PROCHOWICE CASTLE, VIEW FROM SOUTH-EAST

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

CURRENT STATE

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is­to­ri­ans usu­al­ly be­lieve that the founder of the cas­tle in Pro­cho­wi­ce was Iko von Parch­witz, pa­lat­i­nus of Leg­ni­ca and long-time com­pan­ion of Duke Bo­le­sław Ro­gat­ka (d. 1278). Some of them, how­ev­er, doubt the ex­is­tence of a brick cas­tle in the 13th cen­tu­ry, point­ing to the ini­tia­tive of Ste­phan von Parch­witz (d. 1342) - grand­son of the men­tioned Iko, who in 1305-42 con­trolled the town. This knight, to­geth­er with his sons, Pe­ter and Mir­zan, cre­at­ed around his an­ces­tral seat in Pro­cho­wi­ce a com­plex of prop­er­ties form­ing a se­mi-in­de­pen­dent ter­ri­to­ri­al state. He main­tained pri­vate of­fi­cials in it who sup­port­ed him in im­pos­ing pow­er on his neigh­bors, whom he turned in­to fiefs. The von Parch­witz fam­i­ly at that time be­longed to the elite of the Duchy of Leg­ni­ca, as ev­i­denced not on­ly by the size of their es­tates, but al­so by their fam­i­ly con­nec­tions reach­ing the high­est lev­els of the so­cial hi­er­ar­chy. Both of Ste­phan's sons were mar­ried to wom­en be­long­ing to promi­nent fam­i­lies: Mir­zan mar­ried Czuch­na, daugh­ter of the voivode of Kra­ków, Spy­ci­mir of Mel­sztyn, while Pe­ter mar­ried Elż­bie­ta Pia­stów­na (d. af­ter 1412), al­leged daugh­ter of the Duke of Świd­ni­ca Bol­ko II and his wife Ag­niesz­ka Hab­sburg.

VIEW FROM THE WEST, MEDIEVAL GOTHIC HOUSE ON THE LEFT, TOWER AND RENAISSANCE PART OF THE CASTLE ON THE RIGHT

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ow­ev­er, the pow­er of the von Parch­witz fam­i­ly weak­ened with time, and its debts grew. There­fore, in 1383 Piotr was con­strained to sell to the Dukes of Leg­ni­ca, Rup­recht (d. 1409), Wa­cław (d. 1419) and Hen­rik (d. 1398), the Parch­witz prop­er­ty which in­clud­ed, be­sides the cas­tle, al­so the town, sur­round­ing lands, rents, fish­ing grounds, pas­tures and ev­ery­thing on and un­der the ground. In 1400 Wa­cław and Rup­recht hand­ed o­ver the Pro­cho­wi­ce prop­er­ty to knight Ot­to El­der Zed­litz and from then un­til 1554 the stronghold was owned by this aris­to­crat­ic Si­le­sian fam­i­ly. In the 1420s Ot­to mod­ern­ized the cas­tle by ex­tend­ing its for­ti­fi­ca­tions and rais­ing the main tow­er. He al­so built the near­by cas­tle church of St. An­drew. Dur­ing the reign of von Zed­litz fam­i­ly, at the be­gin­ning of the 16th cen­tu­ry, the trans­for­ma­tion of the me­dieval knight's seat in­to a fash­ion­able Re­nais­sance res­i­dence be­gan. As part of this pro­cess, the orig­i­nal for­ti­fi­ca­tions were mod­ern­ized to cre­ate an out­er bas­tion perime­ter, and a chapel was added.

