Introduction Looking at all the tourists to our venerable Mělník, making their way through the town, not knowing where to go and what to see and not knowing the many monuments and wonderful sites of which our town has so many to boast, I decided to write this „guide“... From whichever side we approach Mělník we see from afar how it is perched pictur- esquely on a pretty hill top. Its majestic church tower is visible not only from the Petřín look-out tower but also from Milešovka, Ještěd, Bezděz and other elevated places in the northern half of our kingdom. A major factor in Mělník’s picturesque quality is the fact that it towers above the con- fluence of our country’s largest rivers: the Elbe and the Moldau, which are now joined by a third waterway - the Hořínsko-Vraňanský lateral canal. The charming situation is supplemented by the gardens, parks, groves and vineyards that surround Mělník, the last of which has given the town our world renown as the source of the acclaimed and celebrated Mělnik wine. The various sights and monuments that our town shelters in its womb, now most re- cently accompanied by the modern Hořínské canal lock, attract ever more visitors, who look at and delight in everything with the enchanting view of the wider surroundings, and cannot bear to leave our town and its wine. B. Marjanko: Picturesque guide to Mělník and its surroundings, 1906 Even today the words of this one-hundred-year-old guidebook to the town of Mělník could form the beginning to a guide to the former royal dowry town. The visi- tor is still greeted by the tower of the Church of St. Peter and Paul, even if the town’s triangular silhouette, with the highest point located in the tower cross, is no longer so prominent due to the spreading building work. We find the vineyards in a rather wid- er ring from the historic core, in which, however, we have many opportunities to sam- ple Mělník wine, just as P. D. Bartoloni did, subsequently writing about the experience in his Chvalozpěv na mělnické víno (Eulogy to Mělník wine) (1694): “... let’s hurry on without stopping – to drink my excellent Mělník wine...” We can sit back and relax in the observation point and enjoy the view of the horizon with the legendary Říp hill, or a little further away to the peaks of the Czech Central Mountain Range. And if our gaze dips beyond the vineyard below under the hill we see the point at which the two largest Czech rivers meet, to which attaches itself a lateral canal, an entirely new structure in the time of B. Marjanko, although now already a technical monument. It is precisely the observation point that makes our town unique, although there are many other points of interest in a tour of the city, which while it may not be large in size has more than a thousand years of history. So let’s set off and have a look at it. Town Guide Mělník 1 History tion (Civitas Melnic), con- hold a market, the right to use the Pšovka stream, firming the change in the the privilege of the inalienability and non-confiscation town’s name. Her person- of town goods). In 1449 the town obtained the right to al mint is not the only evi- decide on its matters itself through aldermen headed dence of Emma’s singu- by the burgomaster. The previous magistrate’s house larity. Another is the was changed into the town hall. manuscript Grumpold’s At this time the town was emerging from the dis- legends of Saint Wence- ruption of the Hussite wars, when in 1421 it joined slaus, which the princess the side of the moderate Prague population and as had illuminated at the the only town alongside Catholic Pilsen took part in de- beginning of the elev- feating the camps and Taborites of the Calixtin-Catho- enth century by the re- lic coalition at the battle of Lipany on 30 May 1434. nowned Fulda school of During the wars the Mělnik chapter was dissolved and Aerial view of Mělník – the boundary of the original town in the town walls is artists, and on whose first the town became Utraquist; several assemblies and visible page Emma herself is congresses of the Utraquist party were also held here shown paying homage (1438, 1439, 1442). to Saint Wenceslaus. The town won renown in the first half of the six- History Some are also of the opin- teenth century due to its viticulture, the beginnings ion that it was at Emma’s of which here go back as far as the ninth century, al- Mělník – a town associated with the earliest days Denar of Princess Emma (around instigation that the capit- the year 1000) though the conditions for its real development were of the Bohemian state, a dowry town of Bohemian prin- ular chapter was founded created in the time of Charles IV (1346–1378), who had cesses and queens at the Church of St. Peter a grapevine brought to Mělnik from Burgundy and es- The historic core of Mělník, the medieval walled and Paul in Mělník, one of the oldest in the Czech lands. tablished a special au- town, developed on the site of the original fortified set- Its first recorded provost was Šebíř (Severus), to whom thority to protect the tlement, perhaps called Pšov, whose fortification is re- Cosmas dedicated his chronicle Chronica Boemorum vineyards. Charles IV also corded from archaeological research from the ninth (1125). And perhaps it’s from Emma’s time that the tra- proclaimed Mělník to be century. With the wedding of the first historically evi- dition stems of Mělník being a dowry town for Czech a royal dowry town in denced Czech prince Bořivoj in 875 to Ludmila, daugh- princesses and queens. perpetuity. Mělník was ter of Prince Slavibor, Pšov passed under the control of Mělník is first referred to as a town in the charter the seat of Kunigunde of the Přemyslids. It became one of the points of supports of King Přemysl Otakar II. of 25 November 1274, Hungary, wife of Přemysl along the perimeter of their central Bohemian domain in which the ruler grants Mělnik a privileged share Otakar II, Elizabeth of Bo- and later one of the centres of the system of castles, of trade along the Elbe. The town also held a host hemia, wife of John of and therefore of the administrative organization built of other rights (e.g. the right to exclusive privileges Luxembourg, who in 1322 up at the end of the tenth century by Prince Boleslav II. over the production and sale of beer, the brewing gave birth here to a son His wife Emma had coins minted here – denars, which of beer, the right to capital punishment, the right to Jan Jindřich, later Mar- Town sealing-stick from the bear her name (Emma Regina) and the Mělník designa- beginning of the 14th century 2 Town Guide Mělník History grave of Moravia, Elizabeth of Pomerania, wife of Charles IV, Sofia, wife of Wenceslaus IV, Barbora Celská, wife of Sigismund of Luxembourg, Johana of Rožmitál, wife of Jiří of Poděbrady, who died in Mělník in 1475 and was buried here. Their seat was the castle, original- ly Romanesque, later Gothic, which from the sixteenth century began to be transformed into a chateau. This was first mortgaged to and then owned by aristocratic families, of whom the most important were the Berka of Dubá family, the Černín family and the Lobkowicz family. The first half of the seventeenth century, with the events of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) brought the Czech translation of the charter from Přemysl Otakar II. of 25 November 1274 town much hardship. Mělník was a moderate support- er of the Estates Uprising (1618-1620), giving loans to the town significant damage, although it was worst af- Elbe, while at the end of the nineteenth century a ship- the directors, recognising the election of Frederick the fected by the fire in 1765, which destroyed 42 houses ment area was created which was later to become Winter King), but was still punished with confiscations including the town hall and the Capuchin monastery. a dock. Financial institutions were also founded. The of property. A period of re-Catholicisation ensued, This was followed by another phase of the town’s Ba- second half of the nineteenth century also saw the de- causing its populace in 1628 to be predominantly Cath- roque transformation. velopment of vocational and high schools. Still today olic. Mělník had to endure hostile military incursions, The town’s development took off in the first half of there exists the fruit and vintner’s school, whose foun- particularly of Saxons and Swedes, was ravaged by the nineteenth century, during the unfolding of the na- dation in 1885 reflected the growing interest in viticul- devastating fires (1646, 1652, 1681), and the Black tional movement, whose main proponents in Mělník ture. Agricultural production was also oriented on Death (plague). The were the teacher Josef Věnceslav Vlasák and the dean growing and refining sugar beet and in 1869 the sugar church, chateau and town Antonín Hnojek, while the Mělník theatre also played factory, for long the only industrial enterprise in the hall were all damaged, the its role. The actual development of civic life became town, started operations. school, hospital, church possible with the fall of Bach´s absolutism, a period of Following the declaration of an independent Czech- land, fortificationsand oth- political oppression (1859).