CODEX ARCHIVE

A blog dedicated to archiving the Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 in-game Codex accompanied by hand-picked trivia.

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This blog is dedicated to uploading all 262 entries from the in-game Codex of the game Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, alongside a piece of historically relevant trivia for each entry, added by us. All entries will be tagged by their Codex category:

— #general

— #characters

— #society

— #crafts

— #events

— #locations

"->" indicates a link to a source for the trivia and additional reading!

DLC exclusive codex entries will be added after the base game entries are complete. Links to each category will be updated as entries are uploaded. Run by @bad-system & @charlie-rulerofhell. Special thanks to @alcassin & @sirhanscapon!

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LOCATIONS — 256/262 — St. Barbara's Cathedral

Construction of the church dedicated to St. Barbara began in 1388, when local wealthy miners, townspeople and patrician families decided that the town needed a representative sanctuary. Intermittent construction and alterations continued until the beginning of the 20th century, fortunately always with sensitivity and respect for the original Gothic style. The Cathedral of St. Barbara is one of the four cathedrals in Bohemia, and the fact that the building was funded by the townspeople and not by the church was later reflected in its unique decoration. The original Gothic paintings depict miners and craftsmen from the smelters in addition to classical church motifs. Later additions such as stained glass windows (added since the early 20th century, with the latest from 2014) depict not only saints, but also figures performing various modern professions. In the game you can find many references to the cathedral from townspeople and guild members, for whom the construction of the cathedral was a matter of prestige. The wealthy competed to immortalise themselves in the decoration through generous sponsorship, including securing specific altars. Space and the number of altars were limited, so only the most generous could leave their mark in history.

TRIVIA

— The decision to build the Church of St. Barbara was influenced not only by the wealth of Kutná Hora, but also by the town's struggle for independence from the nearby Sedlec Monastery. The citizens deliberately chose to build it on land belonging to the Prague Chapter rather than on property belonging to the monastery. Their plans were initially even more ambitious, with plans for a structure twice the size of the existing building.

Construction proceeded in several stages and was closely tied to the fortunes of Kutná Hora's silver mines. The Hussite Wars interrupted work for more than 60 years, during which the church was looted and damaged. When construction resumed in 1481, responsibility passed to prominent architects including Matěj Rejsek, the architect of the Kutná Hora stone fountain. Further progress depended on the income generated by local mining, and as silver production gradually declined, work slowed and eventually stopped altogether in 1558.

Although widely known as St. Barbara's Cathedral, the building was never a bishop's seat and is officially classified as a church rather than a cathedral in the ecclesiastical sense.

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LOCATIONS — 255/262 — Skalitz

The area where Skalitz (Skalice), the birthplace of our hero Henry, is situated today, was probably settled in the 13th century. The development of the town was prompted by silver mining in the area as well as the existence of the nearby parish of Rovná. The owners of the castle included Ješek of Skalitz (from 1384) and Bohdal of Drahonice (1402-1403). In 1403, Wenceslas IV took possession of it and placed it under the governance of the knight Sir Radzig Kobyla. However, in the same year, he had to leave the castle in order to save the inhabitants of Skalitz from Sigismund’s army, who torched the castle and the adjoining village; the estate was never rebuilt. In December of 1403, Wenceslas IV granted the remains of the village to Jan Sokol of Lamberg. The ruins of the medieval castle and its fortifications was scavenged for building material for the Church of St. John of Nepomuk. Today, only a small part of the masonry of the gate, the bailey and the walls remain.

TRIVIA

— According to a legend, Skalice already existed in 832 during the reign of the mythical prince Neklan, a predecessor of Přemysl the Ploughman. As the story goes Neklan got into a quarrel with Krasník, the Duke of Kouřim, and when Neklan sent out men to conquer Krasník's home, the duke fled to the castle in Skalice. As this too was besieged, Krasník is said to have escaped through a secret passage – much like Racek Kobyla according to some accounts – making it safely to Moravia. Skalice's true history is directly tied to the Sázava Monastery. Under the monks Skalice's later parish church in Rovná was founded in the 12th century. The church was dedicated to Saint James the Greater, the patron saint of miners, indicating the long mining tradition of the region. Around 1240, it was renovated in a late Romanesque style, and it retained much of the sculptures and frescoes of this time, making it one of only nine churches in the Czech Republic with original Romanesque artwork. After Wenceslas gifted Skalice to Jan Sokol of Lamberk, and Sigismund mortgaged it to Jan Zajímač of Kunštát, it ended up as property of the Sázava Monastery in 1417. At this time, Skalice is first mentioned as an independent market town under the name “Skalice of the Silver Mountains”, later developing to Stříbrná Skalice, Silver Skalice. The short distance between Sázava and Skalice is also rich of the monastery's legends. When you walk through the woods from one place to the other, you will come by an old haul road known as the Devil's Furrow. Legend has it that this road was created by Saint Prokop by ploughing the ground with the Devil himself, harnessed to his plough. A little bit further up the road lies a hill plateau with the nickname Saint Prokop's Bowling Ground. After ploughing for a while, Prokop is said to have found some rest here – by playing bowling with the Devil. Of course, the Devil cheated. Prokop still won the game.