VIEW OF THE TOWN AND CASTLE IN THE ENGRAVING BY FRIEDRICH BERNHARD WERNER, "TOPOGRAPHIA SILESIAE 1744-68"

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n 1554 Ot­to the Younger von Ze­dlitz (d. 1562) passed the cas­tle with the town and the whole es­tate to his son-in-law, the Im­pe­ri­al Field Mar­shal Hans von Op­pers­dorf (d. 1584). The new own­er de­mand­ed that Duke Frie­drich III de­clare the Pro­cho­wi­ce land a free es­tate, which re­sult­ed in long con­flict be­tween them. This strug­gle was on­ly stopped by Em­per­or Max­i­m­il­ian II, who de­cid­ed in 1567 that Op­pers­dorf had to pay the Duke a com­pen­sa­tion of 20,000 ducats. In the same year Frie­drich's son Hein­rich XI (d. 1588) set­tled in Pro­cho­wi­ce to­geth­er with his court, tak­ing shel­ter from the plague that was spread­ing in Leg­ni­ca. Af­ter the prince left, the cas­tle and the sur­round­ing lands were leased to mem­ber of the Im­pe­ri­al War Coun­cil Fabi­an von Schö­naich (d. 1591) and his wife Eu­fe­mia von Ze­dlitz.

CASTLE ON OTHER ENGRAVINGS BY WERNER, ON THE LOWER PICTURE ON THE RIGHT WE CAN SEE THE MONASTERY IN LUBIĄŻ (NO. 5)

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his very wealthy no­ble­man, who had made his for­tune dur­ing his mil­i­tary ser­vice and whose am­bi­tions reached the ducal ti­tle, ex­pand­ed and mod­ern­ized the cas­tle in Pro­cho­wi­ce. He added new build­ings, ap­plied new plas­ter, and dec­o­rat­ed the fa­cades with sgraf­fi­to. He al­so in­stalled a clock on the cas­tle tow­er, whose hands can be seen well and the ex­act mech­a­nism can be heard well. In 1597 the town be­came the prop­er­ty of the Dukes of Leg­ni­ca and Brzeg. Con­se­quent­ly, the cas­tle, as an unim­por­tant fam­i­ly seat, fell in­to de­cline, which was fur­ther ex­ac­er­bat­ed by the Swed­ish in­va­sion in 1612. Al­though soon af­ter­wards Duke Georg Ru­dolph (d. 1653) ren­o­vat­ed the in­te­ri­ors (1617), and in the fol­low­ing years his sis­ter Ma­rie So­phie slow­ly con­tin­ued the con­struc­tion works, the next Swed­ish oc­cu­pa­tion in 1642 had such an ad­verse ef­fect on the build­ing that some parts of it had to be de­mol­ished.

CASTLE ON CARL FRIEDRICH STUCKART'S DRAWING FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE XIXTH CENTURY

ARTWORK BY THEODOR BLATTERBAUER, 1885

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hanks to the ef­forts of Duchess Louise von An­halt-Des­sau (d. 1680), wife of Duke Chris­tian, the cas­tle was ren­o­vat­ed in the 1660s, but de­spite that it nev­er re­gained its for­mer glo­ry. Af­ter the death of the last Pi­ast Duke of Leg­ni­ca and Brzeg Georg Wil­helm (d. 1675), it be­came the pos­ses­sion of Em­per­or Le­opold Hab­s­burg (d. 1705). In 1741 it was in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to prop­er­ty of Prus­sian kings from the von Ho­hen­zol­lern dy­nasty and then leased as a res­i­den­tial build­ing. In 1820 the di­lap­i­dat­ed res­i­dence was pur­chased by Erd­man Syl­vius von Pück­ler (d. 1843), who in 1835-37 thor­ough­ly ren­o­vat­ed and re­built it. In the sec­ond half of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry the cas­tle be­longed to Ernst Li­man, then to Ernst Schle­ger, and at the be­gin­ning of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry it was in an own­er­ship of Le­opold We­ber. Fre­quent changes of own­ers had a neg­a­tive im­pact on the con­di­tion of the build­ing and on­ly in 1906, when the cas­tle and the grange be­came the prop­er­ty of Count Kurt Stra­ch­witz von Gross-Za­uche und Cam­mi­netz, a thor­ough ren­o­va­tion of the fa­cade and in­te­ri­or was car­ried out. How­ev­er, these works were re­al­ized with­out any re­spect for the his­tor­i­cal her­itage, as a re­sult of which many Re­nais­sance ar­chi­tec­tural de­tails were ir­re­triev­ably de­stroyed.

