History
On the Oder island called Ostrów Tumski, a timber stronghold was built in the early Middle Ages, constituting one of the main seats of the first Piasts and their officials. It protected the crossings over the Oder, which was part of a major trade and communication route. It consisted of a princely seat and an outer bailey on which a cathedral was built of the bishopric erected in 1000. Next to the cathedral, a brick bishop’s manor house and residential buildings for the canons were built. The stronghold itself became the most important seat of Prince Bolesław the Tall, son of Władysław II the Exile, after his return to the country in 1163, and then of subsequent Piast princes from the Silesian line. In documents it was recorded in 1239 as “nostra caminata” of Henry the Pious, “castro nostro Wrat” of Henry III the White and “castro lapideo in curia nostra” of Henry III the White in 1265 and “castro lapideo in caminata nostra” in 1266.
From the 12th century, the wooden buildings of the stronghold were gradually replaced with brick ones. Between 1163 and 1201, at the initiative of Prince Bolesław the Tall, a Romanesque keep may have been built, a symbol of power among rebellious Silesian magnates and pretenders to power. Bolesław’s successor, Henry the Bearded, was said to have resided more near the city he was organizing and within the grounds of his manor on the left bank of the Oder, and thus invested less in castle expansion. On the other hand, the period of Henry’s rule was more stable than the times of Bolesław the Tall, who took part in numerous conflicts and struggles, and was twice, in 1172 and 1177 expelled from Wrocław by his younger brother Mieszko Tanglefoot. The economic situation would also have been more conducive to large construction investments in the 13th century. Henry or his wife Jadwiga could have founded one of the castle chapels on a cross plan, the latest being built during the short reign of their son, Henry the Pious.
The Mongol invasion of 1241, although it destroyed the settlement on the left bank of the river, did not cause significant damage to Ostrów island, especially not to the rampart-enclosed stronghold. However, it did influence the decision to modernize the outdated fortifications. Probably around 1242-1266, at the initiative of Prince Henry III the White, the old wood and earth ramparts were gradually replaced with brick walls. Subsequently, between 1270 and 1290, Henry IV the Righteous undertook a Gothic reconstruction of the castle. He erected a new complex of residential and representative buildings on the site of the older ones and founded a burial chapel associated with the Cistercian monastery.
At the end of the 13th century, the role of the clergy in the area of Ostrów Tumski was growing. When Henry IV erected the collegiate church of the Holy Cross, the island was divided into a western – princely and eastern – bishop’s part. After the death of Henry IV, the Piast castle was used less and less often. In the years 1329-1335, its area was lent to the chapter of the collegiate church of the Holy Cross for residential purposes, which is why it was soon divided into seven plots. In 1382, king Wenceslaus IV considered expanding the castle, but soon abandoned it. In 1439, the chapter acquired the land as its own and managed it until secularization in 1810. The new owners did not need the princely residential buildings or the castle fortifications, which in the early modern period underwent gradual rebuilding and demolition works. Additional destruction was brought by warfare, including the last one during the Second World War. After its end, only the former castle chapel of St. Martin was rebuilt.
Architecture
An early medieval stronghold was erected on the western tip of the island, right next to the Odra crossing, which consisted of several bridges built over branching river beds. From this route, next to the river harbor, the entry led to the outer ward and ran through the stronghold area, bounded by two gates, enabling full control of the trade, because the ring of ramparts tightly blocked the narrow part of the island. Formed in the tenth century, the castle had the outline of a 3-sided oval with a size of 2000 m2, which was enlarged at least twice: for the first time to the south (10-11th century), and for the second time to the east (11th century) eventually reaching an area of around 4,200 m2. The castle’s rampart was about 12.5 meters wide, had the trapezoidal cross section and the top in the form of a palisade or wooden battlement. The gates were reinforced by low, tower-shaped structures.