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LOCATIONS — 254/262 — Semine

Semín (Semine) is a small village lying to the west of Troskowitz. In earlier times, it included a fortress that no longer exists today, which, according to surviving records, belonged to Jan and Oldřich of Semín in the year 1365. These two brothers, and later their children, owned the fortress until 1416, but did not reside there much because they chose other places for their seats. In 1375, Oldřich's son Jan therefore assumed administration of Semín, and after him it passed to his sons Petr and Přibík. Whether these Semín men were ancestors or relatives of the Semín of Semín line – an old Bohemian minor noble family – unfortunately can no longer be definitively proven or disproven. So far, the only discovery is that the first to bear that name was Jakub the Younger Semín of Semín, as late as 1422. Even so, we decided to present the owner of the Semín fortress in our game as a representative example of impoverished nobility dwelling in pleasant countryside. As for the place where the fortress is situated, the terrain bordered by steep rocky slopes, lakes, marshes and fishponds became an ideal settlement area as early as the middle of the first century BC. Remains of massive ramparts can be found here, the most prominent part being a ten-metre-high frontal rampart with a moat, which archaeological research indicates was built by the Celts. In Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, one also finds the Semín mill, which belonged to the lords of Semín for centuries, and it remains an important part of the picturesque landscape to this day.

TRIVIA

— Besides the medieval fortress mentioned in surviving records, Semín was once part of a larger estate that included a manor farm, a mill and the neighbouring village of Želejov. In 1558, the property was sold by the lords of Semín to Jindřich Smiřický of Smiřice and incorporated into the larger Hrubá Skála estate. After the property confiscations that followed after the Bohemian Revolt, references to the fortress gradually disappeared from historical records. It was likely abandoned or destroyed during the Thirty Years' War, and no visible remains survive today. Its exact location is no longer known.

The area is also home to Hradiště Semín, the largest documented Celtic hillfort in Bohemia, covering almost 180 hectares beneath Trosky Castle. The purpose of the site remains uncertain, according to archaeologists. Only the remains of the rampart at the entrance to Semín have survived. It may have served as a refuge during periods of conflict, but some researchers believe it could also have held religious or ceremonial significance.

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LOCATIONS — 253/262 — Sedletz ossuary

The ossuary is an underground chapel of the All Saints cemetery church, built in the second half of the 14th century, which originally belonged to the Cistercian abbey in Sedletz. It bears an uncanny resemblance to the underground chapels of Jerusalem where pilgrims were buried. During the Hussite wars, the monastery was burnt down and abandoned together with the ossuary. It was not rebuilt until the second half of the 15th century. In 1511, the bones from the cemetery were exhumed and moved to the ossuary’s underground , where a half-blind monk put them together into famous pyramids and bone structures. In our game, however, we decided to attribute their creation to Henry. In its later history, the Sedletz ossuary underwent Baroque modifications and today it is one of the most popular tourist sites in the Czech Republic. The bone structures, made from the remains of more than 60,000 people, have undergone extensive renovation and, as a memento mori, are still a reminder that: dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return…

TRIVIA

— What makes the Sedlec Ossuary so special compared to similar burial grounds is its size. The bones are said to stem from 40,000 to 70,000 people, and there are several reasons for this high amount. Ongoing political conflicts, a bad harvest and the plague are said to have led to 30,000 deceased and buried here within the first century of the cemetery's existence, with mass graves found containing up to 1,200 bodies. The Hussite Wars of the 15th century supposedly fed the burial place with another 10,000 bodies. Many people even travelled here from as far as Bavaria, Poland or the Low Countries, asking for a chance to bury their dead ones in Sedlec. The reason for that lies in the legend of the abbot Jindřich or Heidenreich, who was allegedly sent off to Jerusalem by King Ottokar II in 1278. Upon his return, the abbot brought a jar with Terra Sancta, Holy Soil with him – according to most sources from Golgotha, the site of Jesus Christ's crucifixion, and the abbot sprinkled the soil across the Sedlec cemetery, turning it into a Campus Sanctus. This holy field was said to be able to transform the fresh corpses of those deserving into white, dry bones within a day, while rejecting and casting out the bodies of sinners right away. This miracle gave the deceased a fast track ticket to Heaven and their bones relic-like qualities: Donations to the ossuary were said to cure ailments, just like touching an aching tooth with one from the ossuary could heal it. Ghosts would appear to bless the just or haunt the unjust – such as a young man visiting the ossuary in 1663, said to have questioned the moral virtue of the buried bodies. A skull immediately took revenge by jumping at him, making the man fall and causing him to die on the spot. All the tales quickly led to a proper burial tourism, and the cemetery had to be enlarged multiple times, reaching 3.5 hectares or 5 football fields at its peak.

