CASTLE IN SMOLEŃ, VIEW FROM THE EAST

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

A

t the pre­sent stage of our knowl­edge of writ­ten sources and ar­chae­o­log­i­cal re­search, the es­tab­lish­ment of the cas­tle in Smo­leń should be linked to the foun­da­tion of San­do­mierz voi­vode Ot­to of Pil­cza coat of arms To­pór (d. 1384) or his fa­ther Jan (d. ca. 1360), castel­lan of Ra­dom and the first source-con­firmed lord of the lo­cal es­tates. The old­est doc­u­ment known to us about it dates from 1396, but the ear­li­er ex­is­tence of the strong­hold may be sug­gest­ed by a 1368 ref­er­ence to the chapel of the Bles­sed Vir­gin Ma­ry in Pi­li­ca, which is iden­ti­fied with the cas­tle chapel, since no such church ex­ist­ed in the town at the time. From the be­gin­ning, the cas­tle served as the seat of the To­por­czyk fam­i­ly, which was among the rich­est and most pow­er­ful in the en­tire king­dom in the 14th cen­tu­ry.

UPPER AND LOWER CASTLE BEFORE (LEFT) AND AFTER REVITALIZATION

W

hen Ot­to had died, the huge es­tate was in­her­it­ed by his daugh­ter Elis­a­beth (Elż­bie­ta z Pil­czy, d. 1420), who be­came the rich­est maid­en in Pol­ish King­dom at the time. Af­ter two short mar­riages, the on­ly 25-year-old dou­ble wid­ow mar­ried in 1397 Win­cen­ty Gra­now­ski of Le­li­wa coat of arms, and when he had died in 1410 while stay­ing in To­ruń (prob­a­bly poi­soned by Teu­ton­ic Knights), she mar­ried again, be­com­ing the pro­tag­o­nist of a scan­dal reach­ing the very heights of pow­er. In fact, Elis­a­beth's fourth hus­band was the King of Poland him­self, La­di­slaus Ja­gieł­ło (Wła­dy­sław Ja­gieł­ło, d. 1434), who (ac­cord­ing to a me­dieval chron­i­cler) had a strange love for her. Due to Elis­a­beth's ad­vanced age and thus lit­tle chance of giv­ing birth to the roy­al de­scen­dant so ex­pect­ed by the court, the no­bil­i­ty most­ly con­demned the king's re­la­tion­ship with the 45-year-old wom­an and re­fused to take part in the wed­ding fes­tiv­i­ties. Even fur­ther in his crit­i­cism went Bish­op Sta­ni­sław Cio­łek, who wrote a vir­u­lent lam­poon in which he com­pared Eli­za­beth to an old stink­ing sow ex­haust­ed by mul­ti­ple births.

AT THE UPPER CASTLE

CASTLE IN SMOLEŃ, K. STRONCZYŃSKI "OPISY I WIDOKI ZABYTKÓW W KRÓLESTWIE POLSKIM 1844-55"

A

f­ter Elis­a­beth's death, the Pil­i­ca es­tate was tak­en o­ver by Jan Gra­now­ski vel Pilec­ki of Le­li­wa coat of arms (d. 1476), step­son and trust­ed of­fi­cial of La­dis­laus Ja­gieł­ło. The Smo­leń cas­tle re­mained in the pos­ses­sion of this fam­i­ly line for more than a cen­tu­ry and a half, be­ing mod­ern­ized and ex­pand­ed sev­er­al times dur­ing that time. Jan Gra­now­ski mar­ried Jad­wi­ga Ku­row­ska (d. 1470), with whom he had three daugh­ters: Zo­fia, Ka­ta­rzy­na and Bar­ba­ra, and three sons: Sta­ni­sław, Ot­to and Jan. Fol­low­ing the di­vi­sion of his fa­ther's es­tate, Pil­i­ca, Smo­leń and Ogro­dzie­niec cas­tle were giv­en to Jan (II) Pi­lec­ki (d. 1496), castel­lan of Biecz, pa­tron of the arts and own­er of a large book col­lec­tion kept in the Smo­leń cas­tle.

