before 1235 · first named in 1241 Older than the Mongols — and not destroyed by themStarší ako Mongoli — a nezničili ho

Starhrad was built to watch the old trade road up the Váh valley, and it was built early: historians put the work before 1235, in the reign of Andrew II, and the document usually cited as the first to name it is a charter of King Béla IV dated 1241, although not every account agrees on that date. Handle that year carefully. 1241 is when the Mongols crossed the Carpathians and destroyed the royal army, and it has become a magnet for castle stories all over Slovakia — but nothing in the record says the Mongols took this castle. What the invasion really did was convince Béla IV that the kingdom had to be rebuilt in stone, and the great wave of Slovak hill castles comes after it. Starhrad was one of the few that was already standing.Starhrad postavili preto, aby strážil starú obchodnú cestu Považím, a postavili ho zavčasu: historici kladú jeho vznik pred rok 1235, do čias Ondreja II., a za prvú listinu, ktorá ho spomína, sa zvyčajne pokladá listina kráľa Bela IV. z roku 1241 — hoci na tomto datovaní sa nezhodujú všetky pramene. S tým rokom treba narábať opatrne. Roku 1241 prekročili Mongoli Karpaty a zničili kráľovské vojsko a odvtedy je to letopočet, ktorý priťahuje hradné príbehy po celom Slovensku — o tomto hrade však nijaký prameň nehovorí, že ho Mongoli dobyli. Čo vpád naozaj spôsobil, bolo Belovo presvedčenie, že kráľovstvo treba prestavať z kameňa; veľká vlna slovenských hradov prichádza až po ňom. Starhrad bol jedným z mála, ktoré tu už stáli.