7.01.2022 ... castle in Międzyrzecz

The old­est and most im­por­tant stronghold on the west­ern bor­der­lands of Poland was prob­a­bly erect­ed in the 9th cen­tu­ry. The fort­ress of Me­si­ri­ci is men­tioned for the first time in the chron­i­cle of the Bish­op of Merse­burg, Thi­et­mar, who de­scribed the ex­pe­di­tion of the Em­per­or Hein­rich II der Hei­li­ge go­ing to war with pol­ish duke Bo­le­sław Chro­bry... more

28.11.2021 ... castle in Ratno Dolne

Prob­a­bly, al­ready in the first half of the 14th cen­tu­ry, there was a knight's cas­tle in Rat­no, which was sup­pos­ed­ly built by the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Sile­sian fam­i­ly de Mus­sin (Mosch). This small, pos­si­bly still wood­en strong­hold be­came in 1388 the prop­er­ty of Kłodz­ko bur­graves be­long­ing to the von Pan­nwitz, the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of an an­cient Sor­bian fam­i­ly... more

18.11.2021 ... castle in Radzyń Chełmiński

In the ear­ly Mid­dle Ages, on the trade route lead­ing from Gru­dziądz to Gol­ub a small wood­en cas­tle in the vicin­i­ty of the pre­sent-day Ra­dzyń ex­ist­ed, who was prob­a­bly in­hab­it­ed by pa­gan Prus­sians from the Po­meza­ni­an tribe. In the 12th cen­tu­ry, the vil­lage of Ra­sin func­tioned in this place, and next to it the cas­tle be­long­ing to the Ma­zo­vian voi­vode Krys­tyn... more

13.11.2021 ... fortalice in Sobków

Old­er names of the vil­lage, now called Sobków, were Ni­da, Ni­da Frykacz­ka and Ni­da Ry­ter­s­ka. The first men­tion of a knight's res­i­dence here dates back to the first half of the 16th cen­tu­ry and refers to a stone manor house, owned by Ra­fał Ry­ter­ski, that was de­stroyed by fire. In 1563 Sta­ni­sław So­bek of Su­łów, coat of arms Broch­wicz... more

3.11.2021 ... castle in Prochowice

His­to­ri­ans usu­al­ly be­lieve that the founder of the cas­tle in Pro­cho­wi­ce was Iko von Parch­witz, pa­lat­i­nus of Leg­ni­ca and com­pan­ion of Duke Bo­le­sław Ro­gat­ka. Some of them, how­ev­er, doubt the ex­is­tence of a brick cas­tle in the 13th cen­tu­ry, point­ing to the ini­tia­tive of Ste­phan von Parch­witz - grand­son of the men­tioned Iko, who in 1305-42 con­trolled the town... more

23.10.2021 ... castle in Poznań

In the first cen­turies of our state, the town of Poz­nań de­vel­oped on the right bank of the War­ta Riv­er, close to the for­ti­fied seat of the prince, formed in the 10th cen­tu­ry in the north-west­ern part of the cathe­dral is­land. The old­est wood­en cas­tle was re­peat­ed­ly de­stroyed and re­built, and it prob­a­bly end­ed in the sec­ond half of the 13th cen­tu­ry... more

9.10.2021 ... castle Sobień

The ori­gins of the cas­tle re­main un­known. Ac­cord­ing to a com­mon opin­ion (main­ly prop­a­gat­ed by older books), the founder of the fort­ress might have been Ka­zi­mierz Wiel­ki, but nei­ther Jan of Czarn­ków, who lived in those times, nor Jan Dłu­gosz, who lived in the times of the first Ja­giel­lons, men­tion it among the in­vest­ments made by this king... more

29.09.2021 ... castle in Ossolin

It is like­ly that al­ready in the 14th cen­tu­ry a brick cas­tle ex­ist­ed in this place, which was built by an un­known rep­re­sen­ta­tive of To­por­czyk knight­ly fam­i­ly. Per­haps the founder of the strong­hold was castel­lan of Wi­śli­ca Jan To­pór called Ow­ca, ac­cord­ing to the tra­di­tion a pro­to­plast of the great Os­so­liń­ski fam­i­ly, who was killed dur­ing the fights with his neigh­bors... more

14.09.2021 ... castle in Sosnowiec

The old­est pre­served men­tion of set­tle­ment Sied­lecz dates back to 1361. It men­tions a do­na­tion of the lo­cal knight's grange by Abra­ham of Go­szy­ce and his son Ma­rek, coat of arms Gryf, to San­do­mierz prov­ince gov­er­nor Ot­to of Pil­cza, coat of arms To­pór (in re­turn, Abra­ham re­ceived the vil­lage Wi­ta­no­wi­ce near Oświę­cim). The doc­u­ment al­so states that...more

22.08.2021 ... Benedictine abbey in Tyniec

Ac­cord­ing to tra­di­tion, the Bene­dic­tine Abbey in Ty­niec near Cra­cow was found­ed in 1044 by Ka­zi­mierz Od­no­wi­ciel, son of the Pol­ish king Miesz­ko II and Princess Ri­che­za of Lor­raine. This date is giv­en by the Pol­ish me­dieval chron­i­cler Jan Dłu­gosz, but we do not know where he took his knowl­edge from, hence the dis­pute among his­to­ri­ans...more