PHOTOS FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY, IN THE TOP: THE GOTHIC HOUSE AND THE RENAISSANCE COURTYARD
IN THE MIDDLE: XVI-CENTURY GATEHOUSE AND INTERIOR AFTER RESTORATION IN 1909
BELOW: THE RENAISSANCE COURTYARD ONCE AGAIN

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n the 1930s, an ed­u­ca­tion­al cen­ter was or­ga­nized in the cas­tle, where Nazi in­doc­tri­na­tion of lo­cal youth was car­ried out. At the end of World War II, the build­ing was dam­aged by the So­vi­ets, and its fur­nish­ings were van­dal­ized and loot­ed. This trag­ic episode be­gan the pe­ri­od of the great­est de­cline in the his­to­ry of the for­mer ducal seat, which was the re­sult of aban­don­ment and in­suf­fi­cient care pro­vid­ed by the town and provin­cial au­thor­i­ties. De­spite the fact that in the 1960s some work was done here to pro­tect the walls and in­te­ri­ors of the Goth­ic house was par­tial­ly ren­o­vat­ed, dur­ing the en­tire pe­ri­od of com­mu­nism this valu­able mon­u­ment fell in­to com­plete ru­in. In 2000, the ru­ined cas­tle was bought by a pri­vate own­er.

SOUTHERN ELEVATION OF THE CASTLE IN THE 1920S AND TODAY (2021)

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

CURRENT STATE

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he mid­dle age cas­tle was built on a rough­ly rect­an­gu­lar plan, mea­sur­ing 26x38 me­ters. In its north­ern part there was a Goth­ic dwel­ling house (10x25 me­ters), built in the low­er parts from stone, and in the up­per parts from brick. The build­ing had four sto­ries: a base­ment, a low ground floor and two floors, 4 and 3.5 me­ters high, with two rooms on each floor. The cur­tain wall of the cas­tle mea­sured about 11 me­ters high and was topped by a guard porch and a crenel­la­tion. In its south­ern part a gate was lo­cat­ed, pre­ced­ed by a wood­en draw­bridge con­nect­ing the cas­tle is­land with the main­land. The gate pas­sage was flanked by a quadri­lat­er­al tow­er with a base of 7.5x8 and a height of about 30 me­ters, with a prison in the low­est storey. In the sec­ond half of the 15th cen­tu­ry or at the be­gin­ning of the 16th cen­tu­ry the cas­tle was sur­round­ed new de­fen­sive wall with a quadri­lat­er­al gate tow­er on the south­ern side and two bas­tions on the east­ern and west­ern side.

CASTLE RECONSTRUCTION FROM THE EARLY XIV CENTURY BY JAN SALM

MEDIEVAL GOTHIC HOUSE, VIEW FROM NORTHEAST

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n 1548-62, un­der the su­per­vi­sion of Hans Lyn­d­ner, a chapel and a per­pen­dic­u­lar east build­ing were erect­ed, and the ex­te­ri­or el­e­va­tions re­ceived Re­nais­sance-style dec­o­ra­tion. Two decades lat­er Fabi­an von Schö­naich built a three-storey east­ern wing, to which a risalit topped with a late Re­nais­sance gable was added on the south­ern side. The in­te­ri­ors of the res­i­dence and its el­e­va­tions have been dec­o­rat­ed with pseu­do-rus­ti­ca­tion and sgraf­fi­to at that time. Dur­ing the re­con­struc­tion of the res­i­dence af­ter Swedish in­va­sion in the sec­ond half of the 17th cen­tu­ry, the cas­tle chapel was re­built and a small south-west wing was erect­ed. In the south­ern part of the cas­tle a bai­ley has been de­vel­oped since the Mid­dle Ages, with farm build­ings and ser­vants' quar­ters. A park was es­tab­lished to the north and east of the cas­tle. It was ac­cessed from the south wing through two pseu­do-Goth­ic por­tals and a wide stair­case, the re­mains of which have sur­vived to the pre­sent day.