CASTLE RUINS ON A WOODCUT BY ROMAN HUBICKI, 1858

ENGRAVING BY ALFRED SCHOUPPE FROM 1860

B

e­tween 1492 and 1516, the cas­tle was home to Bier­nat of Lub­lin, a Re­nais­sance po­et, trans­la­tor and fab­u­list, who serves here as Jan Pi­lec­ki's per­son­al sec­re­tary. The son of this Jan, Jan (III) Pi­lec­ki spent most of his life on war ex­pe­di­tions ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in cam­paigns against the Tatars, Wal­lachi­ans and Rus­sians, where he fought, among oth­er things, in the fa­mous Bat­tle of Or­sha (1514). He died child­less in 1527, as a re­sult of which the cas­tle was in­her­it­ed by as many as six sons of his broth­er Sta­ni­sław, and af­ter 1560 it passed to the son of one of the six broth­ers - Jan (IV) Pi­lec­ki (d. 1574), roy­al cap­tain and the last lord of Smo­leń from Le­li­wi­ta fam­i­ly line.

GENRE SCENES FROM THE WORK OF BIERNAT OF LUBLIN: "ŻYWOT EZOPA FRYGA", 1578

A

f­ter 1570 Smo­leń be­came the prop­er­ty of the bish­op of Cra­cow Fil­ip Pad­niew­ski, and af­ter his un­ex­pect­ed death in 1572 it passed by in­her­i­tance to his nephew Woj­ciech Pad­niew­ski (d. 1610). The new own­er, how­ev­er, no longer lived in the cas­tle, but in a manor house lo­cat­ed at the foot of the cas­tle hill, and then in neigh­bor­ing town of Pi­li­ca, where he had erect­ed a mag­nif­i­cent res­i­dence of the pa­laz­zo in for­tez­za type. Per­haps Pad­niew­ski's de­ci­sion to leave the strong­hold, dic­tat­ed by chang­ing trends in res­i­den­tial ar­chi­tec­ture, de­vel­op­ment of firearms and, above all, the need to in­crease the com­fort of his home, was ac­cel­er­at­ed by its cap­ture in 1587 and par­tial de­struc­tion by the Aus­tri­an troops of Max­i­m­il­ian Hab­s­burg, as a re­sult of which a mod­ern­iza­tion of the cas­tle no longer made eco­nom­ic sense.

PILICA PALACE AND ITS FORTIFICATIONS ON POSTCARDS FROM THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY

A

f­ter the death of Wo­j­ciech Pad­niews­ki, his son Sta­ni­sław co­mes de Pil­cza Pad­niew­ski (d. 1611) be­came the own­er of Smo­leń and Pil­i­ca for a short time (he died just one year af­ter his fa­ther), then the es­tate passed to the Dukes of Zba­raż: Krzy­sztof (d. 1627) and Je­rzy (d. 1631), and then to the rich Wiś­nio­wiec­ki fam­i­ly. Fur­ther, through mar­riage with He­le­na Wiś­nio­wiec­ka (d. 1650), it be­came part of the wealthy do­main of Ma­zo­vian voi­vode Sta­ni­sław War­szyc­ki (d. 1680). By this time, how­ev­er, the cas­tle was al­most com­plete­ly aban­doned, pre­sent­ing lit­tle eco­nom­ic or mil­i­tary val­ue. As late as 1655, Pol­ish troops used it for de­fense against Swedish army, which, ac­cord­ing to tra­di­tion, cap­tured the strong­hold and then burned it. Af­ter the Swedes left, War­szy­c­ki pro­posed to the Fran­cis­cans that they adapt the dev­as­tat­ed cas­tle in­to a mo­na­stery, but the lat­ter re­ject­ed the pro­pos­al, which ul­ti­mate­ly sealed the sad fate of the me­dieval build­ing.

