Gýmeš was built by a man who had survived the Mongol invasion, and his descendants held the hill for six hundred years. Almost everything about the ruin above Jelenec follows from those two facts: where it stands, how it was fortified, and why it was finally left empty.Gýmeš postavil muž, ktorý prežil vpád Mongolov, a jeho potomkovia držali kopec šesť storočí. Z týchto dvoch vecí vyplýva na zrúcanine nad Jelencom takmer všetko ostatné — kde stojí, ako ju opevňovali aj prečo napokon ostala prázdna.
Drag the bar, or pick a year, to see what was happening here then.Potiahnite lištu alebo vyberte rok a uvidíte, čo sa tu vtedy dialo.
The Kingdom of HungaryUhorské kráľovstvo
The name appears first not as a castle but as a village. In 1113 an inventory of the property of the Benedictine monastery on Zobor, above Nitra, lists a place called Gimes — the oldest written trace of today's Jelenec. That is a fact about a document, not about when people arrived; these hills were farmed and settled long before any clerk wrote them down. A charter copied later records that in 1226 King Andrew II gave the settlement to Ivanka of the Hont-Poznan kindred, one of the old landholding clans of the kingdom. There was no stone castle yet — only a village, its lord, and a wooded ridge behind it.Meno sa prvý raz neobjavuje ako hrad, ale ako dedina. V roku 1113 sa v súpise majetkov benediktínskeho kláštora na Zobore nad Nitrou spomína miesto zvané Gimes — najstaršia písomná stopa dnešného Jelenca. Je to však údaj o listine, nie o tom, odkedy tu ľudia žijú; v týchto kopcoch sa hospodárilo dávno predtým, než to niekto zapísal. Neskôr odpísaná listina hovorí, že v roku 1226 daroval kráľ Ondrej II. osadu Ivankovi z rodu Hont-Poznanovcov, jedného zo starých veľmožských rodov kráľovstva. Kamenný hrad ešte nestál — bola tu len dedina, jej pán a zalesnený hrebeň za ňou.
On 11 April 1241 the army of the Kingdom of Hungary was destroyed by the Mongols at the river Slaná — the Sajó, in what is now northern Hungary. Among the survivors was Ondrej, son of that same Ivanka; his family later told the story that he had saved King Béla IV's life during the retreat. What is certain is what followed, and it followed all over the kingdom: Béla IV came home convinced that earth ramparts and timber palisades were worthless, and pressed his nobles to build in stone on high ground. Gýmeš is one of the castles that came out of that decision. It was not destroyed by the Mongols — in 1241 it did not yet exist.11. apríla 1241 Mongoli pri rieke Slaná rozdrvili vojsko Uhorského kráľovstva. Medzi tými, čo prežili, bol aj Ondrej, Ivankov syn; rodová tradícia hovorí, že na ústupe zachránil život kráľovi Belovi IV. Isté je to, čo nasledovalo, a nasledovalo to v celom kráľovstve: Belo IV. sa vrátil s presvedčením, že hlinené valy a drevené palisády nie sú na nič, a začal tlačiť na šľachtu, aby stavala z kameňa a na kopcoch. Gýmeš je jedným z hradov, ktoré z tohto rozhodnutia vzišli. Mongoli ho nezrovnali so zemou — v roku 1241 ešte neexistoval.
Somewhere between 1253 and 1270 Ondrej built his castle on the hill called Dúň, above the village. The oldest part is small and irregular because the rock decided the shape: an early Gothic wall closing a triangular courtyard, with a square tower at the high southern end that was both a strongpoint and somewhere to live. A second tower went up at the end of the thirteenth century and palaces were fitted in between the two. That is the castle Matúš Čák of Trenčín knew — the magnate who until his death in 1321 ruled most of what is now western Slovakia in his own name — and it stood in that form for another century and a half. Ondrej's descendants took a new surname, Forgáč, and from then on the family and the hill belonged to each other.Niekedy medzi rokmi 1253 a 1270 postavil Ondrej hrad na kopci Dúň nad dedinou. Najstaršia časť je malá a nepravidelná, lebo tvar určila skala: ranogotický múr uzatváral trojuholníkové nádvorie a na vyvýšenom južnom konci stála hranolová veža, ktorá slúžila na bývanie aj na obranu. Koncom 13. storočia pribudla druhá veža a medzi ne vstavali paláce. V tejto podobe hrad poznal Matúš Čák Trenčiansky, veľmož, ktorý až do smrti v roku 1321 vládol väčšine dnešného západného Slovenska po svojom, a takto stál ešte poldruha storočia. Ondrejovi potomkovia prijali nové priezvisko Forgáč a rod s kopcom odvtedy patrili k sebe.
Under the Forgáč family the castle grew into a fortress fit for gunpowder: through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries new palaces went up, and a great trapezoidal tower and a round tower were built to cover the entrance. Somebody had to pay for it. The extra labour service, dues and taxes squeezed out of the villagers below produced a peasant revolt in 1610, which the lords put down harshly. Then the frontier arrived: in the autumn of 1663 the Ottomans took the fortress of Nové Zámky, and their raiding parties reached Gýmeš and wrecked it. The castle was repaired, and the repair is still legible in its plan — a new line of defence with cannon bastions on the exposed southern side.Za Forgáčovcov sa z hradu stala pevnosť pre dobu strelného prachu: v 15. a 16. storočí pribudli nové paláce a pri vstupe veľká veža lichobežníkového pôdorysu aj valcová veža. Niekto to však musel zaplatiť. Zvýšené roboty, poplatky a dane vyústili v roku 1610 do vzbury poddaných z podhradia, ktorú panstvo kruto potlačilo. Potom prišla hranica: na jeseň 1663 Osmani dobyli pevnosť Nové Zámky a ich oddiely sa dostali až ku Gýmešu a zničili ho. Hrad obnovili a oprava je v pôdoryse čitateľná dodnes — na najohrozenejšej južnej strane pribudlo nové opevnenie s delovými baštami.
