CASTLE IN ZˇBKOWICE ¦LˇSKIE, VIEW FROM THE SOUTHEAST
IN THE FOREGROUND WE SEE THE ROUNDEL, RECONSTRUCTED IN YEARS 2013-14

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

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he old­est pre­served note about the for­ti­fied cas­tle in the town of Frank­in­stein dates back to 1321, when the prin­ci­pal­i­ty was ruled by Ber­nard (d. 1326), the lord of Ja­wor, ¦wid­ni­ca and Zię­bi­ce. Most of­ten, there­fore, this ruler is con­si­dered to be a buil­der of a Goth­ic for­ti­fied cas­tle, whose pe­ri­od of cre­ation dates back to the first quar­ter of the 14th cen­tu­ry. However, some his­to­ri­ans point to an ear­li­er chronol­o­gy of the strong­hold, con­sid­er­ing its founder to be Bernard's fa­ther - Duke Bol­ko I (d. 1301).

THE ROUNDEL AND THE GATE TOWER BEFORE RECONSTRUCTION, 2002

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hen in 1335 Bernard's suc­ces­sor on the throne of Zię­bi­ce, and his younger broth­er Bol­ko II (d. 1341), de­nied the Mo­ra­vian mar­grave Ka­rel Lu­cem­bur­ský (d. 1378) a fief trib­ute from his duchy, Ka­rel sent armed troops to Z±b­ko­wi­ce to take over the cas­tle and force Bol­ko to make con­ces­sions. How­ev­er, these units proved to be too weak in the con­fronta­tion with the ducal army, which re­sult­ed in their de­feat and 150 knights be­ing tak­en pris­on­ers. Ne­ver­the­less, Bol­ko II didn't turn this suc­cess in­to a po­lit­i­cal vic­to­ry, be­cause he re­leased pris­on­ers in ex­change for a rel­a­tive­ly small ran­som, and on­ly a year lat­er (for un­clear rea­sons) gave the town and the cas­tle un­der Czech su­per­io­ri­ty. Bol­ko's de­ci­sion may have been dic­tat­ed by ei­ther the lack of mon­ey or by prag­ma­tism or­der­ing to stop re­sis­tance against a stronger en­e­my.

VIEW OF THE RUINS FROM THE NORTHEAST

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he Duchy of Ziębice nev­er re­gained its sovereign­ty and re­mained with the Czech un­til 1742. Bolko's son, Ni­co­las the Lit­tle (d. 1358) not on­ly did not buy the town from the pledge, but in Sep­tem­ber 1351 he sold it to Ka­rel IV, the then ruler of Czech King­dom. Since then the cas­tle has served as the seat of the star­osts man­ag­ing the sub­or­di­nate ter­ri­to­ry of Zię­bi­ce and Z±b­ko­wi­ce. In March 1428, it was un­suc­ces­sful­ly be­sieged by the Hus­site army. In the mid­dle of the 15th cen­tu­ry, the strong­hold un­der­went a mi­nor mo­der­ni­zation.

SOUTHERN FACADE OF THE CASTLE

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hen Wil­helm of Opa­va died in 1452, the duchy was tak­en o­ver by his broth­er Ern­est (d. 1464), re­mem­bered for his waste­ful way of life. He sold it in 1456 to the Czech King Ji­ří z Kun­štá­tu a Pod­ěbrad (d. 1471). This ruler re­ject­ed the Cath­olic faith and ac­cept­ed the doc­trines of Jan Hus, which led to a con­flict with the Si­le­sian states, re­sult­ing in an in­va­sion of Z±b­ko­wic­e by the burghers of Wro­cław, ¦wid­ni­ca and Ny­sa in May 1467. The Catho­lic forces had been be­sie­ging the strong­hold for ten days, cap­tur­ing it on­ly after bring­ing in a huge can­non. Ul­rich Hans von Ha­sen­burg took over the com­mand of the cas­tle, but in Ju­ly of the same year he had to ac­knowl­edge the su­pe­ri­or­i­ty of Czech-Sax­on-Bran­den­burg armies, which not on­ly took the cas­tle away, but al­so req­ui­si­tioned this big can­non (whose bul­lets weighed 100 ki­lo­grams each). In the fol­low­ing year the cas­tle was be­sieged again and even­tu­al­ly de­stroyed by the troops paid by the bish­op of Wro­cław.