CONTEMPORARY VIEW OF THE CASTLE: 1. GOTHIC HOUSE, 2. TOWER, 3. CHAPEL, 4. MEDIEVAL GATEWAY,
5. EASTERN WING, 6. RISALIT, 7. RENAISSANCE GATEWAY, 8. SOUTHWESTERN WING (NOT EXISTING),
9. BUILDING IN THE MEDIEVAL COURTYARD (NO LONGER EXISTING), 10. DEFENSIVE WALL WITH BASTIONS

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t the turn of the 18th and 19th cen­turies, the cas­tle moats, no longer need­ed at that time, were par­tial­ly lev­elled and trans­formed in­to gar­den beds. Sev­er­al decades lat­er, most of the de­fen­sive walls were al­so de­mol­ished, in­clud­ing the west­ern sec­tion of the cas­tle's cur­tain wall and the en­tire line of the out­er ram­parts. Al­ready in the 20th cen­tu­ry, dur­ing the ren­o­va­tion car­ried out by Count Kurt Stra­ch­witz, the top of the main tow­er was changed and the south­ern build­ing was low­ered. Some porch­es and Re­nais­sance ar­chi­tec­tural de­tails were al­so re­moved. Af­ter the end of World War II, the south­west­ern build­ing and the ed­i­fice stand­ing be­tween the mid­dle wing and the Goth­ic house were de­mol­ished.

ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS FROM PROCHOWICE CASTLE, BELOW THERE IS A PLAQUE
COMMEMORATING COMPLETION OF CONSTRUCTION WORKS IN 1581

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

CURRENT STATE

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he ba­sic spa­tial lay­out of the cas­tle and its most im­por­tant build­ings have been pre­served, while its for­ti­fi­ca­tions, such as de­fen­sive walls and bas­tions, have hard­ly sur­vived. The old­est part of the strong­hold - a me­dieval Goth­ic house with relics of as many as four la­trine bays ­ is now in a par­tial ru­in. Look­ing at the cas­tle from the front, our at­ten­tion is at­tract­ed by the en­trance gate to the north­ern court­yard, rich­ly dec­o­rat­ed with an­tique mo­tifs, and valu­able stone de­tails placed in the top of the south wing. The gar­den pavil­ion, or rather its rem­nants, lo­cat­ed on the bor­der with the town park, re­mains in a very bad con­di­tion. Af­ter many years of sys­tem­at­ic ne­glect, the cas­tle has been in pri­vate hands for some time, and un­der the care of a new own­er, its slow re­vi­tal­iza­tion is un­der­way.

FACADE OF THE RENAISSANCE COURTYARD BEFORE (2005) AND DURING (2021) REVITALIZATION

THE EASTERN WING OF THE CASTLE IN 2005 AND AT PRESENT (2021)

The castle is not open to the public. You can see it on­ly from out­side.

There is a large park adjacent to the castle, just right for a walk with your dog.

No restrictions for drone flights.

VIEW OF THE CASTLE FROM THE NORTH

IN THE PARK

GETTING THERE

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ro­chow­ice is sit­u­at­ed about 16 km north-east of Leg­ni­ca, by the na­tion­al road no. 94, con­nect­ing Lu­bin with Wro­cław. The town is served by pub­lic trans­port bus line 10 from Leg­ni­ca and of­ten by pri­vate bus­es op­er­at­ing from neigh­bour­ing towns. The cas­tle stands 300 me­ters north­west of the Mar­ket Square, on Zam­ko­wa Street.

You can park your car just in front of the cas­tle gate (these are the park­ing places of the res­i­dents) or a bit far­ther, on a new free park­ing lot near St. An­drew's Church.

