Iron Maiden

Železná panna is a 14th-century fortification tower on the bank of the Malše, one of the best-preserved pieces of Budějovice’s walls, and inside is the only permanent exhibition in Czechia about the town’s founder, Přemysl Otakar II. It takes its name from a torture device that by all accounts was never here — and yet one stands inside.

The exhibition was opened in 2017 by the association Města Otakarova. It tells the story of a king who founded about forty towns in Central Europe, from Písek and Kolín as far as Královec, today’s Kaliningrad. On four floors there is a copy of his ceremonial sword, whose original lies in Vienna, copies of medieval documents, and a video with the king’s relic cross from Regensburg Cathedral.

You can go inside only from May to September and only on selected days, so it pays to plan the day around it. From outside it can be seen any time; it lies right on the waterside walk.

Renamed for a better name

The tower on the right bank of the Malše appears in sources as Spilhaybl tower, probably after burgher and mayor George Spilhaybl, who in 1466 owned the neighbouring house. Only at the end of the 19th century did the name Iron Maiden prevail — mainly because it was more attractive than Špilhajbl. Legend said it was a torture device with hoops or arms set with spikes that tightened around the accused while a clerk wrote down the confession. The spikes were said to be placed to miss vital organs — not an execution, but a way to force confession and names of accomplices. Historian Karel Pletzer noted that no evidence is known that an iron maiden was ever here.

Bones that “confirmed” the legend

Originally the tower was entered only from the first floor. Under the Kammermayer owners (1866–1903) a ground-floor entrance to the river was broken through, and human bones were found during the dig. Somehow it was decided they belonged to those who did not survive torture — and in the town’s eyes the legend was confirmed. They could as easily have been from an oubliette, or from soldiers once killed there. It is a textbook case of a find without context confirming a story people already wanted to believe.

A copy of a copy of a copy

In 1993 Českobudějovické listy printed part of a letter by A. Neubauer claiming the original iron maiden was taken to Vienna after the Thirty Years’ War and stored in a Capuchin monastery. Budějovice newspaper editor E. F. Richter supposedly learned of this after the 1848 revolution and pressed for its return. Vienna refused to release it but allowed a replica. According to Neubauer, founder and metalworker Johann Stegman made it in Široká street for money from industrialist Karel Hardtmuth (yes, those pencils) and merchant Adalbert Knapp; it was finished in 1855 and shown to the public in the tower. After 1945 the trail goes cold. Today a 2004 replica stands in the tower — a replica of an object for which we have a single source: a letter from a man in a Rhineland poorhouse.

On site

Sources