The Castles of King Wenceslaus IV as Venues for Diplomatic Negotiations

The Castles of King Wenceslaus IV as Venues for Diplomatic Negotiations The article deals with castle architecture of the late fourteenth century and is an analysis of Wenceslaus IV’s castles as venues for diplomatic negotiations and use of castle premises for fairs. Václav IV is a very specific and contradictory figure in Czech history. His personal interests often went beyond the world of royal duties, formalities and ceremonies, which he was eager to avoid, preferring instead to devote himself to hunting or art. That is why he liked to stay in his luxury private residences and castles, which provided him with safe refuge from monarchical duties. He was particularly fond of the hunting areas in the Křivoklát region with the Křivoklát castle, where he would stay for months. Yet Křivoklát was located away from the main transport routes, so foreign envoys and ambassadors often had to look for it laboriously, which was very inconvenient. That is why Václav IV began to prefer Žebrák, next to which he later built the monumental Točník castle. The two castles were close to the most important provincial route from Prague to Nuremberg. The king’s reluctance to perform his monarchical duties also influenced the form of his castles. Thus for the first time we see the ruler’s private residence and “official” spaces being clearly separated in Bohemia. This is linked to the emergence of the so-called “second or banquet palaces”, that is specialist buildings for receiving guests and hosting fairs, which we find in Wenceslaus IV’s main castles, namely Točník, Žebrák, probably also Křivoklát and Novy hrad near Kunratice.