Gutštejn Ruin

Gutštejn is a castle ruin located to the southeast of Konstantinovy Lázně in the Tachov district. It stands in the forested landscape of the Plaská Uplands, on a rocky promontory above the Hadovka stream, at an altitude of four hundred and twenty-five meters above sea level. Since nineteen sixty-four it has been a cultural monument and is owned by the state.

The castle was founded around the year thirteen hundred. It was established by members of the Hroznatovci clan, most likely by Jetřich, son of Jetřích from Krašovice. Gutštejn then became the ancestral seat of the lords of Gutštejn. The first indirect mention dates from thirteen nineteen, when the abbot of Teplá, Vyšemír, leased three villages to Jetřich and his son Sezema for ten years.

In thirteen seventy-nine, the castle was held by Půta of Gutštejn himself. Later he transferred it to his brother Jetřích the Second, founder of the main family line. His sons Burian and Jan initially shared Gutštejn between them, but they lived elsewhere themselves. At the beginning of the Hussite Wars, the castle was besieged by the army of Jan Žižka of Trocnov. Whether he also conquered it is a matter of disagreement among historians.

From the fifteenth century onward, the owners preferred other residences. The castle was nonetheless maintained and occasionally used. In fifteen oh-three it served as a fortress for Jan Všerubský of Gutštejn during a private war with Prince Jiří of Saxony. In fifteen oh-seven, Jetřích of Gutštejn held negotiations there with envoys of the Elector Palatine Philip.

The turning point came in fifteen forty-nine. Viktorín of Gutštejn then sold the castle along with its farmstead and five villages for thirty-two hundred and fifty kopa of Czech groschen to Hanuš Elpognár of Dolní Šenfeld. He attached Gutštejn to the Bezdružice estate and the castle lost its function as a residence. It was maintained for some time longer, then began to decline and most likely fell into complete disrepair during the Thirty Years' War.

The castle had two parts. Access was protected by a moat, beyond which lay the outer ward. From its buildings, only a cellar hewn into the rock remained. A further moat separated the castle core. Its architectural development was probably influenced by unstable slate bedding.

The dominant feature is a square main tower with rounded corners, a so-called bergfried. Entry was through a small portal with a drawbridge, accessible via a wooden gallery from an adjacent building or from the wall around the tower. The tower was built in several phases. The beams of the original roof date from fourteen twenty-one to fourteen twenty-two, the beams of the topmost floor from after fourteen eighty-five. It may have been founded as early as around the mid-fourteenth century. East of it lay the entrance courtyard with an outbuilding.