Kostanjevica Na Krki

95 km Kostanjevica na Krki 173 Bl Landstrass, Landestrost F4 The present Kostanjevica can Landestrost denoted the 'defence of hardly be distinguished from a vil the !and' and emphasized the ar lage. Its inhabitants, the inhabit guments for the emergence of the ants of the island to be more pre mediaeval castle and settlement. cise, consider themselves citizens. Another form of the name re In their opinion, those living as corded in written documents some cl ose as on the other bank are com- decades after the first was Landstrass. 2 The most plausible ex planation of the name is the fol lowing. The added part, '-strass', was a Slovene translation of the German '-trost', meaning 'guard, defence'. 3 The present Slovene name, Kostanjevica, was first re corded in Valvasor's book The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola. The founder of Kostanjevica, the same as in the case of Ljubljana, was Bernard of Spanheim Duke of Carinthia (1202-1256). In his time Kostanjevica was more im portant than Ljubljana due to stra tegic and economic considera tions, being located on the old border between Carniola and Croatia. There was a castle of the same name, the location of which is now unknown. Some authors are of the opinion that the remains of the castle are in the castle near mon country people. Podbočje, four kilometres from The town is somewhat special be Kostanjevica as the crow flies. 4 If cause it is located on a river island. that were true, the spatial relation The island is almost certainly of ar between the urban settlement and tificial origins, created by the dig the castle would be even less defi ging of a dike of approximately two nite as it is in the case of the bor hundred metres in length. Its date ough of Podsreda and the cas tie of can only be speculated about. The the same name, residing high oldest picture of Kostanjevica, the above the valley of Bistrica. unrealized plan of a new fortifica There is another explanation, tion drawn by Giovanni Pieroni in namely that the name Landestrost 1639, depicted a town surrounded had not only denoted the castle on by water. 1 Stari Grad, but also a stronghold The old German name of on the island of Kostanjevica. The 107 stronghold protected the strategic sisted of two streets. The street crossing of the river Krka. A fact network in the form of a two not to be disregarded is that the pronged fork was an exception in name Na Straži ('on guard') has our subject matter. A similar case been preserved for that part of the can be found in Bohemia, where Kostanjevica island near the south it developed in the thirteenth cen ern bridge. Historians agree that tury in connection with a frontier an urban settlement of the same castle. A spital, later transformed name had already existed about into the parish church, was located the year 1215. The earliest coins in the centre of the place. The of Kostanjevica namely originated Spanheim urban settlements of St. from that period, with the inscrip Veit and Klagenfurt in Carinthia, tion civitatis Landestros, and in first recorded as towns together 1220 the parish priest of with Kostanjevica, had a similar Kostanjevica was mentioned. 5 It plan, only it consisted of a single, can be deduced that the fortification, funnel-shaped square. In the stronghold and the settlement Klagenfurt a water castle of the with the parish church had come Spanheim Ministerials, Lords of into existence at the same time, and Heileck, was located by the south with the exception of the first, were western corner of Old Square. In probably located side by side. the Renaissance period the castle The backbone of the town con- was rebuilt as the provincial court. 108 It was unknown where the Lords church of St. Nicholas could have of Kostanjevica had come from. been a remnant of an earlier forti There are written documents re fication. 7 cording that Duke Bernard had Veliki Plae was actually only a road brought his people from St. Veit, 6 without the funnel-shaped form. It so it is therefore not surprising that had always served as the main road the planners of Kostanjevica through the town. The southern adopted the urban layout of St. Veit part of Mali Plae was extended for the new Spanheim settlement. into a typical, funnel-shaped The two streets of Kostanjevica square with a straight north-west were traditionally called Veliki ern side. The presumed castle of Plae and Mali Plae ('great and the Ministerials of Kostanjevica, small squares'). At the south-east somewhat retracted from the street ern end of the island they led to line, was located at its southern the bridge, which was fortified edge. At the beginning of the sev during the Middle Ages. Even enteenth century at this site there Valvasor's sketch for the copper was definitely the administrative engraving in The Glory of the Duchy building of the dominion of of Carniola depicted a fortified Kostanjevica. Later it was turned gate. According to its location at into the rectory and a school. Its the intersection of the two streets architectural features indicate that and to the method of construction it was built in three construction the lower part of the tower of the stages, the earliest of them extend- 109 ing back to the end of the fifteenth by stone-built houses since the last century. 