second half of the 13th century · named in 1265 A castle for the road, not against the MongolsHrad na cestu, nie proti Mongolom

The Mongol invasion of 1241 is the reason Slovakia has stone castles at all: King Béla IV came out of it convinced that only stone on rock was worth building, and pushed the crown and the great families to build. Revište belongs to that wave — a royal castle raised in the second half of the thirteenth century and first named in a document of 1265, although some accounts treat a mention of 1331 as the first secure one. Note what it was not built for. Not to stop an invasion, but to sit on a road: the Hron valley was the artery between the mining towns of central Slovakia and the plain, and its twin castle at Šášov, a short way upstream, did the same job from the other side. Between them the corridor could be watched, and whoever watched it could charge for using it.Vpád Mongolov v roku 1241 je dôvod, prečo má Slovensko kamenné hrady: kráľ Belo IV. z neho vyšiel s presvedčením, že stavať sa oplatí jedine z kameňa a na skale, a tlačil korunu aj veľmožov, aby stavali. Revište patrí do tejto vlny — kráľovský hrad z druhej polovice trinásteho storočia, prvý raz písomne spomenutý v roku 1265, hoci niektoré výklady považujú za prvú istú zmienku až rok 1331. Všimnite si však, načo postavený nebol. Nie na zastavenie vpádu, ale na cestu: údolie Hrona bolo tepnou medzi stredoslovenskými banskými mestami a rovinou a jeho dvojča Šášov kúsok proti prúdu robilo to isté z druhej strany. Medzi nimi sa dal koridor ustrážiť — a kto ho strážil, mohol si za prechod pýtať.