*** CASTLE IN ZˇBKOWICE ¦LˇSKIE ***

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ZˇBKOWICE ¦LˇSKIE

the ruin of a ducal castle

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


T

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

W

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

T

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

W

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

I

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

T

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"

W

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

A

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

A

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 Ger­man name of the town come from the Mid­dle Ages, as ev­i­denced by doc­u­ments from 1287, when the town of Fran­ken­stein was men­tioned for the first time. Lat­er, its writ­ing was slight­ly mod­i­fied and some­times func­tioned in forms of Frank­in­stein (1338), Franck­in­steyn (1445) or Franck­en­stain (1651). The name Z±b­ko­wice ¦l±­skie (Sile­sian) was giv­en to the town in 1945.

The term brings to mind the ter­ri­fy­ing and trag­ic char­ac­ter of Ma­ry Shel­ley's nov­el en­ti­tled Fran­ken­stein; or, The Mod­ern Pro­me­theus. It is not known why the au­thor gave such a name to the doc­tor, who cre­at­ed a mon­ster from frag­ments of hu­man and an­i­mal bod­ies. Some hy­pothe­ses, how­ev­er, make us look for a con­nec­tion be­tween the ti­tle of the nov­el and the town in Si­le­sia of the same name. At the be­gin­ning of the 17th cen­tu­ry, Z±b­ko­wi­ce (ger­man Fran­ken­stein) was plagued by an epi­dem­ic of an un­prece­dent­ed scale. How­ev­er, while the plague at that time was com­mon and fre­quent, the fact that the dis­ease by­passed neigh­bor­ing towns and at­tacked on­ly here may have been sur­pris­ing. It was con­sid­ered that the cause of such high mor­tal­i­ty were the forces of dark­ness. On the ini­tia­tive of the town au­thor­i­ties, an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was car­ried out, as a re­sult of which sev­er­al gravedig­gers and their as­sis­tants were cap­tured and then ac­cused of spread­ing poi­sonous pow­der in or­der to earn mon­ey from buri­als as well as from steal­ing graves. Being torm­en­ted, the pris­on­ers quick­ly con­fessed their guilt and next were burned alive.



The tri­al of gravedig­gers was de­scribed in 1606 by the Ne­we Zey­tung news­pa­per pub­lished in Augs­burg. Thanks its sug­ge­stive de­scrip­tion, the sto­ry be­came fa­mous and was told through­out Eu­rope for many years. Un­doubt­ed­ly, it was al­so known by Mary Shel­ley, an en­thu­si­ast of fan­tas­tic and sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­ture and hor­ror dra­mas. The Z±b­ko­wi­ce clue is there­fore prob­a­ble, but not the on­ly one. Mary, at the age of 16, af­ter es­cap­ing from her home, wan­dered with her be­loved in Eu­rope. Then, in Septem­ber 1814, she reached the Rhine Riv­er near the cas­tle where Kon­rad Dip­pel, a doc­tor sus­pect­ed of dig­ging up graves in or­der to do some ex­per­i­ments with dead bodies, lived years ago. This cas­tle is called... Fran­ken­stein.



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


D

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

T

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

T

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


E

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

I

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.


Tourist Information Centre
Rynek 56, 57-200 Z±bkowice ¦l±skie
tel. 74 815 20 43
e-mail: turystyka@zckit.pl

Opening hours / Tickets


IN THE COURTYARD, CONDITION IN 2019

THE CASTLE'S WESTERN ELEVATION



GETTING THERE


T

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.


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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.


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text: 2022
photographs: 2021
© Jacek Bednarek