Legend · České Budějovice
The Iron Maiden
At the corner of Zátkovo nábřeží and Biskupská street in České Budějovice stands a fortification tower called the Iron Maiden. According to legend a secret trial was held there in 1420 over a man who was to light three agreed signals on the tower for the Hussites. The tower then had another name.
In 1420 Budějovice remained on the Catholic side. When Jan Žižka stood before its walls with his army, the town prepared for defence. Royal captain Lipolt Krajíř of Krajk, lord of Landštejn, asked the Rožmberks for help.
Among the town men-at-arms served Prokop of Dubné. He kept watch inside the walls but secretly cooperated with the Hussites. They were to wait for an agreed signal: three lights on the tower.
The first night the lights did not appear. Nor the second. Prokop could not leave his detachment without raising suspicion, and he failed to persuade the tower keeper. Only on the third night did he get him drunk. At midnight three lights burned on the tower.
According to the legend the plot was uncovered before the Hussites could enter. A secret trial followed in the tower that then bore another name. The Iron Maiden name came centuries later — and with it a story of a torture device that the archives do not confirm.
The tower still stands by the Malše. What you see is fortification stone; what you hear is a name that outgrew the documents.
How it really was
The tower called Iron Maiden at the corner of Zátkovo nábřeží and Biskupská street was in the Middle Ages named Spilhaybl; its present name comes from a legend of a torture device whose presence in the tower is not attested.
The year 1420 holds. České Budějovice stayed on the Catholic side and was the only large support of King Sigismund in South Bohemia. In September and October 1420 the army of Jan Žižka of Trocnov really moved in the town’s surroundings. According to surviving reports no attack on the walls took place; Žižka finally withdrew and turned to the monastery at Zlatá Koruna.
The tower’s medieval name was Spilhaybl. The Iron Maiden name and the torture-device story are later. No document attests that such a device stood in the tower.
Where to follow the legend
Iron Maiden tower, corner of Zátkovo nábřeží and Biskupská street, České Budějovice. The last surviving fortification tower on this stretch of the walls, right by the bridge over the Malše. Five minutes’ walk from Přemysl Otakar II Square.
Where we know it from
- Encyklopedie Českých Budějovic, hesla Železná panna, husitská revoluce, válečné události, pověsti
- REITINGER, Lukáš. Lipolt Krajíř z Krajku ve víru husitských válek. Studia Mediaevalia Bohemica 10, 2018
- PLETZER, Karel. K českobudějovické pověsti o železné panně. Kulturní kalendář, listopad 1970
- SCHILD, Wolfgang. Die Eiserne Jungfrau. Dichtung und Wahrheit. Rothenburg ob der Tauber, 1999
- ČORNEJ, Petr. Husitství a husité. Praha: Karolinum, 2019
Version without embellishment
Hlavní verze sleduje, jak se zrada odhalila. Tahle jde s Prokopem od dveří kobky až nahoru do soudní síně a nevynechá nic z toho, co bylo mezi tím.
Železná panna – Bez příkras