There is a hint of truth to the legends. The bones do indeed show a great quality and preservation, although this might have been caused by pollutants stemming from the mining and smelting in the area and all the arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead and zinc in the ground and thus also in the bones. The whiteness of the bones exhibited in the ossuary today is also the work of the artist, Frantièek Rint, a woodcarver commissioned by the aristocratic family of Schwarzenberg in 1867 to arrange the bones in an artful manner, after they had bought the estate of the dissolved monastery. Rint disinfected and prepared the bones with chlorinated lime, then he arranged them in the form of chalices, altars, crucifixes or monstrances, of a 3 metre tall chandelier said to contain every bone of the human body, and even of the Schwarzenberg's coat of arms – including the raven in the bottom right corner, made of hip, rib and hand bones, hacking into the skull of an enemy.

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LOCATIONS — 252/262 — Sedletz monastery

The Sedletz Monastery used to be the oldest Cistercian abbey in the Czech Kingdom. Founded by the Bavarian Abbot Gerlach in 1142 , it was later abandoned and reoccupied many times in its history, either due to wars or poor financial situations. In 1421, it was burnt down by the Hussites, only the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist survived. After the end of the war, only a few monks returned and it remained in this dismal state until the 17th century. In 1783, the monastery was completely abolished by an imperial decree. The cemetery church of All Saints with the adjacent burial ground was originally part of the monastery, but later it began to serve as the municipal cemetery for Kuttenberg, because as records showed, burials were taking place there long before the arrival of the monks. The cemetery was at its busiest during wars and plague epidemics. In 1318 alone, 30,000 dead were buried there, and another 10,000 during the Hussite wars. The site is shrouded in many legends. The most famous one states that the abbot of the Heidenreich Monastery brought a handful of dirt from Jerusalem on his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which he then scattered around the cemetery and the ossuary. Thus, the cemetery ground became sacred and highly sought after, not only by the people of Kuttenberg, but also by pilgrims and those wishing to be buried there from all over Bohemia and neighbouring regions. Who wouldn’t want to rest in the ground where Jesus Christ himself once walked? Today, a cigarette factory is located on the site of the former monastery.

TRIVIA

— According to a local legend, the nobleman Miroslav of Zimburg was travelling through the region when he stopped to rest in a forest clearing. While he slept with his saddle beneath his head, his companions witnessed a strange sight: a white bird with golden wings flew into his mouth and then out again. When Miroslav awoke, he told them that an angel had appeared to him in a dream and instructed him to found a monastery on that blessed spot. He obeyed, and the new settlement was said to have taken its name, Sedlec, from the saddle (sedlo) on which he rested.

In reality, Sedlec Abbey was founded in 1142 by Miroslav of Zimburg with the support of Prince Vladislav II and Bishop Jindřich Zdík. A year later, monks from the Cistercian monastery of Waldsassen arrived, establishing the first Cistercian abbey on Czech land. For more than a century Sedlec remained a relatively unremarkable institution and at one point was even considered for dissolution due to poverty.

Its economic status changed drastically with the discovery of rich silver deposits on monastery lands near Kutná Hora. The silver mining industry transformed Sedlec into one of the wealthiest monasteries in Bohemia, due to the monastery leasing the land to the miners. Under Abbot Heidenreich, a close adviser to King Wenceslas II, the abbey gained considerable political influence and became involved in the events surrounding the ascension of the Luxembourg dynasty to the Bohemian throne. At its socio-political peak the monastery controlled more than fifty villages, the towns of Malín and Malešov, including other estates across the kingdom.

However, despite the proximity to its neighbours, the relations with Kutná Hora were not always friendly. The growing mining town frequently clashed with the monastery over influence and parish rights, which were a source of considerable income. In July 1412, there was a clash between miners and the monastery's subjects, which ended with the burning of the Sedlec town of Malín and the murder of its inhabitants. Sources suggest this conflict was also a result of the rising contempt for the wealthy German monks residing in the monastery.

