Location: 184 km (114 mi) east of Prague, Olomouc Region Map
Constructed: 1353
Brníčko Castle is situated 184 km (114 mi) east of Prague in the Olomouc Region of Czech Republic. The first time it was mentioned was in 1353. In 1471 the original citadel was enlarged significantly. With changes in military strategies and technology Brníčko fortress became largely obsolete. Its military garrison abandoned the walls of Brníčko Castle in the 16th century. Brníčko Castle was left in neglect and disrepair since then. Some of the masonry was reused by the local villagers.
The original center of the estate was Dubicko. In written sources,
Dubicko is mentioned for the first time since 1253, when the local
fortress and the territory acquired from the Moravian margrave were held
by Vladyka Bened of Dubicko, chief hunter of the later king Přemysl
Otakar II, whose name appears in documents from 1238. His the estate
originally included several nearby villages of Bohuslavice, Hrabova,
Třeština and the now defunct settlement of Ostrov. It was only during
the 1430s that the extensive family property of the descendants of the
former hunting king Přemysl Otakar II was divided. Benedy from Dubick
and Otaslavice (Prostějovskoe), the founder of the Dubick manor. They
acquired the Otaslavic manor after 1287, and apparently the construction
of the new ancestral seat in Brníček and the creation of the Brníč manor
from the northern part of the former Dubica possession also fall into
that period. The builder was probably Bened's great-grandson Ctibor
Morava († 1369). During his lifetime, the village of Brníčko is also
mentioned in 1350. In 1356, the castle is first explicitly named in the
Moravian land records as the property of the lords of Otaslavice. In
1377, Brníčko was owned by Ctibor's son Mikuláš Morava, who used as a
coat of arms a split silver and red shield, i.e. the same coat of arms
that Bened of Dubick had a hundred years ago. Mikuláš held the estate
together with his brothers Jimram and Micháč from Otaslavice, who also
went by Brníček.
After Mikuláš's death, the Brníč estate fell to
Margrave Jošt, who in 1387 ceded these properties (Brníčko castle with a
court, a small town and seven villages) to Bernard Hecht of Slavoňov.
At the beginning of the 15th century, the lords of Šumvald held the
castle. In the eventful times of fratricidal battles between margraves
Jošt and Prokop, the castle proved to be a military fortress of Jošt's
followers and a safe storage for booty from various streams. It was
similar in the following years of the Hussite Wars.
At their end
in 1434, a new owner of the castle and estate appeared, Jan Tunkl from
Drahanovice, who began to write from Brníček. The new lord of the castle
was a striking example of a feudal lord, trying to get the most out of
an opportune situation of unrest and wars. From an impoverished yeoman
from Krnovsko, who came to Northern Moravia during the Hussite Wars, he
became one of the richest Moravian nobles within 40 years, trying to
combine the small estates of the local nobility into a large property
complex. This was also the case with the Brníč estate, which became part
of the extensive Zábrež estate under the Tunkls. This did not happen
immediately, because after Jan's death in 1484, both of his sons held
the estates together, but Jiřík st. Tunkl from Brníček was based in
Zábřeh, while Jan the Younger Tunkl took over Brníček. Both were loyal
allies of King Jiří of Poděbrady, and therefore their estates became the
subject of raids by Matyáš's allies, especially the lords from Zvola,
who were assisted by the infamous "black company" of Matyáš's governor,
France of Háje. During one of these raids, around 1471, most of the
Tunkl settlements, including Brníčko, were conquered and ravaged. After
Jan's death, his brother Jiřík the elder Tunkl from Brníček managed the
estates for the minor orphans. He took the entire castle arsenal from
Brníček to his residence in Zábrež (primarily log cabins, howitzers and
cannons), and later acquired the entire farm in his own hands. When the
Tunkl property was entered in the land records in 1490, Brníčko was no
longer listed as a separate item. Already during Jiřík's guardianship,
the castle ceased to fulfill its previous function as a manor house. The
damage he suffered during the Czecho-Hungarian wars apparently did not
help him.
