1301–1400 The seat everyone wantedSídlo, ktoré chcel každý

The castle was the centre of Spiš county and the seat of the administrator of the king's estates here, so every royal death set off a scramble for it. When the Árpád dynasty died out in 1301 it went to the oligarch Omodej Aba, whose family then switched to Charles Robert of Anjou; in 1312, after the battle of Rozhanovce, Matúš Čák of Trenčín laid siege to it and the Spiš župan Filip Druget held him off. In the second half of the fourteenth century the castle roughly doubled: a new middle courtyard 150 metres by 60 was walled off, with a gate and a barbican, and below it a lower ward with its own towers. At times it was handed to members of the royal family almost as a private principality — to Béla IV's younger brother Coloman, and a century later to Stephen, brother of Louis the Great.Hrad bol strediskom Spišskej stolice a sídlom správcu kráľovských majetkov na Spiši, takže po každej kráľovej smrti sa oň strhla bitka. Keď v roku 1301 vymrela arpádovská dynastia, dostal sa k oligarchovi Omodejovi Abovi, ktorého rod potom prešiel na stranu Karola Róberta z Anjou; v roku 1312 ho po bitke pri Rozhanovciach obľahol Matúš Čák Trenčiansky a spišský župan Filip Druget mu ho ubránil. V druhej polovici 14. storočia sa hrad približne zdvojnásobil: prehradením vzniklo nové stredné nádvorie s rozmermi 150 na 60 metrov, so vstupnou bránou a barbakanom, a pod ním dolné predhradie s vlastnými vežami. Niekedy ho panovníci dávali členom vlastnej rodiny takmer ako údelné kniežatstvo — mladšiemu bratovi Bela IV. Kolomanovi, o storočie neskôr Štefanovi, bratovi Ľudovíta Veľkého.