Re: VMs: Zinkovy castle for sale

["Rafal T. Prinke" <rafalp@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jeff,

> Any bidders? It's fourth castle from the bottom.
> http://property.org.uk/unique/castles.html

That's the genuine alchemy - you buy it here:

http://www.civitas.cz/zinkovy.php

at 6.2 mln and then sell at the former website
at 9.3 mln = 3.1 mln dollars (minus tax)

The trcik is you must steal 6.2 mln somewhere first :-)

But seriously - it is really magnificent! Wow!

> If Barscius came from here then he
> was either a serf or he was born in the castle.

He was certainly not of high nobility, and most probably
not nobility at all. The castle was owned by
by the "z Vrtby" (of Vrtba) family - the name has
the vowels/consonants ratio which excludes it from
the VMS discourse :-)

> See this site. This describes serfdom and mentions one Mr. Jan
> of Klenovy & Janovice & of Zinkovy.
> http://my.athenet.net/~blahnik/smrzovice.htm
>
> This article shows the precarious nature of the serfdoms where
> property could be given to freed serfs but would be taxed heavily.
> As the king was said to own the serfs they were only a little better
> than slaves.

Certainly not! Neither the article you quote nor my
independent knowledge can confirm such statements.
There were obviously many quite poor people - but
the Blahnik family of millers described there seems
to have been doing quite well, selling and buying
real property etc. The sums mentioned are almost as
large as that paid for the VMS - the "golden pieces"
are really "zlaty", and if it was the same as Polish
"zloty" of the time, there were 4 or 6 to one ducat (florin).

People with academic or other "professional" career
(medical, legal, church) would mostly come not from nobility
but burgher (craft, merchant) families. It may also
have been landless gentry etc. (taking into account
somewhat different social structure and inheritance rules
in this part of Europe, especially when compared to
England or Scotland).

So I doubt he was born in the castle - and certainly
not in the family of its owners. Besides, the present castle
was built in the 17th c. (on the place of an earlier one),
so even if we buy it, it will not have mural inscriptions
made by Baresch :-)

Best regards,

Rafal

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