CASTLE IN UNIEJÓW, VIEW FROM THE EAST

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

F

or the first time, the name of Vil­la Unie­ie­vo was written in doc­u­ments in 1136, in a bull is­sued by Pope In­no­cent II. It is pos­si­ble that a wood­en man­sion ­ seat of the arch­bish­ops al­ready func­tioned here at that time, but the first men­tion of it dates on­ly from 1242. O­ver time Unie­jów de­vel­oped in­to an im­por­tant cen­ter of church ad­min­is­tra­tion and a place for hold­ing coun­cils. Pre­served doc­u­ments show that in the sec­ond half of the 13th cen­tu­ry the arch­bish­op of Gnie­zno, Ja­kub Świn­ka (d. 1314), and the prince of Sier­adz and Łę­czy­ca, Le­szek II the Black (d. 1288), of­ten stayed here.

COLLEGIATE CHURCH IN UNIEJÓW ERECTED AROUND 1170 AND REBUILT BY JAROSŁAW BOGORIA SKOTNICKI IN 1365

PLAN OF THE CASTLE AND THE TOWN IN THE MIDDLE AGES ACCORDING TO W. KALINOWSKI AND S. TRAWKOWSKI:
1. CASTLE, 2. COLLEGIATE CHURCH, 3. TOWN HALL, 4. CHURCH OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, 5. CHURCH OF ST NICHOLAS,
6. CHAPEL OF THE CORPUS CHRISTI

I

n the 1330s the Teutonic Knights in­vaded and burned down the wooden man­sion. In its place, the arch­bishop of Gnie­zno, Ja­ro­sław from Skot­ni­ki, coat of arms Bo­go­ria (d. 1376), in 1350-65 erected a brick strong­hold, which, to­ge­ther with cas­tles in Łę­czy­ca, Sie­radz and Ko­ło, sup­ple­men­ted the royal sys­tem of for­ti­fi­ca­tions def­en­ding access to the cen­ter of the state from the north and north­west. How­ever, the main func­tion of the cas­tle in Unie­jów was to serve the bishops and church ad­mi­ni­str­ation. Im­por­tant ce­re­mo­nies and meet­ings of the high­est ec­cle­sia­stical auth­ori­ties were often held here, such as the fam­ous coun­cil in 1376, at­ten­ded by the pap­al en­voy, the bishop of Ma­jor­ca, nun­cio Ni­cho­las. At this con­ven­tion, or­ga­nized by Bishop Ja­nusz Su­chy­wilk of Grzy­ma­ła coat of arms (d. 1382), tax­ation of the cler­gy for the cru­sade against the Turks was debated.

VIEW OF THE CASTLE FROM THE WARTA RIVER AT THE BEGINNING OF THE XX CENTURY AND TODAY

GATEWAY

I

n the mid-15th cen­tu­ry, the cas­tle was thor­ough­ly re­built and adapt­ed for de­fense with fire­arms. It is be­lieved that this work took place un­der the fi­nanc­ing of Bish­op Woj­ciech Ja­strzę­biec (d. 1436) and his suc­ces­sor Win­cen­ty Kot, and was car­ried out un­der the watch­ful eye of mas­ter builder Grze­gorz of Osiek, who al­so mod­ern­ized cas­tles in We­ne­cja and Ło­wicz. The seat in Unie­jów be­came a spe­cial place for Win­cen­ty Kot, be­cause it was here that he com­plet­ed his life on Au­gust 14, 1418. An­oth­er bish­op who died at the Unie­jów cas­tle was Jan Sprow­ski, who do­nat­ed two beau­ti­ful sil­ver chal­ices to the cathe­dral, a bish­op's tiara dec­o­rat­ed with pearls, the Spe­cu­lum His­to­ri­ale of Vin­cent de Be­au­vais and built a brick chapel in the north aisle of the Gnie­zno cathe­dral.

