The village of Sósújfalu (Ruská Nová Ves) lies 8 km east of the center of the town of Eperjes (Presov), in Slovakia. The remains of the former fortress which was built in the Kingdom of Hungary, can be found 1 km east of the village. Location: https://tinyurl.com/bdevf3bk
Sóvár is one of the oldest settlements in the Tarca Valley. The castle of Sóvár was already mentioned by Anonymus in his Gesta (“ad magnam viam, qua itur ad Castrum Salis”) in 1230. Its importance was due to the salt extracted from the salt wells here, which were expropriated by the royal power and controlled from a small castle built between the two royal roads south of the settlement (no details of this early castle are known). The income from the salt wells reached 100 marks during the last Árpáds.
Simon’s son György, of Baksa’s clan, defeated a Mongol troop during the second Tatar invasion of 1285 at Regéc and then took part in the battles of King László IV against King Ottokar II. In 1288, as a reward for his merits, he received from the king “… the royal villages of Sowar and Sopotok in Sáros county, with the salt well (cum fossato seu puteo salis) and all their appurtenances, including the forest up to Topl, within the borders of the territory held by Béla IV, declaring all other documents issued in this matter null and void, and allowing him to build a castle on Souar for the defense of himself and his people.”
In a document dated 1298, Master György mentioned Sóvár as a standing castle: “King László gave us our hereditary estate Sóvár, Sópatak and Delna, and we did not yet have a castle, we sent the said Comes Thomas to Tarkő [*not identical with Tarkő’s castle! !] to guard the mountain, lest someone should build a castle on it and drive us out of our possession; and Comes Thomas guarded the mountain vigilantly and faithfully as long as we built a castle on it”. So, according to these two documents, the castle was built between 1288 and 1298.
In December 1314, King Charles I was in the Szepesség (Spiš, Zipt) Region, and on the 31st he also visited Sóvár. In 1423, the castellan of Sóvár, Abraham’s son György, was murdered and robbed. In 1437, the Sóvár castellan of the Soós family of Sóvár, Cheh László, was murdered by the men-at-arms of Mark son of Kakasfalvai János.
In 1438, the Soós family of Sóvár lost part of the castle and manor due to treason. At that time the castle had a “tower, built mainly of wood “. On 24.04.1458 King Matthias sentenced Sóvári János to the loss of his head and his property. On 23 November the king gave a part of Sóvár (“Sowar”) to Cudar Simon, the steward, and Rozgonyi Oszvald, the stable master, because the castle had fallen to the king due to the murder committed by its previous owner, Sóvári János who killed Berzevici Pohárnok (“Cupbearer”) Mihály. The following coat of arms was given to the Soós family on 6 March 1418, as owners:
In 1474 King Matthias renewed and confirmed the licenses granted to the Soós family for the Sóvár salt mining by Kings László IV and Charles I. Furthermore, in 1494 the children of Soós Miklós of Sóvár, Péter, Imre, and Anna, forbade him from alienating the castle of Sóvár, and the castellan of Tokaj, György the deacon, from entering the estate.
In 1528, the castle of the Sóvári Soós family was captured and sacked by the people of Eperjes. King Ferdinand ordered Török Bálint and Johann Katzianer to return the castle and its belongings to Soós János, husband of Viczmándi Eufrozina and to the father of Péter. Sometime after this, the Soós family changed sides and sided with King Szapolyai János.
The troops of Serédy Gáspár unsuccessfully besieged Sóvár in 1532, but in 1536, the general of King Ferdinand, Leonard von Fels, besieged the castles of Sáros and Sóvár starting from Eperjes. Sóvár was surrendered to the Habsburgs by the sons of Sóvári Soós Péter. The town of Eperjes gave Fels 4,000 forints to cover the costs of the campaign, so in 1538 the king pledged Sóvár and its mine to Eperjes for 4,000 forints.
