History
The castle was built in the middle of the 13th century on the initiative of knight Marcel, who received the surrounding lands from king Bela IV. Although the castle was not destroyed by invaders, it was abandoned around the middle of the 13th century. It began functioning again before 1346, when Marcelov and the surrounding lands fell into the hands of the Spiš provost. Around 1450 the castle was taken over by bratrzyks rebels, who named it Tabor, in reference to the Hussite movement. In 1453, Pope Pius II indicated it as one of the main seats of this rebels, from which raids and looting were carried out. In 1462, after the fall of their movement, the townspeople from nearby Levoča destroyed the stronghold, probably to prevent further robber activity. The castle has never been rebuilt.
Architecture
The castle consisted of a perimeter of the defensive wall defining an irregular, spacious courtyard measuring 128 by 103 meters. The wall was partially mounted on older earth ramparts. On the eastern side, its thickness reached up to 2.3 meters. A cylindrical tower with a diameter of 8.3 meters was placed in the north-eastern curtain of the wall, and on the eastern side a four-sided gate tower. The cylindrical tower dominated over the access road to the castle below. Its lower, preserved fragments are full, without internal rooms. Little is known about the internal buildings, it were probably mostly timber. In the eastern part of the courtyard, an oval perimeter of a 2-4 meter wide ditch was created, inside which there was probably a small stone building. One of the corners remained, which leads to the assumption that the building had a four-sided form.
Current state
The castle has not survived to modern times. Few fragments of its walls are hidden in the bushes that cover the surrounding area. Admission is free.
bibliography:
Bóna M., Plaček M., Encyklopedie slovenských hradů, Praha 2007.