8 quarter of the previous century. The location of the original Additionally, Kostanjevica had not Spanheim Castle is stili an open known the developed type of town question. Apart from the adminis houses with severa! storeys, trative building, the former castle backyard wings or even walled-in was recorded in the !and register courtyards. There were gardens, of the monastery of Kostanjevica orchards and small fields at the from 1625, supposedly located back of the plots, which contrib behind the parish church of St. uted to the idyllic image of the Jacob. 9 The location in the north 'Venice of Lower Carniola'. ern corner of the island of Kostanjevica could equally have Jelka Pirkovič been possible. During echo-sound ing archaeological excavations sev era! years ago only remnants of pottery were found there. 10 Traces of the moat that had divided this 1 Ivan Komelj, Utrdbena arhitektura 16. part from the rest of the settlement stoletja v Sloveniji, Zbornik za umetnostno indicated the special position of the north-western part of the is zgodovino, nova vrsta VII (1965), pp. 86-87. land or rather the proximity of the Komelj only described the plan by Pieronni, parish church. Mali Plae curved without publishing it. The island location of towards the north-east in front of Kostanjevica was also depicted in the earliest the church grounds, and joined maps of the provinces of Slovenia, e.g. Veliki Plae. Sambucco's map of Ilirija from 1572. On account of its island location 2 That was in 1267. Milko Kos, Gradivo za Kostanjevica had been linked with historično topografijo Slovenije, Ljubljana, the mainland by means of two SAZU, 1975, p. 273. bridges, the lower and the upper 3 one, even during the Middle Ages. Leopold Pettauer, Imena važnejših starejših The bridge was first recorded in gradov na Slovenskem nekdaj in sedaj, written documents in 1343, and Kronika slovenskih mest, V, 1938, No. 1, p. subsequently in 1406, when the 13. text mentioned a house with a 4 Ivo Pirkovič, K topografiji freisinške posesti burgage and a garden by the up na Dolenjskem, Kronika, 1961, p. 180, and per bridge.'' Jože Mlinarič, Topograjija posesti kostanjeviške The town on the island was not opatije, p. 14. Archaeological excavations have walled-in, as can be deduced from proved that the mediaeval castle fortification Valvasor's depictions and the fact that Kostanjevica had no walled was located on the hill by Stari Grad, built in streets. Narrow paths lead laterally the thirteenth century at the !atest, and ex to the main roads and the banks isted umil the fifteenth century. Mitja Guštin, of the river Krka. Their layout is Podbotje: Stari grad, Brežice, Posavski muzej, regular and they divide the island 1993, p. 98. into three parts, each of them be ' Božo Otorepec, Srednjeveški petati in grbi mest ing divided into plots. The plots in trgov na Slovenskem, p. 65. of Kostanjevica are broader than 6 The source from 1294 mentioned scribe those of 'more developed' mediae Friederik, the son of a citizen of St. Veit in val towns. Additionally there are no traces of plots being subse Carinthia. Ibidem, p. 65 . quently joined into larger units. 7 Majda Frelih Ribič , Konservatorska Kostanjevica had therefore not opredelitev urbanističnega spomenika experienced the process typical of Kostanjevice, Varstvo spomenikov, 26, p. 119. the development of towns after the 8 Andrej Smrekar, entry 'Kostanjevica na Krki', fifteenth century. Enciklopedija Slovemje, Vol. 5, Ljubljana, 1991. It seemed that the houses there p. 326. had always been placed with the 9 Jože Mlinarič , Kostanjeviško gospostvo po longer side facing the street. Sin urbarju iz leta 1625, Kostanjevica na Krki, gle-storey houses prevailed, joined into short terraces. The Franz ca Galerija Božidar Jakac, 1970, p. 9. dastre of 1825 proved that the 10 Marjan Slabe, Kostanjevica na Krki: houses of Kostanjevica were made Arheološka raziskava avg. 1988, Varstvo of timber, with few exceptions. spommikov, 32, 1990, pp. 31-49. They had been gradually replaced 11 Božo Otorepec, note No. 5, p. 68. 110 .

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