The fertile
land, the protective shelter of the castle hill and the island, have always
invited the settlement of the Bled area. The first, and still rare traces of
humans in Bled, date back to the Stone Age. In the Iron Age, when the mining of
iron began in the Alpine regions, settlement increased.
Beneath the layer
of an already discovered Slavic necropolis at Pristava pod Gradom,
archeologists discovered 80 gravesites from the late Iron Age (800 to 600 BC) -
Celtic and Roman finds however, are more modest. Bled was later well populated
by the Slavs, who arrived in two waves. The Slavic settlements were most
probably located at exactly the same spots where the lakeside villages of
Mlino, Želece, Zagorice, Grad and Recica formed in the late Middle Ages.
A number of
gravesites are well known: Žale - the site of the modern day cemetery
(archeologically excavated in 1894), the park at the current Vila Bled (1929),
the necropolis in Želece (1937), the large necropolis at Pristava pod Gradom
(1948 to 1951), the gravesites next to the current parking area below the
entrance to the castle (1960, 1968) and the necropolis on Bled island (1962 to
1966).
Slavic
settlement
The first wave of
settlement of the Bled area occurred in the 7th century, the next reached the
Bled basin during the 9th and 10th centuries. Finds from the first settlements
illustrate the culture of the Old Slavic state of King Samo (632 - 658) and the
late antiquity traditions in these lands. Finds from the second wave of
settlement, such as ornaments found in gravesites include enamelled and
engraved earrings in the shape of a half-moons, circlets, round brooches and
iron knives. These artefacts indicate the historical development of Bled up to
the 10th century and some of these can be seen on exhibition at the Castle
museum.
After the fall of the Old Slavic
state, Bled with its surrounding area fell under Frankisch (Charlemagne 782)
and later under German rule. In 1004 the emperor Henrik II divided the lands
between the two Sava rivers, and in 1011 awarded Bled Castle, to Bishop Albuin
of Brixen - a photocopy of the original title deed can be found in the
collection at the castle. This action was a major turning point in the history
of Bled. The keepers of the castle were bonded knights, who upheld feudal
authority in the name of the bishops.
As a result, great changes occurred
in the forming of estates and the settlement of the region. In the middle of
the 14th century the Bishops of Brixen gave up direct administration of their
properties in Bled and leased them to the chief administrators at the time, the
von Kreigh family. Because of encroachment on their rights and brutal treatment
and oppression, in 1515 the peasants joined the fight for the "old
justice" in a pan-Slovene revolt.
In 1558 a new holder, the Protestant protector Herbert VII of Auersperg,
took over the castle. Until the middle of the 18th century the lessors were
exclusively aristocratic; later these also included townsmen, but they rarely
lived in the castle. In 1803, after 800 years of Brixen rule, Bled passed into
state ownership by a decree of the Court Commission in Vienna.
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