You can ride a bi­cy­cle up close to the cas­tle.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. M. Chorowska: Rezydencje średniowieczne na Śląsku, OFPWW 2003
2. S. Horodecki: Przeszłości okruchy. Zabytki i przyroda powiatu legnickiego; wyd. Skryba
3. T. Jurek: Zapomniana Piastówna: Elżbieta córka Bolka II świdnickiego
4. I. T. Kaczyńscy: Zamki w Polsce południowej, Muza SA 1999
5. K. Kalinowski: Sala Książęca opactwa cysterskiego w Lubiążu, Wydawnictwo Fundacji Lubiąż 2001
6. L. Kajzer, J. Salm, S. Kołodziejski: Leksykon zamków w Polsce, Arkady 2001
7. A. Wagner: Murowane budowle obronne w Polsce X-XVIIw, Bellona 2019
8. M. Wójcik: Kto był mężem Katarzyny….Przyczynek do genealogii panów von Parchwitz, Rocz­nik Lu­bel­skie­go To­wa­rzy­stwa Ge­ne­alo­gicz­ne­go Tom II, 2000

THE FORMER GRANGE AND CASTLE BREWERY ARE NOW USED AS PRIVATE APARTMENTS

Castles nearby:
Legnica - the Duke's castle from the 13th century, rebuilt, 16 km
Lubin - the remains of Duke's castle from the 14th century, 19 km
Wołów - the Duke's castle from the 14th century, rebuilt, 26 km
Źródła - the fortified church from the 13-17th century, 31 km
Jawor - the Duke's castle from the 13/14th century, rebuilt, 32 km
Chojnów - the Duke's castle from the 14th century, rebuilt, 35 km
Rokitnica - the ruin of Knight's castle from the 14th century, 35 km
Chobienia - the castle from the 16th century, 36 km

ALSO WORTH SEEING:

St. An­drew's Church, built in the first half of the 15th cen­tu­ry as a foun­da­tion of Ot­to von Zed­litz, the own­er of the cas­tle and the town. It was erect­ed from brick, on a rect­an­gu­lar plan, with a sac­risty and a quad­ran­gu­lar tow­er added to the east­ern el­e­va­tion. In the fol­low­ing cen­turies the build­ing was re­built many times, e.g. at the be­gin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry it was giv­en neo-Goth­ic style. Un­til 1945 it served as an Evan­gel­i­cal church; af­ter the war it was turned in­to a ware­house, lat­er aban­doned. To­day some­what ne­glect­ed, it is note­wor­thy on­ly for the his­toric 16th cen­tu­ry epi­taphs that dec­o­rate its ex­te­ri­or fa­cades and in­te­ri­or. Among nine­teen tomb­stones, the largest group is rep­re­sent­ed by those be­long­ing to the mem­bers of the Czed­licz and von Zed­litz fam­i­lies. The church is sit­u­at­ed on Leg­nic­ka Street, about 150 me­ters south of the cas­tle.

Mon­u­men­tal post-Cis­ter­cian com­plex in Lu­biąż, called a mas­ter­piece of Sile­sian Baroque. It is the sec­ond largest re­li­gious build­ing in the world (first is the Span­ish Esku­rial). The scale of its size is il­lus­trat­ed by the num­bers: the main fa­cade mea­sures 223 me­ters in length, the fa­cades have 600 win­dows and the roof oc­cu­pies 2.5 hectares! The monastery was built in the mid­dle of the twelfth cen­tu­ry by the Bene­dictines and ex­tend­ed by the Cis­ter­cians, who, thanks to ducal and pri­vate do­na­tions, be­came one of the largest landown­ers in Sile­sia. In the four­teenth cen­tu­ry the abbey prop­er­ty ex­tend­ed from Wiel­ko­pol­s­ka al­most to Kra­ków. At that time, a Goth­ic church and new monastery build­ings were erect­ed. The build­ings that ex­ist to­day are most­ly the re­sult of the build­ing cam­paign car­ried out be­tween 1681 and 1720 on the ini­tia­tive and un­der the su­per­vi­sion of ab­bots: Hans Re­ich, Do­minic Krausen­berg, Balt­haz­ar Nitche and Lud­wig Bauch. The monastery in Lu­biąż served as the main Cis­ter­cian cen­ter in Sile­sia.