During the sale of the Zábřež manor in 1510, Brníč
goods (a castle with a small town and a chapel) were also mentioned,
apparently out of inertia. Provisional repairs to the castle delayed its
end for a while, but already in 1513 it is listed as deserted and
demolished.
Once again, it was as if the old glory of the castle
ruins shone again. It was no accident that, as a memorial to the
"Hussite" Tunkls from Brníček, it became the site of the first large
people's camp in northern Moravia during the statehood struggles of
1869, which was attended by 4,000 people from all over northern Moravia.
The romantic ruins of Brníč Castle were also used during the pre-Munich
Republic for other national celebrations, which, especially during the
rise of Nazism in the 1930s, aimed to encourage Czech national
consciousness in the endangered North Moravian borderlands.
1356 – the first mention of the castle in the predicate of Jimram and
Micháč from Brníček, whose ancestor was the royal hunter Beneda from
Dubická (1239–1269). One of his descendants married Otaslavice at the
beginning of the 14th century, but his children later shared it with
another family. Because the family had grown relatively numerous, its
members built a second castle - Brníčko - on the remaining estates
sometime after 1330, and built the Brníč manor on the foundations of the
Dubice manor.
1387 – the castle fell into the margrave's hands and
Jošt pawned the castle goods to Bernard Hecht from Slavoňov
1408 –
the castle was bought from Jošt by Jan from Šumvald (probably Bernard's
brother) and apparently paid for it from the linage relationship
around 1450 – Brníček was acquired by Jan Tunkl († 1464), whose family
began to be written from Brníček and from Zábřeh after him
1510 –
Jindřich Tunkl († after 1527) bequeathed Mikuláš Castle to the younger
Trček of Lípa
1513 – Mikuláš Tunkl († after 1536) sold the castle as
deserted and the Zábřež manor to Ladislav of Boskovic – Zábřeh was the
seat of the Tunkls at that time, and therefore the castle was abandoned
in those years
Present
The ruins of a two-story palace,
towers, part of the above-mentioned outer wall, pieces of fence, ditches
and ramparts remain from the massive castle of an interesting type
(stepped on the top of the castle hill). To this day, the Brníček castle
ruins are a popular destination for patriotic walks and recreational
trips. It is a striking monument of Gothic castle architecture and a
silent witness to the turbulent past of the region. Perhaps the
tradition still alive among the people of the former Tunkla settlement,
especially the famous Jiřík st., contributed to this. Tunkla from
Brníček, known to this day from a number of legends, folk tales and
poems.
The tower-like castle complex (the oval core of the castle,
surrounded by two belts of ditches and ramparts) was surrounded by a
circular 2.1 m thick outer wall, which was strengthened on the south
side by massive prismatic pillars and strengthened by several bastions,
the stone columns of which are clearly visible today. Next to the main
defense tower - the sounding board - stood a two-story building of the
castle palace with irregularly spaced windows.
A three-room,
two-story palace was added to the outer wall on the eastern side. In the
next phase, it was extended up to the front wall. On the west side there
are clear traces of another building of unclear purpose. The core of the
castle was surrounded on three sides by a fence, from which an entrance
was cut into the outer wall in the northern part. A bridge over the
inner moat led to the fence in the west. To the south of the core is a
small rampart with a moat at the head, in front of which is a massive
wood-aluminum bolwerk (a large earthen Late Gothic bastion, most often
polygonal. Basically, it is a walled platform allowing the placement of
a large number of heavy guns) with traces of masonry structures.
On three sides, the castle walls fall steeply towards the village below
the castle, on the fourth – southern – side, where the main access to
the castle was and where the supporting walls of the castle gate are
visible today, the castle was connected by a narrow isthmus to the
opposite hill towards the village of Strupšín. The neck in front of the
castle was interrupted by a moat, now filled in, but still visible. The
same applies to the former castle well in front of the palace.