Trnovo parish house as a lodging for Emperor Charles VI on his way to receive the acts of hereditary homage (Erbhuldigungen) of the Inner Austrian provinces in 1728

In 1728, Emperor Charles VI received the acts of hereditary homage (Erbhuldigungen) from the Inner Austrian provinces of Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Gorizia and Gradisca, and from the ports of Trieste and Rijeka. On his way between Postojna and Rijeka, the emperor spent the night of 14 to 15 September and again the night of 18 to 19 September in Trnovo, today a part of Ilirska Bistrica. Three sources are particularly important for the reconstruction of the emperor’s journey and his stops in the wider area of the present-day municipality of Ilirska Bistrica, namely, the Ceremonial Protocol, preserved in the House, Court and State Archives in Vienna, the publication on the Carniolan Act of Hereditary Homage of 1739 by Karl Seyfrid Perizhoffer, and a travelogue written after 1735 by Johann Adam von Heintz. From the following source we know that the emperor spent both nights in the Trnovo parish house and that at that time the town had problems with water supply, which had to be fetched in buckets from the Bistrica River.