CASTLE IN GNIEW, VIEW OF THE EASTERN WING

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

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on­struc­tion of the brick cas­tle be­gan in 1283, short­ly af­ter the Teu­ton­ic Or­der re­ceived the land of Gniew from the Duke of Gdańsk, Mści­wój (d. 1294). This was the Teu­ton­ic Knights' first ter­ri­to­ri­al out­post on the left bank of Vis­tu­la, so they im­me­di­ate­ly set about for­ti­fy­ing these su­per-eas­i­ly ac­quired ar­eas. Di­et­rich von Spi­ra, the first com­man­der of Gniew, was ap­point­ed to su­per­vise all the work. He de­cid­ed to use build­ing ma­te­ri­al ob­tained from the de­mo­li­tion of a brick watch­tow­er in Pot­ter­berg (or Pot­te­berg) in Chełm­no Land and trans­port­ed to its des­ti­na­tion by the riv­er. A steep, river­side hill at the mouth of the Wie­rzy­ca Riv­er in­to the Vis­tu­la was cho­sen for the lo­ca­tion of the new con­vent's head­quar­ters, thus tak­ing ad­van­tage of a nat­u­ral ob­sta­cle to pro­tect against at­tack from the east. The lo­ca­tion al­so made it pos­si­ble to con­trol land routes and nav­i­ga­tion on the Vis­tu­la River.

CASTLE SEEN FROM THE TOURNAMENT COURTYARD SIDE

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on­struc­tion work last­ed in­ter­mit­tent­ly for more than forty years and pro­ceed­ed in two ma­jor phas­es. In the first phase, a 6-me­ter-high out­er wall was erect­ed, in­to which three tur­rets and a mas­sive square berg­fried were in­cor­po­rat­ed. The north­ern and south­ern res­i­den­tial wings, which were still low and poor­ly equipped at the time, were al­so erect­ed. Ini­tial­ly, the en­trance to the court­yard led through a gate lo­cat­ed in the south­ern wing. It could be ac­cessed via a draw­bridge o­ver a moat sep­a­rat­ing the up­per cas­tle area from a tri­an­gu­lar-shaped farm yard.

THE LOCATION OF THE CASTLE IN THE MEDIEVAL TOWN: "DIE BAU- UND KUNSTDENKMÄLER DES KREISE..." 1887

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t the be­gin­ning of the 14th cen­tu­ry, the east­ern and west­ern wings were built, and the ex­ist­ing ones, with their tow­ers, were raised, so that they all reached the height of three sto­ries. The wings formed an in­ner court­yard, sur­round­ed by wood­en gal­leries. Near­ly a cen­tu­ry lat­er, the cas­tle was adapt­ed as the pri­vate res­i­dence of the for­mer grand mas­ter, Mi­cha­el Kuch­meis­ter von Stern­berg (d. 1423). Around this time, the south­ern gate was re­placed by an en­trance lo­cat­ed in the east­ern wing, and the east­ern farm yard was al­so ex­pand­ed. These changes re­sult­ed from the need to mod­ern­ize the fortress due to the de­vel­op­ment of fire­arms. This is be­cause the south wing had too many large win­dows, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for the crew to de­fend the cas­tle dur­ing a siege.

THE WAY TO THE CASTLE LEADS THROUGH THE XIXTH-CENTURY NEO-GOTHIC GATEHOUSE

EAST WING WITH THE GATE TO THE COURTYARD

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niew was the first Teu­ton­ic cas­tle on the west bank of the Vis­tu­la Riv­er and one of the most sig­nif­i­cant in the en­tire Teu­ton­ic state. In 1407, the Gniew kom­turia pos­sessed more than 500 hors­es, in­clud­ing about 100 war hors­es of great ma­te­ri­al val­ue. The ar­se­nal stored 162 cross­bows and more than 40,000 bolts, as well as a num­ber of fire­arms. The sup­ply of mod­ern ar­ma­ments still left much to be de­sired at that time, and per­haps this is why dur­ing the Great Pol­ish-Teu­ton­ic War (1409-11) in the sum­mer of 1410 the fort­ress' crew sur­ren­dered, pre­sum­ably with­out a fight, to Pol­ish troops un­der the com­mand of Pa­weł of Wsze­ra­dów, who then oc­cu­pied it un­til the con­flict end­ed. Af­ter 1411, the cas­tle was quick­ly rearmed, so that by 1416 it al­ready had 8 stone bul­let guns and 16 lead bul­let guns.

