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Smiths and building ironwork at Turaida Castle
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protocol mentions an innovation – wooden window jambs with larger panes. The description
of different rooms allows concluding that one opening could have three, four, six, or even eight
parts. Sometimes it is difficult to understand whether these were parts of each wooden frame or
a leaf. This may be exemplified by the following: “8 panes, no lead, placed in a wooden frame,
out of these 4 with 4 pairs of hinges and 4 stays” (
8 Glaß Fenster ohne Bley, nur in Holtz gefaßet,
darunter 4 mit 4 paar Hängen und 4 Überwürfen
) (Saldus 2016, 357). It might be assumed
that the four upper panes were unmovable, but the four lower were in two leaves that could be
opened as hinges and fittings are recorded.
In the inventory protocols there are not mentioned any other types of nails, except broad-
headed nails in the fittings of gate leaves. However, these small iron items were widely used in
the castles. The list of building materials for repairing the roofs of Bauska Castle in 1694–1695
provides evidence for this – 12 000 nails for laths and 1000 nails, 8 inches long, for rafters of
one building and 4000 nails for laths and 300 nails, 8 inches long, for the other building are
mentioned (Bauska 2010, 159, 160).
SMITHS AND BUILDING IRONWORK
AT TURAIDA CASTLE
Evidence about Turaida Castle smiths and smithies
The retained oldest written records about artisans at Turaida refer to the end of the 16th
century. The household expense records of the Polish Livonian estates of the 1580s contain an
entry that in the years 1583–1586 at Beitiņi civil parish of Turaida Starostwo (eldership) lock-
smith Matis (in Polish: Matis Slosarz) had been working. During that period, iron was bought
several times for repairing windows and stoves at the Castle as well as the estate buildings and the
mill (Bērziņš 1935, 28, 29, 35–55). It is likely that the same locksmith Matis had also blacksmith’s
skills as no name of another smith at Turaida Starostwo appears in the records of that period.
A smith and smithy are mentioned in the inventory of Turaida Castle in 1590. The se-
quence of descriptions suggests that the smithy was located in the southern outer bailey of the
Castle. Charcoal and the smith’s tools were kept on the ground floor of the tower, and a smithy
with two bellows and an anvil was located nearby (Turaida 1999, 160). The inventory also re-
corded that at Beitiņi civil parish, owned by Turaida estate, some land was worked by the smith
who was summoned to the estate in case of need and was fed then (Turaida 1999, 169). This