The Guest Room

This room, located in the medieval palace area, once served as the castle’s guest room. Guests visited the castle from both overseas and from the manors of the surrounding country. The entourages of high-level guests could have included hundreds of people who, in addition to staying in the castle, were also lodged around the city. Such guests may have been friends of the castellan (who ran the castle when the owner was absent), and negotiating partners as well as merchants.

The Guest Room is situated next to the entrance leading to the castle’s inner courtyard. This provided guests with the freedom to explore the yard and other sections of the castle as they wished. The rooms of the medieval castle were mostly unfurnished, except for solid benches built along the walls. In fact, guests often brought with them nearly everything they needed. Tableware, linen cloths, and other personal belongings were transported in chests. More furnishings, such as tables, could be fetched from the castle’s storage whenever necessary.

The small window openings of the Guest Room face the inner courtyard. During the Middle Ages, the windows of the castle were covered with a thin sheet made of pig’s bladder or parchment. The sheet let in a small amount of light and provided protection from the wind. Openings for light were made small to minimise the loss of heat. During the 16th century, at the latest, the window openings gradually began to be covered with glass squares as part of the renovations carried out by King Gustav Vasa. The original glass windows of the castle have not survived, however.

The brick wall in the corner of the room is part of the medieval central heating system. On the lowest floor of the keep were four large central furnaces, or hypocausts. When heated up, the stones atop and inside the furnaces grew hot. The warm air was conducted into the rooms on the upper floors through heating channels called calefactors. However, during wintertime, the system could not produce enough heat to keep such a large stone building particularly warm. Thus, the courtiers were housed in manors in the surrounding country during the coldest time of winter. The Guest Room was heated with the Old Guard Room’s central furnace located behind the wall.