IN THE CASTLE COURTYARD

THE GOTHIC PART OF THE CASTLE

WHITE LADY IN THE CASTLE PARK

D

e­spite the fact that the cas­tle served as a tem­po­rary trea­sury, its ar­ma­ments in the mid-15th cen­tu­ry left much to be de­sired. Al­though we are not fa­mil­iar with equip­ment of the cas­tle's ar­se­nal from that pe­ri­od, we know that as ear­ly as 1466 the Gnie­zno chap­ter ad­mon­ished the arch­bish­op to take spe­cial care of the cas­tles, strength­en them and sup­ply them with nec­es­sary weapons and am­mu­ni­tion on the mod­el of the cas­tles of the bish­op from Cra­cow. An in­spec­tion con­duct­ed al­most a cen­tu­ry lat­er (1566) in­di­cates a very mod­est num­ber of of­fen­sive weapons, which in­clud­ed on­ly 3 cat­a­pults, 19 fal­cons (but 5 old ones), 10 ri­fles and a few bar­rels of gun­pow­der. Prob­a­bly this low de­fen­sive po­ten­tial of the strong­hold was due to the fact that in the sec­ond half of the 16th cen­tu­ry most of the cas­tles ly­ing in the bish­op's es­tates al­ready served pri­mar­i­ly as the res­i­dence of their own­ers and ad­min­is­tra­tors, and de­fen­sive func­tions of these build­ings were pushed in­to the back­ground. This sit­u­a­tion al­so ap­plied to the Unie­jów cas­tle, which, as part of the ren­o­va­tion work car­ried out af­ter the fire of 1525, was en­larged with a new res­i­den­tial wing, and its fa­cades and in­te­ri­ors re­ceived Re­nais­sance decor.

CASTLE ON ENGRAVING BY SEWERYN KAROL SMOLIKOWSKI, 1836

B

aroque re­mod­el­ing of the cas­tle, car­ried out by Arch­bish­ops Jan Wę­żyk (d. 1638) and Ma­ciej Łu­bień­ski (d. 1652), al­most com­plete­ly erased its Goth­ic de­fen­sive fea­tures, and on­ly the old brick tow­er still re­called me­die­val ori­gins of the build­ing. In 1655 the Swedes seized Unie­jów with­out a fight, and be­fore leav­ing they dev­as­tat­ed its in­te­ri­ors, as well as dis­man­tled and cart­ed away the most valu­able fur­nish­ings. Short­ly af­ter the town was lib­er­at­ed from Swedish oc­cu­pa­tion, Bish­op Wa­cław Le­szczyń­ski (d. 1666) made some re­pairs and ren­o­va­tions to the cas­tle, thanks to which the ed­i­fice was still able to serve as the seat of the pri­mates, al­though they from then on were more and more will­ing to re­side in the cas­tle of Łow­icz and the new palace in Skier­nie­wi­ce.

ENGRAVING BY EDWARD WALENTY KAINKO FROM 1843

I

n 1704, dur­ing the civ­il war be­tween sup­port­ers of Sta­ni­sław Lesz­czyń­ski and Au­gus­tus II of Sax­ony, the cas­tle was cap­tured and plun­dered by Sax­on troops. The dam­age they caused was in­ten­si­fied by a town fire in 1736, from which roofs of the res­i­den­tial wings and roof of the tow­er burned down. Al­though the res­i­dence was re­built af­ter 1745 by Bish­op Krzy­sztof An­to­ni Szem­bek (d. 1748), from then on it served on­ly as a provin­cial cen­ter for ad­min­is­tra­tion of church prop­er­ty (the main seat of the pri­mates be­came the palace in Skier­nie­wi­ce).

VIEW OF THE CASTLE FROM THE WEST AT THE BEGINNING OF THE XX CENTURY AND TODAY

I

n 1796 Prus­sian au­thor­i­ties took the cas­tle away from the bish­ops and adapt­ed it in­to apart­ments for ten­ants. Af­ter the fall of Nov­em­ber Up­ris­ing, when the town ad­min­is­tra­tive­ly be­longed to the Rus­sian-de­pen­dent King­dom of Poland (1831), the Tsar­ist gov­ern­ment hand­ed o­ver the Unie­jów land prop­er­ty to Rus­sian gen­er­al Karl Wil­helm von Toll (d. 1842). The gift was a re­ward for von Toll's ser­vices to the Rus­sian Em­pire, par­tic­u­lar­ly for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in quel­ling the up­ris­ing (de­feat­ing Pol­ish troops at Ostro­łę­ka in 1831). The new own­er, how­ev­er, prob­a­bly nev­er vis­it­ed Unie­jów. In­stead, his son Alek­san­der von Toll (d. 1892), al­so a gen­er­al, set­tled here and re­built the cas­tle in clas­si­cist style. To his wife, An­na von Lo­eben (d. 1863), we owe the es­tab­lish­ment of a ro­man­tic En­glish-style land­scape park to the west of the res­i­dence, for which she brought in seed­lings of ex­ot­ic trees and shrubs.