CASTLE IN SMOLEŃ, "TYGODNIK ILUSTROWANY" 1877

DRAWING BY BOLESŁAW OLSZOWSKI, 1879

S

tanisław Warszy­c­ki's great-grand­daugh­ter was Ag­nes Emer­c­jan­na War­szyc­ka (d. ca. 1736), a wom­an so ec­cen­tric that she was con­sid­ered men­tal­ly ill. In 1730 the Pil­i­ca es­tate passed from her to King Jan III So­bies­ki's daugh­ter-in-law, Ma­ria Jó­ze­fa née Wes­sel (d. 1761), to be hand­ed o­ver just be­fore her death to her nephew Te­o­dor Wes­sel, coat-of-arms Ro­ga­la, Grand Trea­sur­er of the Crown (d. 1791). As a re­sult of the third par­ti­tion of Poland, Smo­leń came un­der the rule of the Aus­tri­an au­thor­i­ties, who or­dered the par­tial de­mo­li­tion of the cas­tle walls for the con­struc­tion of a bor­der cham­ber. Lo­cal res­i­dents and trea­sure hun­ters al­so had their share in the work of de­stroy­ing the old strong­hold; de­lud­ed by leg­ends, they dis­man­tled cas­tle walls, ac­cel­er­at­ing their ero­sion.

RUINS ON A LITHOGRAPH BY NAPOLEON ORDA, 1881

D

e­mo­li­tion of the cas­tle was halt­ed on­ly in the 1840s by Ro­man Hu­bic­ki (d. 1861), owner of the Ba­ta­wia fac­to­ry pro­duc­ing shot­gun pel­lets. He used the cas­tle well to draw raw ma­te­ri­al for his pro­duc­tion, but at the same time, as a lover of his­to­ry and en­thu­si­ast of na­tion­al mon­u­ments, he tried to clean up the ru­ins. In 1845, on his or­der, the south­ern slope of Cas­tle Moun­tain was be­ing cleared, with the in­ten­tion of set­ting up a vine plan­ta­tion. Dur­ing this work, con­sid­er­able quan­ti­ties of hu­man bones, blad­ed weapons and frag­ments of war equip­ment such as spurs, stir­rups and ax­es were dis­cov­ered, prob­a­bly left here af­ter some siege of the strong­hold from me­dieval times. Around this time, the cas­tle tow­er was par­tial­ly re­stored, and in one of the bai­ley, work­ers dis­cov­ered relics of a ceme­tery dat­ing back to the Lu­sa­tian cul­ture pe­ri­od.

CASTLE MOUNTAIN, WORLD WAR I POSTCARDS

D

ur­ing World War I, the ru­ins were fired up­on sev­er­al times by Rus­sian and Aus­tri­an troops fight­ing in the area. They were pro­tect­ed on­ly in the 1950s and 1960s, but lat­er, de­prived of reg­u­lar care, de­te­ri­o­rat­ed more and more o­ver time. In 2013-16, an ex­ten­sive re­vi­tal­iza­tion of the cas­tle was car­ried out on the ini­tia­tive of the Pi­li­ca town coun­cil, which brought it back to the re­gion's top tourist at­trac­tions.

WESTERN LOWER CASTLE, A VIEW BEFORE AND AFTER REVITALIZATION

UPPER CASTLE AND A FRAGMENT OF THE LOWER (EASTERN) CASTLE WALL, A VIEW BEFORE AND AFTER REVITALIZATION

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

S

moleń Cas­tle rep­re­sents a type of moun­tain fort­ress with a clear­ly de­fined up­per cas­tle built on a hard-to-reach lime­stone rock and two in­de­pen­dent low­er cas­tles. Its dom­i­nant fea­ture is a cylin­dri­cal tow­er with a di­am­e­ter of 7.5 me­ters, from which walls run along the edge of the rock. Its func­tion in the past was to de­fend the bridge­head af­ter at­tack­ers oc­cu­pied the rest of the strong­hold, and it al­so served as an ob­ser­va­tion and sig­nal­ing plat­form. In the east­ern part of the up­per cas­tle stood a build­ing of two or three sto­ries, con­nect­ed to the tow­er via a foot­bridge that led to the wood­en plat­form of the tow­er, from where stairs could be used to reach the top of it. A small space sep­a­rat­ing the build­ing from the tow­er was oc­cu­pied by a court­yard with a wa­ter cis­tern carved in­to the rock. The on­ly en­trance to the up­per cas­tle led through a wick­et in the north­ern sec­tion of the pe­ri­me­ter walls.