Although activity eventually returned to the monastery, Sedlec never fully recovered. The abbey experienced a final period of renewal after the Thirty Years' War, when Abbot Jindřich Snopek commissioned architect Jan Blažej Santini-Aichel to rebuild much of the complex. This revival ended in 1783, when Emperor Joseph II dissolved the monastery as part of his reforms.

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LOCATIONS — 251/262 — Rabstein

Rabstein Castle (from German: ‘Rabe’ - raven, and ‘Stein’ - stone, therefore sometimes also known as Krkavec Castle, Raven’s Stone or Crow Stone) was built in the 14th century by Nicolaus Rabenstein, a wealthy burgher from Kuttenberg. The settlement likely stood on a promontory above the Vejvanovský stream which flows into the Vrchlitz (Bach) river. A mill called Rabštejnka was later built near the castle. Sources mention the castle until its demise in 1455. Local floods often occurred in the vicinity of Vrchlitz river, so today most of the ruins are submerged. We know that after Rabenstein’s death, the property belonged to other rich families from Kuttenberg: the Rotlevs, after 1416 the Piseks, and then the Lems. For the purposes of our game, however, we have decided to present the site in the form of a romantic ruin.

TRIVIA

— That nothing of the old Rabštejnka Mill and little of the castle remains is not the result of floods, but of deliberate flooding, conducted between 1966 and 1970 for the construction of the Vrchlice Dam. The idea to artificially exploit the water flow of the Vrchlice River existed since the 16th century. In 1948, a new legislation stripped smaller mills of their right for commercial milling, only allowing milling for self-sufficiency benefits. Operations of Rabštejnka became too expensive, the mill was taken over by local farm collectives, the former mill fell into disrepair. In the 1960s, five mills including Rabštejnka and a large part of the village Stará Lhota were bought up and largely demolished; trees were cut down, a 132 metres long concrete curved arch dam was erected. The entire landscape was reshaped from a rugged, mountainous terrain into a flat lake merging with the plateau around it. The reservoir serves mainly as drinking water supply for the larger area of Kutná Hora, but also to maintain the water level, and for supplying hydropower generation and the golf resort of Roztěž. It is said that on days when the water in the reservoir is low, the ruins of some of the mills can still be seen within the water. Old records of the former owners of both the mill and the castle say that the castle was once bounded by a pond and a dam on one side, used for the work on a nearby mine shaft. The mill is recorded since the 14th century, and after 1455, when the castle was last mentioned, it was run by individual millers from the villages of Malešov, Dobřen and Roztěz, or Kutná Hora. The forest around the mill served as the owners' personal hunting ground, in the 19th century, fruit trees and an apiary with over 50 beehives were added. All of that was lost in the water. From the old castle only a few stones of the former walls remain, as well as something that might belong to a collapsed cellar.

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LOCATIONS — 250/262 — Raborsch fortress

The first written mention of Raborsch appears in 1362. At that time, the adjacent village belonged to Mikuláš Velkuš, a townsman from Kuttenberg, who sold it to Mikuláš Wonderbute between 1386-1389. The rapid change of owners is characteristic of the fortress, even to this day: after his death it passed to King Wenceslas IV, from whom it was acquired by another Kuttenberg burgher, Martin Oderin. In 1402, the fortress and the village were burnt down by King Sigismund of Hungary during the siege of Kuttenberg. The remains of the fortress continued to change hands during the 15th century until they came under the administration of King George of Podiebrad and from there to the captain of Kolin, Jan Hrabaň, at Přerubnice. The list of subsequent owners is extensive. Today the fortress (rebuilt into a castle) is privately owned. Only part of the masonry of the south-east corner and one room with a ribbed vaulting have been preserved from the original Gothic building.

TRIVIA

— Although Ratboř fortress changed owners many times and was heavily damaged during Sigismund’s siege of Kuttenberg in 1402, the wider settlement of Ratboř continued to develop in the following centuries. The village itself is first mentioned in records connected to the Benedictine monastery of Kladruby in 1115, though the surviving document is believed to be a later forgery. More reliable references reference it in 1352. Over time, Ratboř became associated with several noble families and estates linked to nearby Malešov and Suchdol.

The older castle complex (Raborsch fortress), known today as Starý zámek Ratboř ("Old castle Ratboř "), was rebuilt in the Baroque style and altered again in the 19th century, while Nový zámek Ratboř ("New castle Ratboř ") was constructed beside it between 1911 and 1915.