The Romanesque castle from the second half of the 12th century consisted of a triangular outline of timber and earth ramparts, within which stood numerous structures, including masonry structures built of bricks in a monk bond. The most important ones were probably grouped in the northern part of the courtyard, right next to the ramparts. It was primarily a magnificent eighteen-sided Romanesque structure, probably serving as a keep. The Romanesque chapel of St. Peter (recorded in 1175) was in an unknown location, as was the original chapel of St. Martin (recorded in 1149). Due to the location of the gates on the western and southeastern sides, and the road running through the castle, the remaining part of the courtyard may have served a utility function, subordinated to the residential and representative buildings to the north.
In the fourth quarter of the 12th century, an impressive building was erected in the northern part of the castle on an eighteen-sided plan with an external diameter of 24.5 metres, wall sections 4.1 metres long and brick walls 1.1 metres thick. The building’s facades with relatively thin walls, were reinforced internally and externally by pilaster strips, most likely connected by decorative arches, forming eighteen trapezoidal pillars. This structure, characterized by point loading of foundations, may have been chosen because of the island’s unstable terrain and the decayed structures of the former ramparts. In the center of the interior, a brick pillar stood on a massive, circular foundation, likely supporting a wooden ceiling with radially arranged beams (the interior was too spacious for a vault). The building’s walls likely contained narrow, elongated windows or loop holes, and the entire structure was covered by a conical, shingled roof. It was austere and almost entirely devoid of architectural detail, a characteristic of early religious buildings and secular defensive structures. It may have been a scaled-down version of the imperial chapel in Aachen, also modeled on chapels in Bruges, Groningen, or Leuven, or a residential tower in the style of donjons such as those at Windsor Castle, Château Gaillard, or Thionville. The Wrocław building may also have been modeled on the brick sacral and defensive structures of the Lombard region.
Initially, the eighteen-sided building was freestanding, apart from being partially embedded in the of a timber and earth rampart. However, the building was soon surrounded by a low outer wall (French: chemise, German: Mantelmauer), additionally reinforced with clay cladding. The outer wall was approximately 2 meters thick and separated from the eighteen-sided structure by 1.4-1.6 meters, which would have allowed for the placement of stairs or corridors within. As a result, it intersected the older ramparts, although it was itself surrounded by a contemporary rampart, at least 7 meters thick, which formed the batter of its lower section. The considerable thickness of the mantled wall suggests that it was topped with a wall-walk, perhaps connected to the upper floor of the eighteen-sided tower. The entire complex, including the eighteen-sided tower and its outer wall, was located in the northeastern part of the courtyard, a key defensive location, near the junction of the castle core with the outer bailey.
Perhaps during the lifetime of Prince Bolesław the Tall, or shortly after his death in 1201, a large brick building on a rectangular plan was erected in the northeastern corner of the enlarged castle. It either belonged to the Benedictine abbey, or after 1190 to the Premonstratensians, or was a residential and utility building associated with the ruler’s court. It was a two-room structure measuring 14.3 x 30 meters with relatively thin brick walls, 0.8 meters thick. Weak walls, lack of buttresses, and a flimsy foundation indicate that the house was not high. It likely had no brick upper storey, but at most a timber superstructure. The rooms were heated with hot air by first one, and later two, hypocaust furnaces, placed side by side in the center of the southern part of the building, beneath the ground floor. After some time, these were replaced by a single grate furnace. The chimney that vented the smoke from these furnaces could be embedded in the interior walls, dividing the building into smaller rooms.
In the thirties of the thirteenth century, in the western part of the castle, the construction of a late-Romanesque chapel on a cruciform plan was begun, built of bricks in the opus emplectum technique. It had massive walls 1.4 meters thick in the nave, 1.2 meters in the chancel and 1.7 meters in the apses. The nave had a spread of about 15.5 meters and sides were alternately shorter and longer. Three quadrilateral apses adjoined to the short sides, and from the north-east a square chancel, also closed with an apse. The interior vault was supported by four pillars forming a circular aisle surrounding the elevated and certainly illuminated from above central nave. The massive walls, as for a sacral building, and the depression in the floor would indicate a two-story nave, and the slight irregularity of the western apse would indicate the stairs leading to the gallery. The architecture of the chapel was unique in Poland, and the nearest stylistically castles chapel in Legnica has a less complex form, although a richer sculptural decor.