The Cis­ter­cian Or­der was dis­solved in 1810 by the King Wil­helm III of Prus­sia, and its prop­er­ty was con­fis­cat­ed by the Ger­man state. The aban­doned and loot­ed monastery was turned in­to a hos­pi­tal, first a mil­i­tary hos­pi­tal, then a psy­chi­atric asy­lum. Dur­ing the Third Re­ich, the monastery build­ings were used to pro­duce mil­i­tary equip­ment and to ac­com­mo­date the slave la­bor­ers who worked there. The in­te­ri­ors of the for­mer abbey suf­fered par­tic­u­lar­ly heav­i­ly dur­ing the So­vi­et of­fen­sive in the win­ter of 1945. Look­ing for trea­sures, the Rus­sians not on­ly de­stroyed the Baroque stuc­co and dec­o­ra­tions, but al­so des­e­crat­ed the re­mains of the Sile­sian Pi­asts, rob­bing them of valu­able in­signia. The build­ing was tak­en un­der con­ser­va­tor's care in 1950, but on­ly since 1989 have ma­jor re­pairs and ren­o­va­tions been car­ried out here.

The cen­tral part of the mona­stery com­plex is oc­cu­pied by a two-tow­er church erect­ed on the foun­da­tions of a Ro­ma­nesque tem­ple. It is the 14th cen­tu­ry Basil­i­ca of the As­sump­tion of the Bles­sed Vir­gin Mary, pre­served in aus­tere con­di­tion, with the tombs of the Sile­sian Pi­asts, the mum­mies of Cis­ter­cian ab­bots and monks (there are 98 of them). Ad­ja­cent to the south are the monastery build­ings, much in need of re­pair, but al­ready with the beau­ti­ful­ly re­stored Sum­mer Re­fec­to­ry and Li­brary. In the north­ern part of the com­plex there is a mag­nif­i­cent palace of the ab­bots, which is unique in Poland. The mas­sive body of the monastery is sur­round­ed by farm build­ings and the church of St. James, whose rel­a­tive­ly mod­est forms and small size cre­ate an ar­chi­tec­tural back­drop for the sil­hou­ette of the abbey, stand­ing atop the hill.

The most rep­re­sen­ta­tive part of the monastery was and still is the Prince's Hall, af­ter the re­cent ren­o­va­tion full of Byzan­tine and Baroque or­na­men­ta­tion. It is lo­cat­ed in the north wing of the ab­bots' palace, oc­cu­py­ing its east­ern, last four bays. The im­pres­sion of ex­cep­tion­al splen­dor and spa­cious­ness of this mag­nif­i­cent cham­ber is caused both by its size (400 square me­ters) and its con­sid­er­able height (13 me­ters), but al­so by the mul­ti­tude of mo­tifs and dec­o­ra­tive el­e­ments, as well as the var­ied col­ors. Sur­pris­ing­ly, the au­thor of the ar­chi­tec­tural de­sign of this great work re­mains anony­mous, al­though the cre­ators of the in­di­vid­u­al dec­o­ra­tions are known by name. The Baroque sculp­tures were made by the Wro­cław mas­ter Joseph Man­goldt (d. 1761), and the ac­com­pa­ny­ing mar­ble and stuc­co dec­o­ra­tions are the work of Aus­tri­an artist Al­brecht Ig­naz Pro­vi­sore (d. 1743). The huge pla­fond dec­o­rat­ing the vault of the Hall and the paint­ings hang­ing on its walls were cre­at­ed by the Dutch­man, Chris­tian Philip Ben­tum (d. 1757).

The for­mer post-Cis­ter­cian com­plex is now in the hands of the Lu­biąż Foun­da­tion and is open to vis­i­tors all year round. The guid­ed tour lasts about 45 min­utes and in­cludes a vis­it to the Ab­bot's Re­fec­to­ry, the Prince's Hall, the Blessed Vir­gin Mary Church, the mona­stery clois­ters and the Sum­mer Re­fec­to­ry. These rooms do not have any fur­nish­ings and some of them are in a de­plorable con­di­tion and need very ex­pen­sive ren­o­va­tions. The mona­stery al­so hosts tem­po­rary ex­hi­bi­tions, which you can vis­it on your own. Lu­biąż is lo­cat­ed about 14 km east from Pro­cho­wi­ce. There is a large, free park­ing lot on site.

text: 2021
photographs: 2005, 2013, 2021
© Jacek Bednarek