One of the most important figures connected to Ratboř was Ludmila Františka of Rzavé, who inherited the estate in 1673. During her administration, she restored much of the settlement after being neglected since 1400s. She rebuilt the burned Schodecký mill and founded the nearby Hrázský and Skokanovský mills, restored the village itself, and oversaw the construction of a brewery, manor house, blacksmith shop, and several cottages near the estate courtyard. She also repaired the Church of St. Wenceslas in Ratboř and expanded the neighbouring settlement of Těšinky after purchasing additional land from the Malešov estate in 1695.

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LOCATIONS — 249/262 — Pschitoky

The first written mention of the village Pschitoky dates back to 1141, according to which it was in possession of the Olomouc archdiocese. In 1249, Pschitoky was briefly held by Havel of Löwenberk, and a year later the Olomouc bishop Bruno of Schauenberk ceded the village to the Sedletz Monastery. In the 14th century, the farmstead and part of the village belonged to various patrician families from Kuttenberg, such as Ondřej Puša, under whom a Gothic fortress was added. In 1397, Wenceslas Bartosch (Václav Bartoš) became the owner, and pledged to pay a permanent fee to the Kuttenberg almshouse from the farmstead. After the Hussite Wars, Hanush Ferydan held Pschitoky, burdening the farmstead and fortress with many debts which he refused to pay, so in 1443 the chief mint master decided that Hanush and his descendants ‘from now and for all time’ had to pay 50 dozen groschen to the Kuttenberg almshouse every year. The last burgher to own Pschitoky was Voršila Cihelníková, who sold the estate to Václav Materna of Květnice in 1501. The Maternas rebuilt the Gothic fortress in the Renaissance style. To this day, only the Gothic vaulted cellar remains, though in a very poor condition.

TRIVIA — Since 1397, the owners of the Přítoky fortress agreed to pay a regular fee to the Kutná Hora almshouse. It was this exact fee – together with an accumulation of unsettled payments – that later drove the burgher Hanush Ferydan into quarrels with the city and into debt. Although matters were settled by 1443, the affair resurfaced when the estate was sold 20 years later to the Prague merchant Jan Gebhart, again, as an acquittance of existing debts. With Přítoky being under the law of šos, a kind of land tax, the price paid for the castle went to the city of Kutná Hora, when another Prague burgher called Petr Šafář chimed in, calling himself a debtor of the late Ferydan and thus laying claim to the tax paid for the castle. The matter was brought to court in 1460 and answered rather harshly by the officials. Ferydan had lived in the city for many years before his debts, they said. If Šafář, or any other man, had felt that they were owed money, they should have simply seized it from him. “But since you, Petr, did not come forward at that time, it seems that you have lost your right.” In 1501, Přítoky abandoned the šos and was put under provincial law. This did not end its owners' financial struggles. The Materna family, who rebuilt the castle in its 16th century Renaissance style, got again into disputes with Kutná Hora over their refusal to pay the almshouse fee. The castle's owner of 1623 had to sell the property after he got heavily fined for his participation in the Estates' Uprising. It is therefore perhaps not surprising, that the statue of John the Almsgiver at the street to Přítoky, erected under the following ownership by the Kutná Hora Jesuit Order and adorned with the coat of arms of the Counts Věžník of Věžník, loyalists to the emperor during the uprising, lost its head sometime in the past, earning it the nickname Bezhlavý Jan, Headless John. -> -> -> ->

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LOCATIONS — 248/262 — Prague

Capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia. For many centuries it was rather a close neighbourhood of several different towns on both banks of the Vltava River. Its greatest prosperity was brought about by Charles IV, who united these towns into a single unit and made it the residence of his imperial court. He began building strong fortifications, contributed to significant changes in the city’s architecture, started the construction of the first Czech cathedral and founded the first European university north of the Alps, Charles University, thus elevating the city to a European metropolis. At the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries, according to surviving records, there were 4,000 houses in Prague with a permanent population ranging from 40-50,000. Additionally there were students and the royal court. Although Prague could not compare to the size of Florence or Paris, it was still the largest city in Central Europe. With its convenient location at the crossroads of trade routes, Prague was an important trading location and, thanks to the University, a cosmopolitan centre with a large foreign population.

TRIVIA — According to a popular legend first recorded in Chronica Boemorum (1119–1125) by Cosmas of Prague, the Czech name Praha comes from the word práh meaning "threshold". In the 18th century, Josef Dobrovský argued that the name came from the old Slavic word práh, meaning "ford" or "rapid", in reference to the city’s origins at a crossing point on the Vltava and its river rapids. In the 19th century, another theory suggested the name came from old Czech verb pražiti (to burn) and vypražený les (burned forest), because the area might've been cleared by fire prior to settlement. In the 20th century, linguist Antonín Profous revised this theory, noting that pražiti could also mean "to roast" in reference to the sun, describing a hot, dry place such as the shale ridge where Prague Castle was founded.