VON TOLLS IN FRONT OF UNIEJÓW CASTLE, PHOTO FROM THE TURN OF THE XIXTH AND XXTH CENTURIES

VON TOLL FAMILY MAUSOLEUM IN ORZESZKÓW-KOLONIA (3 KM AWAY FROM UNIEJÓW)
RESTING HERE ALEXANDER VON TOLL, ANNA VON LOEBEN AND THEIR DAUGHTER-IN-LAW WANDA VON TOLL

O

ver time, the von Toll fam­i­ly be­came par­tial­ly Pol­o­nized, re­main­ing in Unie­jów un­til 1918. Af­ter Pol­and re­gained its in­de­pen­dence, the wid­ow of Alex­an­der (jr.) von Toll (d. 1918), An­na Som­mer (d. 1926), moved with her chil­dren to By­d­goszcz (one of her sons, Ser­giusz, lat­er be­came a fa­mous Pol­ish lep­i­dopterol­o­gist), and the cas­tle served from then on as a gym­na­si­um and then as a guest­house. Dur­ing the Ger­man oc­cu­pa­tion in 1939-44, the Na­zis or­ga­nized in it a store­house for grain, coal and salt, which be­came so deeply em­bed­ded in the me­die­val walls that it still dam­ages their struc­ture. Af­ter ex­ten­sive ren­o­va­tion, which the for­mer seat of the bish­ops un­der­went in 1956-67, it was adapt­ed in­to a state ar­chive and lat­er a ho­tel fa­cil­i­ty.

THE CASTLE AS SEEN FROM THE SOUTH, 1920

UNTIL RECENTLY, AN ASPHALT ROAD LED TO THE CASTLE GATE FROM THE FRONT,
AFTER ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATIONS WERE COMPLETED, IT WAS REPLACED BY A WOODEN BRIDGE

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

T

he cas­tle was erect­ed on the west­ern bank of the War­ta Riv­er, a few dozen me­ters from its bed. The old­est strong­hold cov­ers the cen­tral part of the cur­rent build­ing. It con­sist­ed of stone and brick walls on a rect­an­gu­lar plan with sides of 23x29 me­ters, with a gate in their south­ern sec­tion, as well as a west­ern two- or three-sto­ry res­i­den­tial build­ing with chapel. The dom­i­nant fea­ture of the cas­tle and the most im­por­tant point of de­fense was a cylin­dri­cal tow­er, 25 me­ters high and with an out­er di­am­e­ter of 9 me­ters, lo­cat­ed in the mid­dle of the east­ern wall. The en­trance to the tow­er was si­tu­ated at a height of 13 me­ters. The to­tal area of the me­die­val cas­tle did not ex­ceed 700 square me­ters.

PLAN OF THE MEDIEVAL CASTLE (AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF LATER BUILDINGS):
1. MAIN TOWER, 2. GOTHIC HOUSE, 3. CHAPEL, 4. GATE

WESTERN PART OF THE COURTYARD WITH RELICS OF THE GOTHIC HOUSE AND FOUNDATIONS OF THE CHAPEL

I

n the mid­dle of the 15th cen­tu­ry, two cor­ner three-sto­ry res­i­den­tial tow­ers were added to the west­ern build­ing, and in the south­ern part of the cas­tle a quadri­lat­er­al gate tow­er and a five-sid­ed fore-gate were erect­ed. In ad­di­tion, the cas­tle was sur­round­ed by an out­er, low­er wall, which cre­at­ed a space about 6,5 me­ters wide. As a re­sult of these changes, the to­tal area of the bish­ops' res­i­dence in­creased to about 1,350 square me­ters.

CASTLE RECONSTRUCTION FROM THE LATE XV CENTURY (WITHOUT THE FORE-GATE) ACCORDING TO JAN SALM:
XIV CENTURY - 1. MAIN TOWER, 2. GOTHIC HOUSE, 3. CHAPEL, XV CENTURY - 4. GATE TOWER, 5. CORNER TOWERS, 6. OUTER WALL

OUTER DEFENSE WALL DATES FROM THE XV CENTURY

I

n 1525-34, on the ini­tia­tive of Bish­op Jan Łas­ki (d. 1531), an L-shaped res­i­den­tial build­ing was erect­ed, which con­nect­ed the gate with the main tow­er. The new wing housed, among oth­ers, a chapel with a beau­ti­ful poly­chrome, which has par­tial­ly sur­vived to the pre­sent day. At the be­gin­ning of the 17th cen­tu­ry, the pre­vi­ous­ly emp­ty space be­tween the south­west tow­er and the gate tow­er was built o­ver, thus cre­at­ing a short south wing with ar­chi­tec­tural fea­tures in the ear­ly Baroque style.

BAROQUE GATEWAY PORTAL

SOUTH WING BUILT IN 1525-34 (EASTERN PART, RIGHT SIDE OF PHOTO)
AND IN THE BEGINNING OF THE XVII CENTURY (WESTERN PART, ON THE LEFT)

I

n the fol­low­ing years, apart from re­pairs re­sult­ing from the 17th cen­tu­ry wars, the body of the cas­tle did not un­der­go any more con­si­de­rable trans­for­ma­tions. It was not un­til the von Tolls made sig­nif­i­cant changes to its de­sign and spa­tial lay­out here in the mid-19th cen­tu­ry. They dis­man­tled the west­ern wall, and in its place erect­ed a clas­si­cist west ter­race with a wide, two-step stair­case.