22.07.2021 ... romantic castle on Góreckie Lake

This small neo-goth­ic palace on an is­land in the mid­dle of a pic­turesque lake was found­ed and prob­a­bly per­son­al­ly de­signed by Ty­tus Dzia­łyń­ski, the own­er of Kór­nik and Ko­na­rze­wo. Ro­man­tic build­ing was a gift from Ty­tus to his sis­ter Klau­dy­na Dzia­łyń­ska and her hus­band Ber­nard Po­toc­ki on the oc­ca­sion of their wed­ding...more

14.07.2021 ... castle in Wieliczka

The cas­tle and the town are strong­ly con­nect­ed with rock salt ex­plo­ration car­ried out in this re­gion of Ma­ło­pol­ska. The first traces of this ac­tiv­i­ty can be found in the 13th cen­tu­ry mine shaft lo­cat­ed with­in the me­dieval cas­tle court­yard. Ac­cord­ing to tra­di­tion, the founder of the cas­tle was Duke of Cra­cow, Hen­ryk IV Pro­bus, who, soon af­ter...more

29.06.2021 ... Bolczów castle

The ori­gins of the vil­lage of Janow­ice, to which the Bol­czów cas­tle, hid­den in the deep for­est, is ad­min­is­tra­tive­ly sub­or­di­nate, prob­a­bly date back to the 13th cen­tu­ry, al­though the first men­tion of it dates back to 1334 and con­cerns the then in­hab­i­tant (may­or?) Fran­ci­szek von Ywa­ne­witz. In the mid-14th cen­tu­ry, this set­tle­ment, to­geth­er with Miedzian­ka...more

20.06.2021 ... Krzyżtopór castle in Ujazd

When we ad­mire the pic­turesque ru­ins of Krzyż­to­pór Cas­tle, it is hard to be­lieve that this mag­nif­i­cent build­ing, which was the largest res­i­dence in Eu­rope be­fore the cre­ation of Ver­sailles, func­tioned in its full glo­ry for on­ly eleven years! It was the mag­num opus of the San­do­mierz cham­ber­lain Krzy­sztof Os­so­liń­ski, coat of arms To­pór...more

1.06.2021 ... monastery in Zagórz

The Monastery of Dis­calced Car­me­li­tes in Za­górz was found­ed by the Voi­vode of Vol­hy­nia Jan Fran­ci­szek Stad­nic­ki coat-of-arms Śre­nia­wa, al­leged­ly as a vo­tive of­fer­ing for the de­fense of Le­sko against the Swe­dish army dur­ing their in­va­sion of 1655-60. We do not know the foun­da­tion act, but based on his­tor­i­cal records we can as­sume that...more

22.04.2021 ... castle in Golub-Dobrzyń

The hill, on which the beau­ti­ful cas­tle stands, has ear­ly me­dieval ori­gins, be­cause prob­a­bly al­ready in the 8th cen­tu­ry there was a small set­tle­ment in this place. In the course of time it de­vel­oped in­to a wood­en-earth for­ti­fied cas­tle, which was con­quered by armed Teu­ton­ic troops in 1231. Two decades lat­er the Or­der passed it to­geth­er with the vi­la Gol­ube...more

25.02.2021 ... castle in Świdwin

It is not known when the Goth­ic cas­tle in Swid­win was built. Ac­cord­ing to his­to­ri­ans, it was prob­a­bly found­ed by Duke Przy­by­sław II of Meck­len­burg, who in 1286 leased the Świd­win prop­er­ty pay­ing the Bran­den­burg Mar­grave Al­brecht four thou­sand marks for it. The con­struc­tion work prob­a­bly start­ed soon af­ter this trans­ac­tion...more

13.02.2021 ... castle Grodziec

On steep basalt hill, where the ma­jes­tic cas­tle is now lo­cat­ed, in the ear­ly Mid­dle Ages there was a strong­hold be­long­ing to the Slav­ic Bo­brza­nie tribe. The first men­tion about Gro­dziec dates back to 23 April 1155. This was the date of the pa­pal bull is­sued by Pope Hadri­an IV for the bish­opric of Wro­cław, in which Go­diu­ice was list­ed among oth­er...more

21.01.2021 ... castle in Konin-Gosławice

Gosław­ice vil­lage was the first time men­tioned in doc­u­ments dat­ed 1280, when it was do­nat­ed to the Cis­ter­cian abbey in Ląd by Prince Prze­mys­law II. On­ly three years lat­er the land was bought from the Cis­ter­cians by Arch­bish­op of Gniezno and from then un­til the mid­dle of the 14th cen­tu­ry the vil­lage be­longed to the Church. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly at that time...more

9.01.2021 ... Ostrów Lednicki stronghold

The old­est traces of hu­man pres­ence on the largest of the five is­lands of the post-glacial lake Led­ni­ca date back to the Stone Age and are prob­a­bly re­lat­ed to the ex­is­tence of a set­tle­ment in­hab­it­ed by Ne­olith­ic hunters and shep­herds. In the Bronze Age, this land was pop­u­lat­ed by a com­mu­ni­ty linked to the Lusa­tian cul­ture, while from the Ro­man times...more