BY THE GATE

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hen the an­ti-Teu­ton­ic up­ris­ing broke out in Prus­sia in Febru­ary 1454, in­sur­gent troops, con­sist­ing of lo­cal knights and bur­ghers, joined the first siege in the his­to­ry of the fort­ress, which end­ed af­ter a week with the suc­cess of the be­siegers and the es­cape of the Teu­ton­ic knights to Mal­bork. Gniew was tak­en o­ver by a Pol­ish knight of Dutch ori­gin, Jan of Jani (von der Jane) of the Os­to­ja coat of arms (d. 1461). How­ev­er, he failed to con­trol the chaos that en­sued at the time, as a re­sult of which the cas­tle was plun­dered by the lo­cal pop­u­la­tion, and was not far from be­ing com­plete­ly de­mol­ished, as de­mand­ed by the Gdańsk au­thor­i­ties. Soon, how­ev­er, af­ter the Poles lost the Bat­tle of Choj­ni­ce, the strong­hold re­turned to Teu­ton­ic do­min­ion.

GNIEW, CASTLE COUTRTYARD

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ow­ev­er, this did not mean the end of fight­ing dur­ing this war. The strate­gic lo­ca­tion of the town caused the Poles to be­gin blockad­ing it a few weeks lat­er - helped by the Gdańsk fleet, which closed off sup­ply ac­cess from the Vis­tu­la Riv­er. Nev­er­the­less, they did not de­cide to storm the cas­tle di­rect­ly, but on­ly fired at it from time to time with cross­bows and small can­nons, which of course could not do much dam­age to the Teu­ton­ic Knights. De­spite the dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion of grand com­man­dant Ul­rich von Isen­ho­fen and his crew, caused main­ly by ill­ness, lack of food and wa­ter, the Pol­ish troops un­ex­pect­ed­ly aban­doned the block­ade of the cas­tle. Up­on hear­ing of this, pol­ish King Ka­zi­mierz Ja­giel­loń­czyk or­dered an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, as a re­sult of which it was es­tab­lished that the Pol­ish com­man­der, as well as part of the knight­hood, had ac­cept­ed a bribe from rot­mas­ter Fritz Ra­ve­neck, in re­turn pledg­ing to aban­don the siege. A high-pro­file tri­al was ar­ranged, dur­ing which the bribe-tak­ers were sen­tenced to death.

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n the sum­mer of 1463, Pol­ish troops com­mand­ed by To­miec of Młod­ko­wo and Piotr Du­nin forced the Teu­ton­ic crew to ca­pit­u­late af­ter a siege that last­ed nine months. Un­doubt­ed­ly, the de­fend­ers' de­ci­sion was in­flu­enced by the col­lapse of spir­it, chaos and pan­ic, caused by the de­feat of the Teu­ton­ic army in the Bat­tle of Snowy Bay, as a re­sult of which the Or­der lost about 30 ships and more than 1,000 killed. Such a sig­nif­i­cant loss par­a­lyzed Teu­ton­ic op­er­a­tions on the Vis­tu­la, and thus pre­vent­ed an ef­fec­tive re­lief of the de­fend­ing strong­hold. This is how the Teu­ton­ic rule of Gniew cas­tle came to an end.

HENRYK BARANOWSKI, "BATTLE OF SNOWY BAY", 1988

PLAN OF THE CASTLE AND THE TOWN ON ERIK DAHLBERGH'S DRAWING,
SAMUEL PUFENDORF: "DE REBUS A CAROLO GUSTAVO GESTIS", 1656

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f­ter the end of the Thir­teen Years' War (1466), the town of Gniew be­came the seat of the roy­al gov­er­nors (star­osts). The cas­tle at that time was not in very good con­di­tion, which most like­ly re­sult­ed from war­fare. It wasn't un­til 1565 that sta­rost Acha­cy Cze­ma (d. 1576) did some ren­o­va­tions here, but the ex­tent of these works couldn't have been much, since by the end of the 16th cen­tu­ry most of the cas­tle rooms re­mained aban­doned, and all the tow­ers were al­so in ru­ins. Cer­tain­ly, how­ev­er, the ad­min­is­tra­tors took care of the walls and de­fen­sive de­vices, which were main­tained on an on­go­ing ba­sis and kept in good con­di­tion. In 1623, the sta­rost of Gniew, Al­brycht Sta­ni­sław Ra­dzi­wiłł of Trą­by coat of arms (d. 1656), host­ed King Si­gis­mund III Va­sa him­self at the cas­tle.

