Trhové Sviny Castle

In the place where Kozinovo Square - a folk called Goat Sláček - was located from the 13th to 15th century. Its physical traces disappeared under a later building, but the very shape and extent of the square still reveal where the medieval site lay. This is one of the few cases where a defunct castle can be read directly from the urban town.

The castle was built around the middle of the 13th century as a guard fortification on the Vitoraz trail, then an important business and communication route. The oldest indirect proof of its existence dates back to 1260, when Ojíř ze Svin, a member of the Klokoti branch of the mighty Vítkovce family, is documented in the sources. The castle belonged to the English line of this family - his nephew Vok z Třeboně inherited it after Ojířík and then the descendants of Vok Jaroslav, Sesim and Ojíř. Since 1327 he held Trhové Sviny Vilém z Landštejna.

In 1359 Vítek z Landštejna sold the castle to the Rožmberks, who attached it to the Neo-hrady estate, which they acquired from the same family a year earlier. In 1355, the chapel of St. John the Baptist was mentioned in the forefront, probably added to the original premises. Trhové Sviny thus became part of the extensive Rozberg Dominion in southern Bohemia.

The key division in the fate of the castle was 1420, when it was conquered and occupied by Hussite troops under the leadership of Jan Žižka of Trocnova. Rožmberk Oldřich won the castle back, but by 1454 it is listed as desolated. The recovery has not happened. The castle was apparently demolished until 1480. The only construction that survived the destruction of the entire complex was the mentioned chapel of St. John the Baptist - but it died in 1828, which completely erased the physical legacy of the castle.

The design of the castle can only be judged on the basis of the trace it left in the floor plan structure of the Market Svins. It is believed to be a larger, at least two-part area, including today's Kozino Square and its immediate surroundings. The present chapel, which used to stand there, illustrates the existence of the prelim.

The visitor who comes to Kozin Square today is not facing any ruins or information board with reconstruction. But it is literally on the ground plan of the medieval castle, whose outlines survived in the street raster of the city. For a curious tourist who can read landscape and urban tourism, it is an experience of his kind - to read history not from stone but from the shape of space.