ENGRAVING BY F.B. WERNER FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE XVIII CENTURY, "TOPOGRAPHIA SEU COMPENDIUM SILESIAE 1744-68"
THE CASTLE IS LOCATED IN THE UPPER LEFT CORNER

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n 1489 the town and the cas­tle were be­sieged and con­quered by the Hun­gar­i­an King Hun­ya­di Má­tyás (d. 1490) and then oc­cu­pied for sev­er­al months un­til his death. The pres­ence of the en­e­my crew made worse the al­ready very bad con­di­tion of the strong­hold, which at the end of the 15th cen­tu­ry was al­most ruined. Its state was changed by the de­ci­sion tak­en in 1524 by Ka­rel z Po­dě­brad (d. 1536) to es­tab­lish in Z±b­ko­wi­ce the main seat of the prin­ci­pal­i­ty. In this regard, most of the ruined old Goth­ic walls were dis­man­tled and a new Re­nais­sance cas­tle was built ac­cord­ing to the pro­jects prep­ared by the roy­al ar­chi­tect Be­ne­dict Rejt from Prague. The residence received a quadri­lat­er­al plan (62x65 me­tres), with two cy­lin­dri­cal tow­ers. By 1532, three wings of the cas­tle had been com­plete­ly built and roofed. The con­struc­tion of the fourth wing was in­ter­rupt­ed by the Ot­toman Em­pire's in­va­sion in­to Hun­gary, which prompt­ed Ka­rel to stop works and div­ert funds to strength­en the town' s de­fen­ces. Af­ter his death in 1536, the heirs were not in­ter­est­ed in con­tin­u­ing the con­struc­tion works at the Z±b­ko­wi­ce cas­tle. Un­fi­nished re­si­dence, as well as the town, were leased then.

GATE WITH THE COAT OF ARMS OF CZECH KING KAREL Z PODEBRAD

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he Duchy of Ziębice re­turned to the own­er­ship of the King of Czech in 1569, and then the cas­tle was esta­blished the seat of the starosts. One of the first star­osts of Z±b­ko­wi­ce was Fabi­an von Re­ichen­bach, prob­a­bly on the ini­tia­tive of whom the for­ti­fi­ca­tions of the cas­tle were ex­tend­ed and lin­ked with the town. The new ground bas­tions helped the cas­tle's staff to fight off the armed siege of 1632 by both the em­per­or's and the Swedes' troops, but in the latter case hun­ger forced it to sur­ren­der. The strong­hold suf­fered more se­ri­ous dam­age in Ju­ly 1646, when it was tak­en o­ver by ar­tillery fire and then oc­cu­pied by em­per­or's troops un­der the com­mand of Mar­shal Ray­mond Mon­te­cuc­coli, who or­dered the blow­ing up of cur­tain walls, bas­tions and part of the res­i­den­tial wings.

VIEW OF THE CASTLE FROM SOUTHEAST
F.B. WERNER, "TOPOGRAPHIA SEU COMPENDIUM SILESIAE 1744-68"

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hen in 1654 Z±bkow­ice be­came the prop­er­ty of the Prince Jo­hann von Auersperg (d. 1677), he be­gan to re­build the (de­stroyed) cas­tle, but the pur­pose of this work was pri­mar­i­ly to re­store the res­i­den­tial build­ings with­out for­ti­fi­ca­tions, which meant that the cas­tle no longer re­mained for­ti­fied. With time, the ex­pens­es for main­tain­ing the res­i­dence were more and more mod­est, which took re­venge on the con­di­tion of the walls and caused that at the be­gin­ning of the eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry, the in­te­ri­or de­sign sig­nif­i­cant­ly de­vi­at­ed from the stan­dards of that age. Hein­rich von Auer­sperg (d. 1783), the own­er of the town since 1713, tried to rem­e­dy this by start­ing a gen­er­al ren­o­va­tion of the cas­tle, but soon stopped all work be­cause of the high costs. In the fol­low­ing years the tech­ni­cal con­di­tion of the build­ing de­te­ri­o­rat­ed so much that in 1728 it was de­cid­ed to re­move the of­fices from it. The fire from 1784 com­plet­ed a work of de­struc­tion.

RUIN ON A LITHOGRAPH FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE XIXTH CENTURY

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fter the town be­came the prop­er­ty of the von Schlabren­dorfs, new owners liq­ui­dated the for­ti­fi­ca­tions, as well as the moats and ram­parts, that sur­round­ed the cas­tle, and a small park es­tab­lished in place of the for­mer gar­dens. However, the ruins still at­tracted the at­ten­tion of artists and art en­thu­si­asts, an ex­am­ple of which can be found in re­la­tion of the Pol­ish economist and drama­tist Fry­deryk Skar­bek, who wrote in 1826: The town has a beau­ti­ful ru­in of an old cas­tle, I stayed overnight in it. At the turn of the nine­teenth and twen­ti­eth cen­turies, an oil de­pot op­er­at­ed within the cas­tle walls, and fire-fight­ing ex­er­cis­es and school sports ac­tiv­i­ties were or­ga­nized in the court­yard. In the 1920s, when the ru­ins be­longed to Franz von Deym (d. 1925), a small re­gion­al mu­se­um was opened in the cas­tle tow­er, and some of the rooms were adapt­ed for a tourist hos­tel and the­atre.

