Kočevje 60 Km 186 C3 Gottschee ES

Kočevje 60 km 186 C3 Gottschee ES The history of Kočevje was closely period villages in the plain of associated with the mediaeval colo Kočevsko Polje were established. nization of the Kočevje region. It Otto V had the new feudal centre was initiated and executed by the built in the form of a villa with the Counts of Ortenburg, the then chapel of St. Bartholomew in the Lords of a substantial part ofLower place called Mooswald, or Carniola, Inner Carniola and the Mahovnik in Slovene ('mossy for region along the upper river Kolpa. est, place'). In 1337 the Patriarch The centre of the Ortenburg estates of Aquileia elevated the chapel to was in Carinthia and Tyrol. They a subsidiary of the parish of had first appeared in Slovenia after Ribnica. Otto VI carried out the 1220, when the dominions of colonization of remote places even Ribnica and Čušperk were more ambitiously than his pred enfeoffed to them by the Patriarchs ecessor; the process involved ex of Aquileia, and erected the castles tensive deforestation and substan tial resource s. 1 It is of min or im portance whether the story of the settlement of rebellious Frankish Thuringian peasants was true or not. The fact is that during his period the region of Kočevje be come populated to such an extent that churches had to be erected in five settlements and regular serv ices provided. The document of the Patriarch from 1363 settling the ecclesiastic affairs in the area stated that 'in some forests and groves that used to be uninhabited and uncultivated dwellings were created for people, and the same forests and groves were deforested for agriculture, and a large number of people was gathered. In those places the inhabitants [ ... ] erected Poljane and Kostel on the periph new churches [ ... ] as permitted by ery of the Kočevje region even be our blessed Son of Christ, the il fore colonization took place. lustrious Count Otto VI of The most important representa Ortenburg, on whose estate the tives of the Ortenburgs for Kočevje above-mentioned estates are lo and the Kočevje region in the four cated ... ' 2 teenth century were Otto V, Prav The name of Kočevje first ap ost of Brixen, who died in 1348, peared in that document in its and his nephew Otto VI, who died German form Gotsche. 3 The new in 1374. The two dates marked name replaced the previous two waves of colonization in the Mooswald, yet it had named the Kočevje region. During the first place and the region for long. In 103 the next document from 13 77 Otto by means of which the Emperor VI spoke of 'our borough in ordered the transfer of the town or Kočevje', which was the first rather the construction of a new record of that place as an urban settlement at a safer location. settlement. Yet it must be stated that the for Most authors are of the opinion mulation in the privilege contain that Kočevje was not located in the ing the 'order' for the removal was meander of the river Rinža while almost equal to the formulation in it was a borough, but on its left the privileges of Krško and Višnja bank, adjacent to the form er grave Gora. In the case of Krško it was yard and the church of St. evident that its location was not Bartholomew. The conclusions altered after the acquisition of the about the transfer of the settlement status of a town. Višnja Gora had are based primarily on the location equally been located at the present of the church of St. Bartholomew, site decades before Friedrich III which was first recorded in 1339, issued the privilege deed. There as mentioned above. The second fore it can be concluded, in the source was the civic privilege of case of Kočevje, that the Emperor Emperor Friedrich III from 14 71, only defined the status of the town 104 Karl Posti, Kočevje, gouache, 1864 in the legal sense and facilitated nineteenth century, sin ce they were the construction of fortifications no longer depicted in the Franz by means of resources brought cadastre of 1825. about by the status. It was clear In 1471 Stari Trg by the church on the basis of strategic and de of St. Bartholomew6 was men fence considerations that only the tioned in a privilege deed, and that part of the town located on the me record was the only proof of the ander of the river, adjacent to the originallocation of the borough on former Ortenburg court, was for the right bank of the river Rinža. tified. A weir was built in front of Later the name of Stari Trg sank the town in the south-easterly di into oblivion. St. Bartholomew rection, raising the