AT THE UPPER CASTLE

T

he eco­nom­ic life of the stronghold took place in the east­ern low­er cas­tle, en­closed by walls 2 me­ters thick, topped by a crenel­la­tion and equipped with a wood­en porch for guards. The south­east­ern part of these walls was flanked by a half-tow­er, pre­sum­ably con­nect­ed to a wood­en build­ing, the ex­is­tence of which is ev­i­denced by ar­chae­o­log­i­cal find­ings. The en­trance to the area led from the west, through a sharp-arched gate, where re­cess­es were pre­served for the mech­a­nism used to low­er the port­cul­lis. The ap­proach to the gate was im­ped­ed by a dry moat and a nat­u­ral­ly shaped ram­part formed by rocks. A draw­bridge crossed o­ver the moat, which, when raised, pro­vid­ed ad­di­tion­al pro­tec­tion for the gate.

EASTERN LOWER CASTLE

GATE LEADING TO THE EASTERN LOWER CASTLE, VIEW BEFORE AND AFTER REVITALIZATION

I

t is like­ly that in the 2nd half of the 15th cen­tu­ry a sec­ond low­er cas­tle was erect­ed on the flat­ten­ing in the west­ern part of the moun­tain. At first, the main build­ing here was a quad­ran­gu­lar res­i­den­tial tow­er with two floors above ground and a vault­ed base­ment - there is a hy­poth­e­sis that it housed the cham­bers of Bier­nat of Lub­lin, who lived and worked in Smo­leń for 25 years. At the turn of the 15th and 16th cen­turies, the west­ern part of out­er for­ti­fi­ca­tions was re­mod­eled and, based on their new plan, the so-called palace was built, hav­ing two or three sto­ries, con­nect­ed by wood­en gal­leries. His­to­ri­ans as­sume that this palace housed the fa­mous Pi­leck­is' li­bra­ry, and pos­si­bly al­so an ar­mo­ry and liv­ing cham­bers, as in­di­cat­ed by nu­mer­ous re­mains of stove tiles that have been found here.

WESTERN LOWER CASTLE

MEDIEVAL RESIDENTIAL TOWER AT THE EASTERN LOWER CASTLE

T

he en­trance to the west­ern low­er cas­tle led through a gate­way in the south­ern wall, al­though due to its nar­row width it was more of an en­trance for pedes­tri­ans or, even­tu­al­ly, those mov­ing on horse­back. A well was carved near the gate, the depth of which is as yet un­known, but it is be­lieved that it may have orig­i­nal­ly reached up to 100 me­ters. The up­per cas­tle could on­ly be ac­cessed from the west­ern low­er cas­tle.

THE WELL AT THE LOWER CASTLE, VIEW BEFORE AND AFTER REVITALIZATION

PLAN OF SMOLEŃ CASTLE: A. UPPER CASTLE, B. EASTERN LOWER CASTLE, C. WESTERN LOWER CASTLE,
1. MAIN TOWER, 2. RESIDENTIAL BUILDING IN THE UPPER CASTLE, 3. HALF-TOWER, 4. ARTILLERY GUN EMPLACEMENTS,
5. GATE, 6. RESIDENTIAL TOWER, 7. PALACE, 8. WELL, 9. TOWER, 10. GATE, 11. REMAINS OF WOODEN BUILDINGS,
12. ENTRANCE TO THE UPPER CASTLE

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

T

he ru­ins are lo­cat­ed on the top of a con­i­cal moun­tain cov­ered with dense for­est. Al­most com­plete out­er walls of the low­er cas­tles and the up­per cas­tle have been pre­served to the pre­sent day, which, thanks to suc­cess­ful re­stora­tion, are now close to their orig­i­nal height. Walls of the res­i­den­tial build­ings have al­so been par­tial­ly re­con­struct­ed, and wood­en porch­es have been built for tour­ists at some sec­tions of the east­ern court­yard walls, which im­i­tate me­dieval guard gallery.