THE CASTLE ON POSTCARDS FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY

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t the end of the Sec­ond World War and in the first years af­ter the war, the buil­ding shared the fate of many such ob­jects in Low­er Si­le­sia: its equip­ment was looted. A fire was set too, which con­sumed the in­te­ri­ors and the 19th cen­tu­ry wood­en build­ings, turn­ing the cas­tle in­to an emp­ty stone body. The re­mains of it were pro­vi­sion­al­ly se­cured in the years 1958-1961. Some ren­o­va­tion and main­te­nance works were car­ried out here as ear­ly as in the 1990s, but their lim­it­ed scope could not stop the fur­ther degra­da­tion of the build­ing, which en­tered the new mil­len­ni­um as a de­sert­ed ru­in.

THE CASTLE ON POSTCARDS FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY

THE CASTLE RUINS IN THE 1930S, THE PICTURES SHOW THE GATE TOWER AND THE CLOCK TOWER

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

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ue to the lack of me­dieval de­scrip­tions and icono­graphy, as well as due to wide range of changes car­ried out in lat­er times, it is very dif­fi­cult to de­ter­mine the look and spa­tial lay­out of the Goth­ic cas­tle. We know that it was built from sand­stone on a steep river­side slope, pre­sum­ably on an ir­reg­u­lar plan close to an oval. Pre­served re­mains shows that it con­tained of at least one res­i­den­tial house, two sto­reys high, with vault­ed cham­bers on the ground floor. Frag­ments of the old­est build­ing are lo­cat­ed in the south­ern part of the cas­tle as a short arched sec­tion in­te­grated in­to the Re­nais­sance wall.

PLAN OF THE CASTLE RUINS, RELICS OF THE MEDIEVAL STRONGHOLD ARE MARKED IN BLACK:
1. ROUNDELS, 2. GATE TOWER, 3. CLOCK TOWER, 4. EAST WING, 5. SOUTH WING, 6. REMAINS OF CLOISTERS

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he Re­nais­sance cas­tle was built on a quadri­lat­er­al plan mea­sur­ing 62x65 me­ters, with two cor­ner, three-storey roun­dels. In the cen­tral part of its east­ern wing there is a tow­er, with a pedes­tri­an gang­way and a gate lead­ing to a court­yard. Its raw Goth­ic form was or­na­ment­ed with Re­nais­sance win­dow dec­o­ra­tion and a mag­nif­i­cent por­tal with the coat of arms of Ka­rel z Po­dě­brad. The res­i­den­tial build­ing of the cas­tle con­sist­ed of four wings, of which the rep­re­sen­ta­tive func­tion was per­formed by the east­ern wing with two large cham­bers mea­sur­ing 22x9.4 me­ters, oc­cu­py­ing the ground floor and the first floor be­tween the gate tow­er and the roun­del called the raven tow­er.

RECONSTRUCTION OF A XVI CENTURY CASTLE BY O. FELCMAN, R. FUKAL

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he every­day life of the court focused in the south and west wings. On the first floor of the south wing, there was an apart­ment mea­sur­ing 16.5x8 me­tres, with a dec­o­ra­tive por­tal leading to it. Next to the portal a clock tow­er stands, which is the sec­ond dom­i­nant unit of the cas­tle. The fourth, north wing, per­haps never com­ple­ted, closed a square court­yard with a side of about 37 me­ters, sur­round­ed by Re­nais­sance wood­en clois­ters. The build­ings fa­cades were cov­ered with rich ar­chi­tec­tural and sculp­tural dec­o­ra­tions incl. por­tals, win­dow frames, fam­i­ly coats of arms and the at­tic.

VIEW OF THE CASTLE FROM THE SOUTHEAST FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE XVIII CENTURY

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

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xternal walls, in­clud­ing the gate tow­er and clock tow­er, as well as a few de­cor­ations have been pre­served in re­la­ti­vely good con­di­tion to the pre­sent day. The cas­tle in­ter­ior is in much worse con­di­tion: its wood­en ceil­ings burnt down and the vaults col­lapsed. De­spite the un­doubt­ed beau­ty of the ruin, over the past few dec­ades it was aban­do­ned and neg­lec­ted. For­tu­nate­ly, the si­tu­ation changed in 2010, when the first re­pair works be­gan. As a re­sult, un­til 2017 the cas­tle re­gained one of the two roun­dels, the vaults in the gate tow­er and the at­tic crown­ing it.

RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ROUNDEL AND RENOVATION WORKS IN THE GATE TOWER, 2013

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n the close future, it is planned to ren­o­vate the clock tow­er, re­vi­tal­ize the court­yard, as well as to ar­range some in­ter­iors for the town's cul­tur­al events.