level of the dis with the graveyard had served as appearing river Rinža, the flow of the parish church of the town un which dried out in dry spells. In til the Modern Age. 7 Thereafter this way water was provided for the the seat of the parish was trans dike along the western side of the ferred to the town church of St. town, and the meander was turn ed Florian, which has since then been into an island. The church and the consecrated to St. Fabian and Se graveyard remained on the other bastian. In 1872 the church of St. side of the Rinža. Bartholomew was pulled down. It seemed that Kočevje had not The graveyard was abolished some been wall ed-in during the fifteenth decades ago, and now blocks of flats century and for some time there are standing at the same location. after, but surrounded by a wooden The fate of the other centre of the stockade, clearly depicted in the settlement, the former Ortenburg arms ofKočevje. 4 Yet the town was court, was even more tragic. Un in desperate need of stronger walls. der the Habsburgs, who succeeded ln 1492 the Emperor once again the Counts of Ortenburg and the ordered the dtizens and serfs to Counts of Celje as feudallords, the construct it. However, it was evi former court was transformed into dent from written documents that a public building with the seat of the walls had not been completed the office of Kočevje. When the even by 150 l. In any case, in the town was walled-in, it was inte great fire in 1596 there were walls grated into the fortification and built of stone around Kočevje. served as an additional stronghold Valvasor reported about a century by the southern town gate. At the later that the town was 'sur end of the sixteenth century it was rounded by mighty walls with a so old and crumbling that it was tower in each corner, and a moat provisionally restored, but there on top of that.' In the second half after destroyed in a fire. It was the of the eighteenth century the walls new town lords, the Counts of were stili preserved, although most Auersperg, who had thoroughly re had already disintegrated, and the built it in 1641 and transformed it mo at was gone. 5 The walls were fi into a powerful castle residence, nally pulled down at the turn of the which was praised by Valvasor. It 105 impressed him to such an extent Auersperg town church of St. that he had it depicted in the en Florian built at the turn of the graving of Kočevje in his boo k Die twentieth century. 10 Ehre des Hertzogthums Crain (The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola) as Jelka Pirkovič much larger than the rest of the town. The castle was damaged during the Second World War. Af ter 1945 no attempt was made at its restoration; on the contrary, it 1 was levelled out, so that nothing It is known that Otto had borrowed larger has remained of it. sums of money from the Jews of Ljubljana on The former imposing main square severa! occasions. Ivan Simončič, Zgodovina - the inhabitants called it kočevskega ozemlja, p. 59. Hauptgasse, 'main street' - was 2 Ibidem, p. 60. surrounded by town dwellings 3 The document was written in Latin as was built of stone. It was typical of common in the Church administration. Since Kočevje that stone-built houses Latin scribes had not translated the Slovene had prevailed since the second half of the eighteenth century. Some names into German (as was common in Ger timber ones were preserved on the man documents), the inscription of Gotsche periphery of the town. The mills is in contrast to the theory of the Slovene ori on both banks of the river Rinža gin of the name of Kočevje. above the upper bridge were like 4 Let me note briefly that the arms of Kočevje wise made of timber. contained an interesting inscription Sigillum The picture of the main square ci vita tis in Kotschew 14 71. This me ans that from 1864 depicted a typical fun the name was translated into Slovene. nel-shaped quadrangle.' It was ' Vincenc Rajšp, Majda Ficko, Slovenija na visually closed on both sides by vojaskem zemljevidu 1763- 1787, Ljubljana, two retracted buildings. On the northern side there was the town ZRC SAZU, AS, Vol. I, 1995, p. 73. church, and on the southern a 6 One of the three annual fairs supposedly too k town dwelling opposite the north place there, namely the one dedicated to St. ern corner of the castle. Most Bartholomew. Peter von Raditz, Aus dem houses were one storey high, some Privilegienbuche der Stadt Gouschee, Argo, II, even two, with broader facades.

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