Jan (John) Týřovský of Einsiedl (died 1609)

Jan was the son of Jobst, who in the division of 1558 received Skryje and Tytry. After his father's death in 1574 he resided at Skryje and, through agreements with his uncle Jiřík, gradually added to them Hudlice, Broumy, Chmelištná and other minor holdings.

In 1584 he bought the village of Slatina from Jan Chlumčanský, and a year later a far greater opportunity presented itself: Šebestián Lažanský, overburdened with debts, sold him in 1585 the stronghold and village of Chříč, the mill opposite the brewery, a sheepfold, the village of Lhota with the miller Kuba, a share in Holovousy, the demesne manor of Dubjany, a deserted mill on the river, a fishery with a privileged tavern and the village of Studená for 17,000 schocks of Meissen groschen. At that time he still wrote his name with Hřebečníky and Skryje. In 1582 Jan had Skryje, together with other property, entered in the renewed land tables. Hřebečníky, which he held from 1585 after his uncle Jiřík, he administered according to Sedláček only as guardian of Jiřík's son Jindřich Jakub, who in 1600, on coming of age, thanked him, “jenž statek nejináče nežli jako vlastní otec spravoval” (who had managed the estate no differently than a father of his own would).

In 1594 Jan sent to the campaign against the Turks three horsemen, led by “strejc jeho” (his kinsman), and eight foot soldiers under the ninth banner of the regiment of Bohuchval Rut; at the muster near Znojmo in September 1594 he is recorded among the lordly estate of the Rakovník district. In 1597 the general diet elected him, in place of the deceased Kryštof Jindřich Krakovský of Kolovrat, to the commission for reconciling the municipal law with the land ordinance, on which Daniel Adam of Veleslavín also sat. In 1600 he was, together with Kryštof Šlovský of Šlovice, captain of the Rakovník district – in a report to the emperor of 3 June 1600 on the collection of the diet's levy from shops, crafts and trades he signed himself “Jan Tejřovský z Ensidle na Křičí a Dubjanech” – and from 1602 to 1605 he sat for the lordly estate of his district on the committee that was to decide, in the event of sudden danger, on calling out the general levy; at that time he wrote his name “na Hřebečnicích” (at Hřebečníky). According to the list of regional captains he also held the office in 1602, 1604 and 1609. In 1605 he lent the Bohemian chamber 1,334 schocks 58 Meissen groschen.

Zikmund Winter ranks him among the harsh overlords: villagers are said to have “běhali světem, majíce železné obojky na krku z trestu, jak jim je věšíval a rukama svýma na petličný zámek zavíral urozený Jan Tejřovský z Ejnsidle a na Skrejích” (roamed the world with iron collars round their necks as a punishment, as the noble Jan Týřovský of Einsiedl and at Skryje used to hang them on them and lock them with a padlock with his own hands). In 1602 he conducted before the land court a suit against Šebestián Lažanský over a fine of twenty schocks “pro vystavení a zaražení nový krčmy” (for building and setting up a new tavern); Vilém Slavata noted in his memoranda how Lažanský's friend, the procurator Jan Peldřimovský, tried in vain to excuse himself from testifying.

Chříč became the new seat of the family, and for two decades Jan steadily bought further property to add to it. In 1601, at the wish of King Rudolf, he ceded to the royal chamber the villages of Skryje, Hradiště and Čilá for 18,000 schocks, and in exchange obtained as hereditary property the town of Kožlany with the church patronage, the Cukr mill, two rent-paying mills with the brook below the town, the fishpond above Kožlany, the village of Zavidov with a tavern, and Chmelištná with the church patronage and a mill, all at an appraised value of 26,250 schocks; the difference of 8,250 schocks he was to pay within two years. After thirteen years Kožlany thus returned to his family and was permanently joined to Chříč. In 1606 he sold Zavidov to Jaroslav of Vchynice at Krakovec for 4,000 schocks, and in 1609 he ceded Chmelištná to Vilém Sviták at Soseň.

In 1603 he also bought from Šebestián Lažanský the manor and village of Březsko, Milíčov with the church patronage, Hedčany, the deserted Bělbožice and a part of Hlince for 20,250 schocks. He deposited the earnest money at once with the land tables, but Lažanský did not accept it, and so the purchase was entered only in 1604 upon a summons. As late as 1609 Jan still owed Lažanský 2,000 schocks, and the latter obtained a chamberlain to take possession of the village and manor of Březsko; Týřovský, however, paid at once, and Březsko was joined to Chříč.

The church at Kožlany was in the family's patronage – as early as 1571 the Catholic priest Vít Kandidus was installed there on the presentation of Jan's father Jobst and his uncle Jiřík. With his own parish priests, however, Jan got on badly. After Vít's death his official entered the parsonage, took all the grain from the granary, the horses, cows and sheep from the stable and carried off all the clothes and a whole brew of beer, while the parishioners divided up the fields and meadows. Vít's successor Maťheol, of whom the people of Kožlany complained that he drank and that he slept through Sunday mass although some three hundred people wished to receive communion, complained to the archbishop that his patron had him thrown into the town gaol, where he spent eleven days in hunger and endured cold and stench. Jan, for his part, wrote to the archbishop that he would not tolerate Maťheol at Kožlany because he was fleecing the subjects.

The quarrels went on: in 1603 he asked the archbishop to install Václav Rakovnický at Kožlany, since the community and he himself were like sheep without a shepherd, and the newly installed Petr Hostinius complained in 1609 that his patron Týřovský was driving him from the parsonage and not paying him his tithes.

Jan remained a Catholic, yet lived in harmony with the Lutherans of Kožlany. At the request of the people of Kožlany he petitioned the king in 1604 to grant them four annual fairs and the levying of a toll on Břežanská hora near Vožeh's mill. Because the people of Čistá and Kralovice objected to the toll, the proceedings dragged on and Jan did not live to see the outcome.

He had no children, and so in 1607 he made a will in which he bequeathed all his property to his kinsman Jindřich Jakub Týřovský at Hřebečníky, to whom he owed 500 schocks. Should the latter too pass away without descendants, everything was to fall to the brothers Maxmilián, Karel and Bohuslav Jiří Krakovský of Kolovrat at Šípy, Jan's maternal uncles. When Jan died at Chříč in 1609, Jáchym Vysecký of Kožlany rode in haste to Prague on a nag and announced the death to Jindřich Jakub. Debts of 8,900 schocks remained on the estate.

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