WEST TERRACE

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

T

he cas­tle in Unie­jów is one of the best-pre­served de­fen­sive struc­tures in cen­tral Poland and one of the few of its kind in the en­tire coun­try that has been in use through­out its ex­is­tence. Its Goth­ic form has been lost o­ver time, but one can still see the me­dieval win­dow blanks and loop­holes. The aus­tere, cramped court­yard and Goth­ic tow­er have al­so been pre­served, and in­side - a bar­rel-vault­ed chapel with 17th-cen­tu­ry poly­chromy. Ad­ja­cent to the cas­tle is a 34-hectare park with 60 species of trees and shrubs, among them many ex­ot­ic ones. Cur­rent­ly, the for­mer seat of the arch­bish­ops hous­es a ho­tel and re­stau­rant.

IN THE GOTHIC CASTLE COURTYARD

Tours of the cas­tle pos­si­ble on­ly in or­ga­nized groups. In­di­vid­u­al tourists are al­lowed to en­ter the tow­er (paid). Free ad­mis­sion to the cas­tle court­yard and park.

You can walk around the park with your dog.

A vis­it to the cas­tle should be com­bined with a trip to the cen­ter of the town. With the tow­er and a walk in the park, this vis­it will take at least 1.5 hours.

CASTLE PARK IN UNIEJÓW

GETTING THERE

T

he cas­tle is lo­cat­ed on the left bank of the War­ta Riv­er, by the road 72 con­nect­ing Łódź and Tu­rek. There is no rail­road near the town.

The clos­est to the cas­tle is the park­ing lot at the Unie­jów Ther­mal Baths (Zam­ko­wa Street, paid). You can al­so leave your car at the Mar­ket Square or in one of the streets of the town, from where a foot­bridge leads to the oth­er bank of the riv­er.

We can bring bi­cy­cles in­to the cas­tle court­yard.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. R. Herman, W. Dudak: Wyniki badań na­uko­wych a pro­jekt adap­ta­cji zam­ku. Wza­jem­ne uwa­run­ko­wa­nia na przy­kła­dach zam­ków w Unie­jo­wie, Lidz­bar­ku War­miń­skim i Eł­ku
2. L. Kajzer, J. Salm, S. Kołodziejski: Leksykon zamków w Polsce, Arkady 2001
3. L. Kajzer: Zamki i dwory obronne w Polsce centralnej, Wydawnictwo DiG 2004
4. J. Kita: Donacja hrabiów Tollów w przestrzeni wiejskiej Królestwa Polskiego, Zeszyty Wiej­skie 26/2020
5. P. Lasek: Prywatne zamki polskich dowódców..., Ko­mu­ni­ka­ty Ma­zur­sko-War­miń­skie 2/2017
6. P. Machlański, J. Podolska: Uniejów. Spacerownik po regionie, dodatek GW 2008
7. Z. Pastwiński: Jan z Czarnkowa o zajęciu zamku w Uniejowie..., Biuletyn Uniejowski Tom 3 2014
8. R. Rogiński: Zamki i twierdze w Polsce, historia i legendy, IWZZ 1990
9. M. Słomski: Zamki arcybiskupów gnieź­nień­skich w Ło­wi­czu, Unie­jo­wie i Opa­tów­ku w świe­tle opi­sów in­wen­ta­rzo­wych z lat 1591-1592, Rocz­nik Łódz­ki Tom LXV, 2016
10.A. Wagner: Murowane budowle obronne w Polsce X-XVIIw., Bellona 2019
11.Z. Wilk-Woś: Zamek arcybiskupów gnieź­nień­skich w Unie­jo­wie..., Biu­le­tyn Unie­jow­ski Tom 4 2015

Castles nearby:
Besiekiery - ruins of a knight's castle from the 15th/16th century, 28 km
Łęczyca - royal castle from the 14th century, 32 km
Koło - ruins of a royal castle from the 14th century, 34 km
Borysławice Zamkowe - ruins of a 15th century Gothic castle, 36 km
Wyszyna - relics of a 15th century Renaissance castle, 41 km
Przedecz - remains of a royal castle from the 14th century, 44 km
Wojsławice - relics of a 15th century Gothic castle, 44 km
Lutomiersk - relics of a 14th/15th century knight's castle, 45 km

text: 2023
photos: 2011, 2022
© Jacek Bednarek