Gýmeš is one of very few Slovak castles where masons were still at work in the eighteenth century. The Gothic palace was rebuilt as the burial crypt of the Forgáč family with a chapel — which tells you what the castle had become: a monument to a family rather than a place to be defended. In 1712 Bishop Pavol Forgáč paid 130,000 florins for the castle, and then spent his money down in the valley: a Baroque parish church for the village between 1720 and 1722, and from 1722 a Baroque manor house on the flat ground. That is where the family went to live. A ridge with no road, that no carriage could reach, had simply lost to comfort.Gýmeš je jedným z mála slovenských hradov, kde murári pracovali ešte v 18. storočí. Gotický palác vtedy prestavali na rodovú kryptu Forgáčovcov s kaplnkou — a to dobre hovorí o tom, čím sa hrad stal: pamätníkom rodu, nie miestom, ktoré treba brániť. V roku 1712 zaplatil biskup Pavol Forgáč za hrad 130 000 zlatých, peniaze však míňal dole v doline: v rokoch 1720 – 1722 dal postaviť barokový kostol a od roku 1722 barokový kaštieľ na rovine. Tam sa rod presťahoval. Hrebeň bez cesty, na ktorý sa nedalo dôjsť kočom, jednoducho prehral s pohodlím.
The empty castle burned at some point after the family left, and then it was quarried. In 1833 its iron fittings were pulled out and carted down to build a sugar factory — the ruin was worth more as material than as a monument, which is exactly how people saw old castles before heritage protection existed. By the middle of the nineteenth century the estate had given the hill up for good, and the forest began to close over the walls. The end of Gýmeš was not a siege. It was out-lived by a warmer house in the valley, and by a century that had other uses for its iron.Prázdny hrad po odchode rodu vyhorel a potom sa z neho stal lom. V roku 1833 z neho vytrhali železné konštrukcie a odviezli ich na stavbu cukrovaru — zrúcanina mala väčšiu cenu ako materiál než ako pamiatka, čo presne vystihuje, ako sa na staré hrady hľadelo pred vznikom pamiatkovej ochrany. V polovici 19. storočia panstvo hrad definitívne opustilo a les sa začal zatvárať nad múrmi. Koniec Gýmeša nepriniesol útok. Prehral s teplejším domom v doline a so storočím, ktoré malo pre jeho železo iné využitie.
On 14 March 1939 Slovakia became a separate state allied to Nazi Germany. The Slovak National Uprising broke out on 29 August 1944 in central Slovakia; this district stayed under German control, but partisan groups worked the Tribeč forests through the winter. The Soviet army reached Jelenec on 27 March 1945; afterwards the Forgáč estate was confiscated and divided among the villagers, and two new streets were laid out on what had been the family's land.14. marca 1939 vznikol samostatný Slovenský štát, spojenec nacistického Nemecka. Slovenské národné povstanie vypuklo 29. augusta 1944 na strednom Slovensku; tento okres ostal pod nemeckou kontrolou, ale v tribečských lesoch pôsobili cez zimu partizánske skupiny. Sovietska armáda prišla do Jelenca 27. marca 1945; forgáčovský majetok potom skonfiškovali a rozdelili medzi obyvateľov a na bývalej panskej pôde vznikli dve nové ulice.
Nobody rebuilt Gýmeš; what saved it is slow, unglamorous work done mostly by hand. The civic association Castrum Ghymes works on the ruin season after season — clearing rubble, capping the wall tops so that rain runs off them instead of into them, and putting fallen stone back where it came from. Research and drawings for the residential tower, the donjon, were finished in 2025 and its major repair began in 2026, which is why part of the castle is fenced off in any given summer. There is still no ticket office and no road. You walk up, and the walls are standing because somebody spent their holidays keeping them up.Gýmeš nikto nepostavil nanovo; zachránila ho pomalá a nefotogenická práca, väčšinou ručná. Občianske združenie Castrum Ghymes pracuje na zrúcanine sezónu za sezónou — vypratáva sutinu, konzervuje koruny múrov tak, aby po nich dažďová voda stekala a nezatekala dovnútra, a vracia spadnuté kamene tam, kam patria. V roku 2025 dokončili výskum a projekt obytnej veže, donjonu, a v roku 2026 sa začala jej veľká obnova — preto býva časť hradu ohradená. Pokladnica ani cesta tu stále nie sú. Vyjdete hore pešo a múry stoja preto, že niekto strávil dovolenku tým, aby stáli.
Sources consulted while researching this page. Follow them to read further — and to check us.Zdroje, z ktorých sme pri príprave tejto stránky vychádzali. Kliknite a čítajte ďalej — aj si nás overte.
Sixteen videos for this chapter.Šestnásť videí k tejto kapitole.