The mine was in the hands of the city until the Chamber repaid the full amount owed to Eperjes. The Soós family sided back with King Ferdinand. The king called on the people of Eperjes to return the castle, but they refused to do so, so the royal army occupied the castle in 1542 and returned it to the Soós family in 1543. In 1547, the maintenance of the castles of Sáros and Sóvár was carried out by the four towns of Upper Hungary.
In 1552, Sóvár was again occupied by the inhabitants of Eperjes and held by them. In 1556, the Transylvanian troops of Báthory György burnt down the house (curia) of Soós György in the village of Sóvár and maltreated the elderly man. The reason was that Soós Péter had defected from Báthory and returned to the Habsburg king’s allegiance. In a letter dated 26 September 1556, King Ferdinand in Vienna ordered the captains of Wolf Pucheim and Szerdahelyi Dersffy János of Kassa to compensate the elder Sóvári Soós György (son of Péter and Vetési Zsófia) for the damages suffered by the armies of Báthory György, compensating him out of the property of the castle of Csicsva.
From March 1570 the salt mine was again under the direct administration of the Chamber, and although in 1573 some parts were returned to the litigant family, the Chamber explored new salt deposits and opened new mines in the area of Sóvár. In 1575, Eperjes collected 1,500 forints for the army from the revenues of the salt mines of Sóvár, which were again under the administration of the Chamber.
The castle was destroyed in 1575 on the orders of King Ferdinand, by Captain Wernher György of Sáros Castle. Either this was incomplete or it was repaired at some point because in 1642 Sóvári Soós István (captain of Prince Rákóczi I György) remembers in his will that “the golden saber he left to his brother Ferencz is up in the castle”, a skirt lined with briars, which he left to his sister Soós Judit, that was also in the “castle”.
Sóvári Soós György was involved in the Wesselényi Conspiracy. After a long trial, he lost two-thirds of his estates (including the castle of Sóvár ), which were taken over by the State Treasury. There is no record of the castle after that, it was probably abandoned. In 1715, the Diet decreed that the castles of Kapi and Sóvár were to be destroyed.
The castle was built on a steep rocky hill about 45x35m, which can only be approached from the east. The castle was protected by a 13m wide ditch, which ran into the rock face to the north and into the slope to the south. Directly in the ditch, there was a road protected by a small forecourt (gateway?). A circular wall probably ran the entire length of the lower courtyard, ending at the entrance gate. Part of it has survived on the north side, together with the fragments of a circular tower about 5 m in diameter.
The upper castle could probably only be reached on foot. It was defended by a stone fortress along its edges. In the middle of the plateau was a 17x8m building cut into the rock, probably the palace. A few meters from the southern side of the palace stood a massive square tower, 8x8m in plan and 4m in diameter inside. In front of the castle, there is a rest area, and from the upper castle, there is a perfect view of the castles of Nagysáros and Kapi.
The fortified church of Tótsóvár
Tótsóvár (Slovak: Solivar, German: Salzburg) is a formerly independent municipality, now part of the city of Eperjes in Slovakia.
In the area of Tótsóvár, there were salt springs already in the Middle Ages. The settlement was founded in the 13th century, and the first written record of it comes from a charter of King Béla IV in 1262. In 1285 King László IV gave the salt springs and their surroundings to the Sós family. Their church, dedicated to King Stephen, is mentioned in the papal tithes of 1332. It was rebuilt in the Gothic style in 1413 by Soós György of Sóvár. This is commemorated by a plaque in the current parish church.
Industrial salt mining began in the area in 1572 but was stopped by the flooding of the area on the night of 22 February 1752. As the groundwater flooded the traditionally constructed mines, the old method of extraction could not be continued. The former mine had become a large underground salt pond. The new method was to bring the brine to the surface in leather sacks using pumps driven by oxen and horses. The concentrated brine was processed in 5-7 hectolitre leather bags. From 1785 the factory came under the administration of the Imperial and Royal Chamber of Commerce in Vienna.
You can read more about the importance of salt on my page:
https://www.hungarianottomanwars.com/essays/salt-the-white-gold-of-hungary/
Sources: www.varlexikon.hu and Wikipedia
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Here are a few pictures of Sóvár Castle:
