Castles Žamberk and Forhtenek
A description of architectural history
Keywords:
Schönburg, Schönberg, Schaunberg, Forchtenegg, castle, medieval castles, architecture, architectural history, castellology, architectural development, Romanesque architecture, Gothic architecture, lords of Forhtenek, lords of Vovbre, lords of Žovnek, Counts of Celje, peasant uprisings, Šalek Valley, Zavodnje, VodrižAbstract
In the hills to the north of Šoštanj, two small medieval castles were built at the turn of the High and Late Middle Ages, with their former construction designs representing highly unique examples of the castle cultural heritage in Slovenia. Dating to the thirteenth century, Žamberk Castle was already abandoned and left in ruins before the sixteenth century. The rectangular ground surface of the former castle core may suggest a small, enclosure castle with an enclosed courtyard and a residential building or that the entire area of the castle core was occupied by a two-storeyed residential building without an enclosed courtyard. In analysing the castle remains, one should also allow for the possibility that the unusual ditches and banks may be of a later origin than the castle core itself. Perhaps they were built only after the castle had been left in ruins and were then incorporated in the anti-Ottoman fortification of the Carinthian provincial border. The neighbouring Forhtenek Castle was erected about 1300. It is one of the rare examples in the territory of present-day Slovenia that comprised the main tower and the curtain wall but not also a special residential building (palatium) and that would not be expanded. In the seventeenth century, it fell into a state of disrepair.