Prague is also often called the "City of a Hundred Spires", a nickname based on a 19th century count by mathematician Bernard Bolzano, though modern estimates place the number closer to 500. Other traditional nicknames include the Golden City, the Mother of Cities, and the Heart of Europe. -> ->

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LOCATIONS — 247/262 — Ponds of the Trosky region

Today, there is a system of several ponds around the Trosky Castle. Although they were built in the 16th century, we decided to leave them in place because of the amazing views that their surroundings offer. The largest of the ponds is the Rocktower Pond, which covers an area of 9 hectares, the others are Vidlák, Rokytňák, Kerchak, Hrudka and Lower Pond. In the Middle Ages, Nebakov Fortress stood near Nebakov Pond. The area is now a nature reserve, called Podtrosecká Valley. It is the largest complex of wetland habitats in the Bohemian Paradise region and is home to many species of strictly protected organisms. If you ever decide to visit Trosky Castle, we recommend you stop by this nearby locality as well.

TRIVIA — Up until the 16th century, the ponds of the Podtrosecká údolí, the Podtrosecká valley, existed as a complex of wetlands, along a valley cut into the land by the rivers Jordánka and the Žehrovka, forming a natural canyon between the sandstone rocks. Around the water, the land was covered in swamps of black alder and spruce, deep forests of oak, birch or fir, full of wild blueberry bushes, narrow valleys between free-standing rock towers and rock plateaus. The water's force eroded the rocks, formed long fissure abysses in the cliffs as well as natural springs, the biggest of which were once believed to hold medicinal qualities. The wet ground was always used for agriculture, but with the creation of the ponds in the 16th century, the swampy wetland could be bundled in seven large water basins, making the ground around it more accessible, not only for farmland, but also for fishing and the milling trade. 18 mills are known to have existed in the valley, many of them active until 1952 and reaching back to the late Middle Ages. Among them the Podsemín, or Lower Semine, Mill, first mentioned in the 16th century. Until 1880, it used to be equipped with four waterwheels, of which one powered a sawmill, while the others were used for grain. The mill even had its own bakery, and at least after World War I Podsemín is known to have provided baking supplies for the surrounding villages.

After the Podtrosecká valley was declared a nature reserve, ending the agricultural use of the meadows, the original variety of flora could gradually overgrow the former farmland. Today the area is again inhabited by 146 different species of plants, 18 of which – like sedge or the round-leaved sundew – are protected. Within the reed beds and peat meadows, 126 different species of vertebrates live, many of those directly in and from the water. Kingfishers will live at the ponds, water and mountain wagtails nest in the rocks, next to lizards and mountain newts, and crayfish, clams and carps fill the water.

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LOCATIONS — 246/262 — Poland

In Poland at the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries, similar to the Czech lands, wars over governance, territory, and faith were occurring. The country’s prosperity and its cultural and economic growth were particularly hampered by the relentless attacks of the Teutonic Knights from the so-called Crusader states on northern Polish territories, justified by the need for Christianization and the suppression of the still dominant paganism in the Baltic region. Unfortunately, Poland was not unified for long, because after the death of Casimir III the Great, the Piast dynasty, which had long unified and ruled the country, ended in the male line. The crown was taken by Casimir’s cousin, Ludwig I of Anjou, the King of Hungary, but he struggled to gain the obedience of the Polish nobility, and his rule and ability to unite a larger coalition against the Crusader invasion were thus very limited. The most suitable solution eventually was the marriage of Ludwig’s daughter Hedwig to Jagiełło, the Grand Duke of Lithuania. He took the name Vladislav, was accepted as the King of Poland, and, along with the rest of Lithuania, was baptized. This created the Polish-Lithuanian coalition, which significantly weakened the Teutonic Order. However, the Crusaders did not want to give up so easily, and the war continued for many more years. A turning point in this conflict was the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, in which the Teutonic forces were decisively defeated by the Polish-Lithuanian army. Many Czech fighters fought on the side of the Poles at that time, including Jan Zizka and Jan Sokol of Lamberg.

TRIVIA

— The defeat of the Teutonic Order at Grunwald was not only a military disaster but the beginning of its financial and political decline. In 1386–1387, Lithuania officially converted to Christianity when Jogaila married Jadwiga of Poland and became King of Poland. By the time of the battle, Lithuania’s conversion to Christianity had already stripped the Order of their initial justification for a crusade, which made it difficult to disguise their war efforts as religious and not territorial.

