle. Prior to the 2014 renovation, open-air concerts and
color performances were held in the central courtyard of the castle,
and the auditorium seats 800 people. Following the renovation, the
Knights' Tournament Square in the area of the former Diósgyőr
beach offers the opportunity to hold events for up to thousands of
people.
The fact that due to the tumultuous history of the
area it is not surrounded by such a historical part of the city as
the castle of Eger or Kőszeg, and in addition to wild romantic
forests, the tenant houses of the less romantic housing estate in
Diósgyőr also serve as an environment for the tourist attraction of
the castle. However, the central part of the Bükk region is nearby,
which increases its attractiveness. Notable include the Déryné House
in the immediate vicinity of the castle, a museum dedicated to the
beloved actress of the 19th century, and the medieval Mary's Column
next to the slightly more distant Catholic church.
Renovation
In 2014, the castle was rebuilt with an investment of HUF 2.7
billion, during which not only the ruins were preserved, but also
their further construction and reconstruction was carried out. The
castle was rebuilt to a height of two levels, with the exception of
the southwest tower. The southwest tower was damaged much earlier,
due to a lightning strike, so and for the sake of antique effect,
the tower was not restored. In the other three reborn palace wings,
the largest knight's hall in Central Europe, the castle chapel and
the queen's residence, were also restored. The renovation was based
on original plans and contemporary paintings. The renovated castle
was handed over on August 30, 2014.
In the neighborhood of
the castle - partly occupying the area of the Castle Bath - the
Knight's Tournament Square was completed by August 2015, where
equestrian events, knight's tournaments and sports events are held,
and it is also suitable for outdoor theater performances and
concerts.
Renovation of the castle within the framework of
the National Castle Program
The aim of the project:
Central to the development is a personalized experience walk that
allows the presentation of different ages in real physical spaces
using the tools of virtual reality.
The creation of the
attraction will be accompanied by a large-scale infrastructure
investment, in the framework of which the outer castle will be
completely reconstructed.
Other curiosities
A memorial
plaque commemorates Sándor Petőfi, who visited the castle of
Diósgyőr on July 8, 1847. The poet watched the sunset from the
castle, which inspired his poem Twilight.
Sándor Petőfi:
Twilight
The sun is like a withered rose,
He lowers his head
in slackness;
Leaves, faint rays,
They fall apart with a sad
smile.
Silent, quiet the world around me,
Only a little
evening bell is far away,
Far away and nicely, as if coming from
heaven
Or a sweet dream from that sound.
I listen with
deep attention. Oh this
A dreamy voice is good for me.
God
know what I feel, what I don't feel,
God knows where my mind is.
The original image of the 200-forint banknote in circulation
between 1998 and 2009 was exhibited in the castle museum of the
north-east tower.
The spring, which used to fill the moat,
supplied water to the Diósgyőr Beach for decades, until the beach
closed in 2014.
Medieval festivals in the castle - e.g. During
the Queen's Spring (April), Diósgyőr Castle Games (May), Medieval
Whirlpool (August) - during dr. Emese Lovász, archaeologist of the
Herman Ottó Museum, personifies Elizabeth Kotromanić, the wife of
King Louis I, while her husband, Attila Lénárt, depicts Louis I, the
knight king. They are both founding members of the Golden Spark
Order of Diósgyőr.