Vischer - Topographia Ducatus Stiria - 268 Mureck - Cmurek

Cmurek Castle ( sl, grad Cmurek) is a castle in

Trate Trate () is a settlement in the Slovene Hills ( sl, Slovenske gorice) in the Municipality of Šentilj in northeastern Slovenia. Cmurek Castle is an originally 12th-century castle built on a hill above the Mura River in the northern part of the s ...

, Slovenia. It stands on a steep cliff above the bridge over the

Mura River The Mur () or Mura (; ; ; Prekmurje Slovene: ''Müra''Novak, Vilko. 2006. ''Slovar stare knjižne prekmurščine''. Ljubljana: ZRC SAZU, pp. 262, 269. or ''Möra'') is a river in Central Europe rising in the Hohe Tauern national park of th ...

at Trate, the international border crossing to the Austrian village of

Mureck Mureck ( sl, Cmurek, archaic: ''Cmürek'') is a municipality in the district of Südoststeiermark in the Austrian state of Styria. Administrative reforms in Styria led to the merging on 1 January 2015 of the formerly separate municipalities of Mu ...

History

The castle was built in the first half of the 12th century by the lords of Cmurek. Burkhard de Morekke was first mentioned in old records in 1148. In 1174 Reinbert of Cmurek was the chief chamberlain (procurator) at the court of the Styrian Border Count

Ottokar IV Ottokar IV (19 August 1163 – 8 May 1192), a member of the Otakar dynasty, was Margrave of Styria from 1164 and Duke from 1180, when Styria, previously a margraviate subordinated to the stem duchy of Bavaria, was raised to the status of an ...

. After the original owners died out in 1245, the manor and the castle were inherited by the von Traungaus, ministerial lords of Traungau. The castle itself was mentioned in sources only in 1299 as ''Hovs Murek''. In 1386, Cmurek was bought by the

Counts of Celje The Counts of Celje ( sl, Celjski grofje) or the Counts of Cilli (german: Grafen von Cilli; hu, cillei grófok) were the most influential late medieval noble dynasty on the territory of present-day Slovenia. Risen as vassals of the Habsburg duk ...

( Herman II and William), and in 1401 Count Herman of Celje sold it to his brother-in-law Hans Lord of Stubenberg. The Lords of Stubenberg owned it until 1931, when it was bought by Anton Mali, the castle's caretaker until then. The castle is still Romanesque in its irregular layout, with a Renaissance arcaded courtyard and peripheral residential tracts in the core, although 16th-century alterations have considerably obliterated the original architectural designs. In the 18th century a multi-storey Romanesque tower was demolished. After the Second World War, the castle was first converted into a home for the disabled in 1949, then into a home for the mentally defective in 1956, later renamed the Institute for the Mentally and Nervously Ill. It operated until 2004, and it is thought to have housed between 200 and 400 people at any one time.

Museum

Since 2014, the Museum of Madness has been housed in its premises, with the aim of preserving the history of the castle and the Institute for the Mentally and Nervously Ill. The Museum of Madness houses several exhibitions about the Mura River, along which the castle was built, the history and the building development of Cmurek Castle, and the history of life and work in the total institution. The castle is the venue for many events, including the Seviqc Early Music Festival in the past. The Amazon of Europe Bike Trail passes by the castle.

References

{{coord, 46.7055, 15.7868, type:landmark_region:SI, display=title Castles in Slovenia Buildings and structures completed in the 12th century Buildings and structures in Styria (Slovenia)