In the 13th century, the castle began to be surrounded by brick walls, replacing the successively removed timber and earth ramparts. A small rectangular building, reinforced on the north side with massive buttresses, was built into the north-eastern corner. It consisted of two rooms of unknown purpose, the western one measuring 7.7 x 6.4 meters and featuring a vaulted ground floor. The building had thick walls 1.4-1.7 meters wide, so it must have been closely linked to the castle’s defensive perimeter. In the first half of the 13th century, this small building was expanded southward, which must have been related to the demolition of the large house with the grate furnace. The result was a massive building, roughly square in plan, with sides approximately 17 meters long, possibly serving as a keep, and thus a tower-like. The exterior was still surrounded by massive old buttresses, while further, slightly shallower buttresses reinforced the walls on the remaining sides. In the western part of the interior, a vaulted cellar was created with a descent from the south. The ground floor was divided into three rooms. Thanks to the massive walls, there could have been at least one, and possibly two or three, additional storeys above.
In the first third of the 13th century, the castle’s expansion transformed the eighteen-sided keep into an elongated palace. Its western section housed a residential section, roughly square in plan, measuring approximately 14 x 15 meters, closely adjoining the eighteen-sided keep. Built of brick in the monk bond using the opus emplectum technique, it had massive walls ranging from 2.7-3 meters thick to 4 meters thick in the northern section. This allowed it to house at least two above-ground storeys and a basement. A 1.2-meter-wide passageway, containing a descent to the basement, was embedded in the thicker northern wall. On the eastern side of the eighteen-sided keep, the walls likely continued their course, creating a symmetrical layout approximately 50 meters long. Although the southern wall intersected the eighteen-sided keep, it may still have been functional, especially since elsewhere newer walls had been added to the keep’s older pilasters without disturbing their structure. Only the southern part of the eighteen-sided structure would have been demolished, where a new façade facing the courtyard was likely constructed. According to a 1239 record, the palace contained at least one chamber heated by a fireplace. The northern part, closest to the river, likely housed latrines and a chutes. A kitchen and baths may also have operated nearby.
Around the mid-13th century, the castle was finally enclosed along its entire perimeter by a ring of brick defensive walls. It was created on a polygonal plan, encompassing an area of approximately 9,000 square meters, larger than the former stronghold. The walls were erected on the top of the already leveled ramparts or outside them, thus enlarging the defensive perimeter. The heterogeneity of the foundations and buttresses of individual sections suggests that the brick fortifications were constructed in stages and that the terrain was of varying stability. The sections built on the southern and eastern sides of the castle were founded on brick pillars connected by segmental arches. It were not supported by buttresses, but their structure was reinforced by small, quadrangular towers. The thickness of the curtain walls in this section varied from a mere 0.9 meters to 1.3 meters. The northwestern section, with a more massive thickness of 2 meters, was reinforced with buttresses spaced approximately every 10-11 meters. Its height reached approximately 11 meters to the level of the wall-walk.
Between 1270 and 1290, the Gothic reconstruction of Henry IV Probus led to the complete rebuilding of the eighteen-sided keep (demolished to the foundations) and the attached palace into a Gothic octagonal structure, interpenetrated with the rectangular building. The entire structure was constructed of bricks in a monk bond, using granite and sandstone for architectural details (plinth, window and portal frames), with significant use of older building materials. The octagon’s internal diameter was 17.6 meters. It had a longitudinal annex supported by buttresses on the eastern side and another annex on the western side, totaling approximately 50 meters in length and approximately 14.1 meters in width. The octagonal section itself was also supported by buttresses, likely through which a porch ran from the courtyard. The building had an entrance on the south, formed between the buttresses on the courtyard side, approximately 2 meters wide. Regardless of the function of the octagon, the sheer size of this building and its original plan combining a longitudinal plan and a central element in one block testified to the great ambitions of the Silesian ruler and his builders.