The ru­in is open to the pub­lic, but please note that tick­ets to the cas­tle can on­ly be pur­chased in the Lean­ing Tow­er and in the Mu­se­um of Re­gion­al Mem­o­ra­bil­ia (in­for­ma­tion from 2019). We visit the cas­tle with a guide.

IN THE COURTYARD, CONDITION IN 2019

THE CASTLE'S WESTERN ELEVATION

GETTING THERE

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he castle is si­tu­a­ted at Krzy­wa Street, on a high em­bank­ment in the south­ern part of the town, which is pas­sed from the west by the road E67. If you tra­vel by train, af­ter le­a­ving the rail­way sta­tion, you should go south, to­wards the Mar­ket Squa­re, and con­ti­nue straight a­head a­long Ar­mii Kra­jo­wej Street, and then - af­ter re­aching Krzy­wa Street - turn right.

The­re are no par­king lots ne­ar­by. You can park your car in one of the tight and of­ten crow­ded streets: Ar­mii Kra­jo­wej or Cia­sna, or a lit­tle fur­ther from the ru­ins, e.g. in the Old Mar­ket Squa­re.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. M. Chorowska: Rezydencje ¶redniowieczne na ¦l±sku, Politechnika Wrocławska 2003
2. L. Kajzer, J. Salm, S. Kołodziejski: Leksykon zamków w Polsce, Arkady 2001
3. J. Lamparska: Zamkowe tajemnice, Asia Press 2009
4. R. Łuczyński: Chronologia dziejów Dolnego ¦l±ska, Atut 2006
5. R. Łuczyński: Zamki, dwory i pałace w Sudetach, Wspólnota Akademicka 2008
6. M. Perzyński: Dolny ¦l±sk - kraina katedr, zamków i wulkanów, WDW 2007
7. M. Perzyński: Zamki, twierdze i pałace Dolnego ¦l±ska i Opolszczyzny, WDW 2006

VIEW OF THE CASTLE FROM THE EAST

GATE TOWER AND CLOCK TOWER SEEN FROM THE LEANING TOWER

Castles nearby:
Kamieniec Z±bkowicki - the neo-Gothic castle from the 19th century, 12 km
Rudnica - ruins of the manor house from the 16th century, 12 km
Bardo ¦l±skie - relics of the ducal castle from the 14th century, 13 km
Ciepłowody - ruins of the knights' castle from the 13th to the 16th century, 14 km
Grodziszcze - remnants of the castle from the 13th to 14th century, 13 km
Srebrna Góra - the fortress from the 18th century, 13 km
Stoszowice - the castle from the 13th to the 14th century, rebuilt in the 17th century, 14 km
Owiesno - ruin of the castle from the 14th to the 17th century, 16 km
Niemcza - the ducal castle from the 13th century, rebuilt, 17 km

WORTH SEEING:

The Lean­ing Tow­er is lo­cat­ed on ¦wię­te­go Woj­cie­cha Street, west of the Mar­ket Square. Its ori­gins prob­a­bly date back to the 14th cen­tu­ry, when the tow­er served as a town gate, al­though it is al­so be­lieved that it is a rel­ic of the first Z±b­ko­wi­ce cas­tle, which was sup­posed to ex­ist here even be­fore the town was found­ed. At least since the 15th cen­tu­ry the build­ing has been used as a bell tow­er. The tow­er began to lean at the end of the 16th cen­tu­ry, when the wall of the porch con­nect­ing it with St. Anne's Church cracked. It is gen­er­al­ly as­sumed that the loss of sta­bil­i­ty was caused by tec­ton­ic dis­tur­bances that oc­curred in Sep­tem­ber 1590, or by soil wet­ting that re­sult­ed in sub­si­dence of the foun­da­tions. At pre­sent, the build­ing de­vi­a­tion from the ver­ti­cal is 2.14 me­tres and it is still pro­gress­ing. How­ev­er, the tow­er can be vis­it­ed. From its view­ing ter­race there is an in­ter­est­ing pa­no­ra­ma of the town with the ru­ins of the cas­tle in the south.

The old­est res­i­den­tial build­ing in the town called the Knight Kauf­fung's Manor House. The Cham­ber of Re­gion­al Mem­o­ra­bil­ia operates here - an ethno­graph­ic mu­se­um with ex­hi­bi­tions of for­mer house­hold equip­ment, fur­ni­ture, home ap­pli­ances and old elec­tron­ics, as well as col­lec­tions of his­tor­i­cal weap­ons. Its cel­lar cham­bers house "the Dr. Fran­ken­stein Lab­o­ra­to­ry". Be­cause of the large num­ber of ex­hibits show­ing pre­cise­ly the anatom­i­cal fea­tures of hu­man and an­i­mal or­gan­isms, I do not rec­om­mend vis­it­ing this place accom­pa­nied by younger chil­dren.

text: 2022
photographs: 2021
© Jacek Bednarek