RECONSTRUCTION OF THE WOODEN GALLERIES AT THE LOWER CASTLE

T

he re­con­struc­tion has not erased re­mains of old por­tals, open­ings for ceil­ing beams and relics of the fur­nace, which, af­ter clean­ing the lime­stone walls, are now clear­ly vis­i­ble. A sol­id wood­en stair­case leads from the west­ern court­yard to the up­per cas­tle with a tow­er, which was in­ac­ces­si­ble un­til re­cent­ly. To­day there is a view­ing plat­form on top of it, from where one can en­joy a vast panora­ma of the pic­turesque Kraków-Czę­to­chows­ka Up­land.

IN THE WEST COURTYARD / CONTEMPORARY STAIRCASE TO THE UPPER CASTLE

BYDLIŃSKIE MOUNTAINS

WESTERN LOWER CASTLE

Admission fee (ticket office is located at the parking lot at the foot of the cas­tle hill)

A visit to the castle, including the climb up the hill and back, will take at least 1 hour.

It is forbidden to bring dogs into the re­serve.

The site is not equipped to handle people with phy­si­cal dis­abi­li­ties.

VIEW FROM THE MAIN TOWER LOOKING SOUTH

HOW TO GET THERE?

S

moleń can be reached by local buses that run here from the towns of Pi­li­ca and Wol­brom. You can al­so make a day trip on foot or by bi­cycle from Ogro­dzie­niec via Ry­czów and Byd­lin, through for­ests and mea­dows of the beau­ti­ful Ju­ra region.

There is free parking near the castle hill.

Bicycles can be brought into the ruins.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. W. Alexandrowicz: Malakofauna w ruinach zamku Smoleń, Chrońmy Przyr. Ojcz. 70/2014
2. M. Antoniewicz: Zamki na Wyżynie Krakowsko-Częstochowskiej...
3. B. Czwojdrak: "To jest rzecz niesłuszna i być nie może!" Skandale w rodzinie, Pomocnik Hist. 5/2017
4. L. Kajzer, J. Salm, S. Kołodziejski: Leksykon zamków w Polsce, Arkady 2001
5. K. Moskal: Leliwici z Melsztyna i ich zamki, Koliber 2007
6. R. Rogiński: Zamki i twierdze w Polsce, historia i legendy, IWZZ 1990
7. R. Sypek: Zamki i obiekty warowne Jury Krakowsko-Częstochowskiej, CB
8. A. Wagner: Murowane budowle obronne w Polsce X-XVIIw., Bellona 2019
9. J. Zinkow: Orle gniazda i warownie jurajskie, Sport i turystyka 1977

CASTLE PARKING LOT

Castles nearby:
Pilica - palazzo in fortezza type castle, 4 km
Ryczów - ruins of a royal watchtower from the 14th century, 7 km
Udórz - relics of a knight's castle from the 14th century, 9 km
Bydlin - ruins of a knight's castle from the 14th century, 12 km
Podzamcze - Ogrodzieniec castle ruins from the 14th-16th centuries, 13 km
Morsko - castle ruins from the 14th century, 22 km
Rabsztyn - ruin of a royal castle from the 14th century, 23 km
Pieskowa Skała - royal castle from the 14th-17th centuries, 28 km
Wysocice - fortified church from the 12th-13th centuries, 30 km
Sławków - castle ruins from the 13th century, 32 km
Ojców - ruin of a royal castle from the 14th century, 34 km
Siewierz - ruin of the bishops of Cracow castle from the 15th century, 38 km
Bobolice - royal castle (reconstruction), 39 km
Korzkiew - knight's castle from the 14th century, 41 km
Mirów - ruins of a knight's castle from the 14th century, 41 km

text: 2023
photos: 2009, 2014, 2022
© Jacek Bednarek