Košice Castle

Košice Castle (Slovak: Košický hrad) is the ruin of a hilltop castle in the city of Košice (German: Kaschau; in the Sever district) in eastern Slovakia. The castle ruin lies on Hradová hill on the eastern edge of the Slovak Ore Mountains, which is why it is sometimes named after it.

The castle's history is largely obscure, because it is mentioned only rarely, and then only indirectly, in medieval sources. Some sources equate it with Sokoľ Castle near the village of the same name or with the area of the medieval settlement of Upper Kaschau (Slovak: Horné Košice), but in both cases a different area is involved. A fortification may have been created shortly after the Mongol invasion of 1241/42, but the most likely builder is considered to be the Hungarian palatine Amadeus Aba, who had a castle built in the period 1301–1307 in order to strengthen his position of power in a dispute with the city of Kaschau.

After this dispute was settled in 1307, the castle remained unfinished. After the Battle of Rozgony on 15 June 1312, fought within sight of the castle and lost by the descendants of Amadeus Aba in their struggle against Charles I Robert, the king gave the castle to the Drugeth noble family. Later it became the property of the Bebek family, who for years conducted a legal dispute with the citizens of Kaschau over the ownership of the castle lands. Following a decision in 1430, the castle did indeed come into the hands of the city of Kaschau, which, however, was more concerned with its domain than with the structure itself. For this reason it was already derelict by the middle of the 15th century.

Of the former castle only the foundation walls of the triangular bastion and of the round tower have survived. The wall, up to 3.8 m thick, runs on for a further 100 m before disappearing without trace and without any recognisable continuation.

Machine-translated from “Kaschauer Burg” on the German Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Košice Castle ranks #4,552 of 8,133 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #63 of the 140 mapped in Slovakia. Founded c. 1300, it is older than 63% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 860 atlas entries founded in the 13th century. 6 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Košice, 5 km away. See how Slovakia compares in the castle statistics.

View on the interactive castle map →

Read the full history on Wikipedia (in German) ↗