History
The castle in Będzin was first recorded in 1301 and 1349, when a Będzin burgrave named Wiernek (“Vernco”) was mentioned. The castle was later recorded in the town’s foundation charter of 1358 (“sub castro nostro civitatem quam Bandzin nominamus”). It was built on the remnants of an early medieval stronghold from the 9th-11th centuries, which had been transformed into a stone castle since the mid-13th century. Chroniclers Jan Długosz and Janko of Czarnków attributed the castle’s foundation to King Kazimierz the Great, who secured the then Polish-Czech border, the nearby capital of Poland, and the crossing over the Przemsza River, which served as the trade route from Kraków to Wrocław. The castle was then integrated with the town defensive walls, encompassing not only the area of the town founded in 1358 but also the church suburb.
From the 14th century, the castle was under the care of burgraves and starosts, who had at their disposal an armed garrison, according to the 1456 survey, consisting of two crossbowmen and two infantrymen, supported by the townspeople. In 1403, the castle was held by Piotr of Siedlce, from 1415 to 1434 by Mikołaj Siestrzeniec Kornicz, from 1440 to 1441 by Paweł Spargalthi, and in 1444 by a certain Szymon. In 1448, King Kazimierz granted Będzin to Piotr Szafraniec of Pieskowa Skała, the subcamerarius of Kraków, while ten years later the castle was leased by Jan Synowiec de Zandowicze, the starost of Oświęcim, and Stanisław of Pogórzyce. In 1502, Janusz Pogórski was said to have held the castle. Later that same year, Stanisław Jarocki replaced him, whom King Alexander allowed to buy the Będzin estates. From 1531 to 1535 Marcin Myszkowski held the castle.
As a royal building, Będzin Castle was often the site of diplomatic meetings and negotiations, and occasionally served as a residence where monarchs and their representatives stayed while traveling. In 1432, King Władysław Jagiełło visited the castle in transit. In 1434, a Silesian-Polish agreement was concluded in Będzin, and in 1502, King Alexander confirmed all privileges to the townspeople. In 1588, the Holy Roman Emperor and German King Maximilian Habsburg was a famous prisoner of Będzin Castle, captured by Hetman Jan Zamoyski after the Battle of Byczyna. Negotiations with the emperor’s representatives, with the assistance of papal mediators, then took place in Będzin and nearby Bytom. The ruler was finally released from the Będzin prison in 1589, after being sent to the border bridge on the Brynica River near Czeladź.
The castle’s decline and devastation occurred in the 17th century. This was caused by a fire in 1616, which broke out for unknown reasons during Andrzej Dębiński’s tenure, followed by occupation by Swedish troops and the destruction caused by another fire in 1655. By the following century, the castle was an uninhabited ruin. Its crumbling walls were recorded in inspections in 1765 and 1789. In 1825, a stone fallen from the unsecured walls is said to have killed a passerby. Fortunately, the ruins were not slightened, but reconstruction began shortly thereafter. The first one, designed by Francisco Lanci in 1834, had a neo-Gothic and romantic character. The last one, completed in the 1950s, gave the castle a partially original appearance.
Architecture
The castle was built on a hill above the left bank of the Czarna Przemsza River, where a stronghold had existed in the early Middle Ages. The riverbed meandered around the hill, protecting the castle from the west and north. On the eastern side an outer bailey may have existed, which lost importance after the town foundation, when the slightly smaller western outer bailey was fortified. The town protected the castle along its entire southern section, with the church quarter occupying its northeastern, highest part. This was incorporated into the town walls from the third quarter of the 14th century, connected to the castle from the southwest and east.
The oldest part of the castle was a free-standing, cylindrical tower erected at the highest point of the hill, dating back to the second half of the 13th century, probably initially located within wood and earth fortifications. The next stage was the erection of a four-sided, four-story building and the surrounding of the complex with two circumferences of defensive walls on a plan of irregular pentagons. The building filled the southern corner of the courtyard in such a way that its facade and eastern wall constituted a section of the defensive perimeter. The cylindrical tower, on the other hand, was in the north-east corner, close to the two curtains, but not directly connected to them.