The battle itself was catastrophic for the Order as Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen was killed alongside a significant portion of the Teutonic high command. After the battle, Poland and Lithuania held around 14,000 captives. Under the Peace of Thorn, the Teutonic Order agreed to pay 100,000 kopas of Prague groschen, nearly 20,000 kilograms of silver, in four yearly installments to secure their release. Only ransom paying mercenaries were kept in captivity, and the ransom was equal to around £850 000 today, which was roughly ten times the annual income of the king of England. While the Order as an entity survived, in the years that followed, the Order was forced to pay enormous reparations to Poland and Lithuania, raising taxes, stripping churches of precious metals and taking large loans. By 1419, large parts of Teutonic territory had been abandoned, their currency made obsolete, and they were plunging into irreversible decline.

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LOCATIONS — 245/262 — Opatowitz

As the name suggests, the village probably owes its foundation to the abbots (opati) of the nearby Sedletz Monastery, who from the 13th century tried to colonise this inhospitable and sparsely populated region. The first written mention of the village dates back to the latter half of the 14th century, when it belonged to the Kuttenberg burgher Jan Glenc. The farmstead of Opatowitz was founded sometime during the 14th century by the monastery, which subsequently supported it until it was sold to another wealthy Kuttenberg burgher, Wenceslas Bartosch (Václav Bartoš), in 1379.

TRIVIA

— Over the centuries, the little village Opatovice went through a large number of hands. Its first documented owner, the burgher Jan Glencl – with an l – donated the property to the Kutná Hora hospital in 1350. After that it was in control of the city of Kutná Hora various times, of its wealthy burghers and noble families, then gifted to the hospital of Čáslav, confiscated by Emperor Ferdinand I in 1547 for participation in the anti-Habsburg revolts, controlled by the crown and then by private hands again, later by the Kutná Hora Jesuit Order and sold at a public auction. Only in 1989 did the village reach independence. For a large part of its history, Opatovice belonged to the nearby city Červené Janovice – not to be confused with Uhlířské Janovice, another small city in the district of Kutná Hora, one borough of which also happened to go by the name Opatovice. To keep matters simple, the Opatovice featured here was officially named Opatovice I in 1921. Next to Červené Janovice, Opatovice also shares a long history with the Sedlec monastery, whose monks likely first cultivated the land. This connection is not only visible in Opatovice's name, but also in its coat of arms which features two silver lilies in a black stripe and a red abbot's crosier on a silver field. Former owners like Karel Multzer of Rosenthal are also buried in the Sedlec ossuary.

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LOCATIONS — 244/262 — Old Kutna

Old Kutna was a mining settlement and likely one of the original settlements associated with silver mining even before the establishment of the town of Kuttenberg in the late 13th century. It was located on the north-western edge of today’s town, as evidenced by records dating back to 1369, and subsequent archaeological surveys, that uncovered the foundations of several buildings. In addition, the Church of All Saints still stands here, originally a Romanesque chapel rebuilt in Gothic style and later rebuilt many more times, so that the only remaining element of the original buliding is a relief of an angel bearing the town’s coat of arms.

TRIVIA

— Although Old Kutna survives today only in very fragmented records, it marked the earliest known predecessor of the silver based settlements that later came to be Kuttenberg. Latin sources refer to it as Antiqua Cuthna, likely a small mining community near Sedlec that flourished briefly before disappearing in what is assumed the political unrest of the late 13th century. The earliest traces of silver have been found dating back to the 10th century, when Bohemia already had been in the crossroads of long-distance trade for many centuries. Silver dinars from the period between 985–995 were discovered in the settlement of Malín, which is now a part of Kutná Hora.

Its successor, Mons Cuthna, grew rapidly during the reign of Wenceslas II as silver discoveries triggered a large migration of miners, merchants, and craftsmen into the region. The settlement expanded so quickly that disputes over its jurisdiction arose between Čáslav and Kolín before the crown established direct royal administration.

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LOCATIONS — 243/262 — Nebakov

The castle was likely built at the end of the 13th century on a promontory overlooking Nebak pond, surrounded on all sides by steep cliffs and water. To construct the fortress, the rock beneath it had to be manually hewn away and levelled, which was a relatively complex process for its time, given it was a small noble castle of little significance. According to archaeological research, it had a three-part layout with a courtyard and a fortified keep, connected to other parts of the complex by a bridge spanning a rocky moat. The first mention of the castle in historical sources only appears in 1455. The castle burned down at the end of the 15th century and from 1538, is described as abandoned and in ruins. The ramparts, moats, and notches in the rock are all that remain of the fortifications today. We endeavoured to reconstruct the castle in the game in an appearance that aligns as much as possible with archaelogical findings.