The octagonal structure likely contained two or three stories. The ground floor, sunk 1.2 meters into the ground and covered by a multi-bay vault supported by pillars, may have been intended for servants, crew, and utility purposes. The first floor of the octagon could hypothetically have housed a chapel with a circular gallery supported by massive buttresses, but given the significant number of religious buildings in the castle, it may have housed a secular ceremonial space in the form of a great hall. In this case, the eastern annex would have housed not the chancel but the prince’s tribune. The western annex, on the other hand, may have been intended for residential rooms on the upper floors. In the octagon, the vault may have rested on four pillars or a single massive pillar in the center. The internal connection between the first floor of the hall or chapel and its gallery was via a spiral staircase embedded in the thickness of the northern wall. In addition, a 1.6-meter-wide internal passage within the thickness of the northwest buttress, led to the latrine. Another passage was hidden at the junction of the palace’s northern wall and the northeast side of the polygonal apse.
In the 1280s, Henry IV began building the burial church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, later renamed to St. Martin, and the Cistercian monastery, intended as a family mausoleum. The church consisted of an elongated chancel and an octagonal nave adjacent to it from the west. Originally, it was a three-level building, surrounded with vertical buttresses with niches in the lower part and windows of the gallery in the upper part. The nave was covered with a pyramidal roof with a wooden lantern, touching the gable roof of the chancel. The main entrance, accessible from the external stairs and the vestibule between two buttresses, led from the north. Two flights of spiral stairs set in the two thickest front buttresses, connected the ground floor with the main level of the chapel and the main level with the upper gallery. The 2.1-meter-wide and approximately 6-7-meter-high gallery was separated from the interior of the chapel by arcades and a parapet. The ground floor was to be covered with a vault supported by a single pillar in the middle of the octagon, and the main floor and the chancel with a cross-rib vault, but construction work on the chapel and the monastery was interrupted in 1278.
In the 13th-14th century, the entire north side of the area was limited by a residential building and a chapel. On the other sides, the castle area was surrounded by a mentioned above brick wall about 8-11 meters high. It surrounded an inner, main irregular courtyard of about 30 x 50 meters, adjoining the abbey from the east, from the west adjoining to the second courtyard with an economic function, and from the south to an area with a garden and buildings of the castle crew or auxiliary buildings. There were two gates in the walls: Water Gate from the west and Castle Gate leading to the eastern remaining part of Ostrów Island. Both were flanked by four-sided towers. In addition, there was a southern and western towers. The first one was extended in front of the perimeter of the wall, four-sided with dimensions 4.7 x 4.3 meters, with walls thick at 1.38 meters. Its tight interior in the ground floor could only serve as a guard room, additionally reduced in the upper floors by stairs. Originally, it was probably a half tower, open from the side of the courtyard and not rising above the level of the perimeter walls.
Current state
At present, the most visible remains of the castle are the heavily rebuilt church or the chapel of St. Martin. The walls of the main body of the former Gothic palas have survived to the height of the first and partly second floor as the basement and the ground floor of the present building. The foundations, perhaps never completed, of the Cistercian abbey in the castle are also visible. In 2024, a long-in-the-making exhibition opened in the basement of Ostrów Tumski at św. Marcina 12 Street, showcasing preserved Romanesque and Gothic relics of the castle (including two hypocaust furnaces, foundation pillars of the 12th-century keep, and architectural details discovered during archaeological excavations). The exhibition is open from April 1 to October 31, Tuesday to Sunday.
show St Martin’s church on map
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