The outer bailey adjoined the upper ward from the west and partly to the south, located slightly lower on the slopes falling towards the river. It was surrounded by an additional wall with a western four-sided tower measuring 7.6 x 7.6 meters and a gatehouse on the north side. Probably the second gatehouse connected the outer bailey with the town from the south. Neither the west tower nor the tower of the north gate were extended in the foreground, both were entirely within the courtyard. In the foreground, only the straight foregate of the northern gate was protruded, which extended the entire gate passage to 12.5 meters. The width of the passage was 2.2 meters. In addition, the outer ward probably consisted of wooden or timber-framed economic and auxiliary buildings (stables, granaries, warehouses, pantries, various types of sheds).
The entrance to the upper ward was via a three-storey gatehouse. After entering it, you turned left and walked through the entire zwinger (area between the walls), until the gatehouse was reached again, and after the right turn you entered the courtyard (now the so-called inn is there). Due to the change in the height of the ground, less than 5 meters, the second entrance to the gatehouse was already on the second floor, above the first passage from the outer bailey. To additionally secure the gate, the entrance to the courtyard of the upper ward was flanked by a loop hole pierced in the side wall of the residential building (main house). The inner defensive wall of the upper castle was much higher than the outer one. It is possible that the outer one was equipped with hoarding, the inner one certainly had a battlement.
The castle’s residential building in the Middle Ages was likely uniform in height throughout, with no distinct eastern tower-like section. Although the expansion joint on the western side suggests that initially, for a short time, a freestanding quadrangular tower with external dimensions of 8.5 x 9 meters operated in the southeast corner, later expanded to include a slightly longer western section. As part of the castle’s defensive perimeter, the building’s walls were very thick. At ground level its width ranged from 2.2 to 2.4 meters. Although thickness decreased at the level of the upper floors, even on the top floor in the eastern section, walls were approximately 1-1.4 meters wide. The entire structure ultimately had the form of a massive tower house, just under 18 meters high. A distinctive feature was the rounded southeast corner, likely facilitating observation and firepower.
The main residential building initially had two entrances. The first was located several meters above ground level, likely accessed by a ladder or external wooden staircase (this is the current ground floor entrance, but the ground level was originally two meters lower). Climbing up, one entered a room with three exits: one in the ceiling, one in the floor, and one to the side. The second entrance from the courtyard led from ground level to a single western room, 3.8 meters high. The eastern room on the ground floor was originally accessible only by a hatch from above, although an additional entrance may have been made as early as the 14th century. The height of the second floor was approximately 3.7 meters. At the level of the third floor, 3.3 meters high, there were two exits to the outside: to the wall-walk of the inner defensive wall and further to the cylindrical tower and the guard’s porch. There were probably two more floors above. The rooms were heated by fireplaces, for which at least one flue was built.
The cylindrical tower had a diameter of 10.7 meters and walls approximately 4 meters thick at ground level. Originally, it contained four storeys, defined by wall offsets that served to support the beamed ceilings. The entrance was in a pointed opening at the third storey level. Access was via a ladder or a wall-walk running along the wall’s crown and then along a timber porch. Communication within the tower was via ladders. The lowest level was a dark, cramped, and stuffy, high ground floor, beginning below the level of the entrance portal. Above it were two more storeys separated by wooden ceilings. The original tower’s terminus may have been roofed or equipped with an open, battlemented platform, from which active defense was likely conducted (no arrowslits were created in the tower’s walls). In the late Middle Ages the tower was probably raised using brick.
Current state
Today, the renovated and partially rebuilt castle is one of the most impressive medieval structures in southern Poland. The main differences from its original appearance are the reduced height of the cylindrical tower, originally taller than the quadrangular building, and the separation of the quadrangular tower, by adding the entire top floor of the southeast corner in the 20th century. This significantly altered the castle’s overall height, making the cylindrical tower invisible from the town side. Furthermore, the quadrangular tower and the lower building may have originally been the same height and covered with a single roof, as seen in a veduta from 1536 (which was not discovered in Germany until 1991). The numerous transformations of the residential building have meant that almost all of the windows visible today are contemporary, diverse in style, using bricks as the building material. Only a few of original slit openings have survive, which, after being chiseled out, now serve as part of the exhibition of old weapons. The entrance gate area has undergone even greater changes since the Middle Ages, with access to the courtyard now restricted to a recently constructed opening on the northwest side of the wall. Currently, the castle houses the Zagłębie Dąbrowskie Museum with interesting exhibition of military artifacts. Opening hours and dates are available on the castle’s official website here. here.
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