TRIVIA

— Having been just a small noble private estate, the little information known about Nebákov are tied to the history of its surrounding places. In 1454, a woman named Machna Nebákovska is mentioned as the owner of the nearby estate Obrubce. Next to the castle of Nebákov, the mill below on the Žehrovka river also belonged to her. By 1538, when it had already burned down, it must have belonged to the estate of Roveň, because Roveň's owner sells both the estate and the castle, together with the mill of Nebákov, to another landowner. In 1619, the lands of Roveň and the mill, together with a few other villages and minor estates, is confiscated by Albrecht von Wallenstein, supreme commander under Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II during the Thirty Years’ War, whose military prowess made him a de facto vice-emperor until he committed high treason and was murdered by loyalists of Ferdinand. A little more than about the castle is known about the Nebákov mill that still stands today, albeit in a reconstructed Baroque style since the 18th century. Prior to its renovation it was equipped with a millstone and two water wheels, and peasants from Troskovice and the Čimyšl district are said to have brought their grains here to have them ground. An old legend surrounding the mill is also connected to the Nebákov fortress: It speaks of a knight, once lord of Nebákov, who was madly in love with the miller's daughter of the Nebákov mill. She, however, had promised herself to a peasant from the nearby mill in Podsemín. One day, when the miller's daughter and her betrothed were enjoying their time on a raft on the pond of Nebákov, the lord saw them from his castle above, got furious and shot them both.

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LOCATIONS — 242/262 — Miskowitz

The first mention of the village can be found in 1309, when it belonged to Nechval and Peškov of Miskowitz. In 1358, part of the village was taken over by the Skalitz monastery. Until 1805, Miskowitz was enclosed by three gates, but it is not known for sure whether there was a wall between them. The fortress in the village stood since time immemorial and the first written mention dates back to 1419, when it belonged to a Kuttenberg burgher Vaněk Píšek. The area surrounding the village is rich in water and the spring of St. Adalbert, which supplied Kuttenberg in the Middle Ages, can be found here.

TRIVIA

— Besides its connection to Kuttenberg’s medieval water system, Miskovice is surrounded by one of central Bohemia’s most unusual geological landscapes. The surrounding area forms part of the so-called Miskovice Karst, a rare pseudokarst system of caves, sinkholes, and fossil-rich limestone deposits. The same system fed the spring of St. Adalbert, whose waters once supplied all sixteen public fountains of medieval Kuttenberg through a wooden aqueduct that crossed the Přítocká valley.

The municipality is also overlooked by Vysoká Hill, the highest point in the Kutná Hora region. Its summit was once the site of a Baroque chapel and hermitage known as Belvedere, built at the end of the 17th century by Count František Antonín Špork. Though struck by lightning and destroyed in 1834, its ruins remain visible today.

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LOCATIONS — 241/262 — Mesoles

A village 5 km southwest of Kuttenberg. The first written mention of the village is from 1384, and then another from 1445, when the village was sold to the Sasau Monastery. Otherwise, all we know about the village is that in 1932, there were 192 inhabitants and the village had two inns and two blacksmiths, while in the earlier times, we have mentions of only 45 inhabitants.

TRIVIA

— The name of the village of Mezholezy, originally Mezilesi (amongst the woods), was likely inspired by the deep forests once surrounding the settlement. It is the smallest village in the municipality of Miskovice, formerly belonging to the Sázava monastery, Sedlec and Malešov, and in the 17th century in part to the Jesuit college of Kutná Hora. A Baroque Jesuit estate with residential buildings, stables, a granary and a barn, occupying the entire Southeastern part of the village, can still be found today. Mezholezy suffered greatly during the Thirty Years' War, and by 1654, only four inhabited and four deserted homesteads were left. Among the oldest constructions is a former limestone quarry by the road to Bylany, with the ruins of a lime kiln nearby.

It was in this quarry, where in 2003 a doctor and hobby fossil collector on the search for marine mollusks stumbled across the broken pieces of bones, the 40 cm long femur of a dinosaur and fragments of a pelvis and/or ribs. In 2005, parts of finger joints could be found. It took until 2017 for scientists to identify the full significance of the discovery: The specimen was a basal ornithopod dinosaur from the Early Upper Cretaceous period, around 95 to 94 million years ago, the only not-flying dinosaur of this period found in Central Europe north of the Alpine Tethyan area. The bones likely belonged to a roughly 3.5 metres long almost-matured young adult. In 2017, the dinosaur, formerly only referred to as “the first Czech dinosaur”, was also given its proper name: Burianosaurus augustai, named after palaeoartist Zdeněk Burian and palaeontologist Josef Augusta, two Czech scientists who greatly shaped the perception of dinosaurs in the 20th century.

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