LITHOGRAPH WITH A VIEW OF GNIEW, 1855

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wo years lat­er, Swedish troops en­tered the town, and an at­tempt to cap­ture the cas­tle in Sep­tem­ber 1626 turned in­to a ma­jor con­fron­ta­tion, known as the Bat­tle of the Two Vas­es, which was wide­ly be­lieved to have end­ed with the Pol­ish troops be­ing smashed by the dis­ci­plined Swedish in­fantry. Al­though the de­feat of Si­gis­mund Va­sa's army at Gniew was more of a pres­tige than a strate­gic sig­nif­i­cance, it high­light­ed the back­ward­ness of the Pol­ish army, which trust­ed too much in the strength of the "leg­endary" hus­sars. Gniew cas­tle was seized by the Swedish army, but soon af­ter­wards, thanks to the clever ma­neu­vers of Het­man Sta­ni­sław Ko­niec­pol­s­ki coat of arms Po­bóg (d. 1646), af­ter a ten-day siege, Pol­ish troops re­gained it. Be­fore hand­ing o­ver the cas­tle, how­ev­er, the Swedes man­aged to take the most valu­able fur­nish­ings from there and dev­as­tate its in­te­ri­ors.

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he Swedes re­turned to Gniew in 1655, and al­though this time their oc­cu­pa­tion last­ed less than three decades ear­li­er, its plun­der­ing char­ac­ter had a very neg­a­tive im­pact on the town's econ­o­my, caus­ing it to al­most col­lapse. A year af­ter the Swedish in­va­sion, the cas­tle was re­gained by the units of Het­man Je­rzy Se­ba­stian Lu­bo­mir­ski (d. 1667), who ar­ranged in it mil­i­tary quar­ters and a jail for Swedish pris­on­ers of war. In 1657, some of the cap­tured Swedes or­ga­nized an es­cape, which, how­ev­er, end­ed still in the base­ment of the cas­tle, by the wine bar­rels, be­cause the fu­gi­tives ...got drunk. They were cap­tured, of course, but ac­cord­ing to the leg­end, they avoid pu­nish­ment af­ter they ap­peased Lu­bo­mir­ski by claim­ing that they had been drink­ing to the health of His Maje­sty the Het­man.

VIEW OF THE CASTLE FROM THE EAST IN 1887, "DIE BAU- UND KUNSTDENKMALER DES KREISE..."

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e­spite the dam­age caused by the Swedish oc­cu­pa­tion, the en­tire first floor and up­stairs chapel still func­tioned in the cas­tle af­ter the end of war, and a large num­ber of work­ing ar­til­lery weapons and heavy am­mu­ni­tion sur­vived as well. From March 1667, Field Het­man Jan So­bie­ski (d. 1696), lat­er elec­toral king of Poland, served as staros­ta of Gniew. It was through his ef­forts that the cas­tle was par­tial­ly ren­o­vat­ed, al­though So­bie­ski him­self pre­sum­ably did not live there, us­ing for this pur­pose a house built in the farm yard or a hunt­ing lodge stand­ing near­by. Prob­a­bly at this time, a larch man­sion for the queen and her chil­dren was al­so built next to the cas­tle. Mem­on­ka, daugh­ter of Jan So­bie­ski and Ma­rie Ca­si­mi­re Lou­ise de La Grange d'Ar­quien, was born there, but she died in in­fan­cy.

THE SO-CALLED PALACE OF MARYSIEŃKA, IS ACTUALLY THE BUILDING OF THE FORMER GRANARY
THE QUEEN NEVER LIVED HERE

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t the be­gin­ning of the 18th cen­tu­ry, the strong­hold was in dan­ger of a con­struc­tion dis­as­ter, due to pro­gres­sive ero­sion of the Vis­tu­la es­carp­ment. Dur­ing work to sta­bi­lize and strength­en the land, mys­te­ri­ous bones were found, prob­a­bly re­mains of a di­no­saur. In lat­er years, the residues of an­i­mals un­known to the then in­hab­i­tants of these lands, in­clud­ing the bones of a hairy rhi­no­ce­ros, were iden­ti­fied in the area a num­ber of times. In this pe­ri­od the cas­tle no longer served any sig­nif­i­cant mil­i­tary func­tion, no in­vest­ment was made in it, as a con­se­quence, its tech­ni­cal con­di­tion steadi­ly de­te­ri­o­rat­ed and by the mid­dle of the 18th cen­tu­ry, the build­ing was al­ready par­tial­ly aban­doned.

VIEW FROM THE NORTH, ON THE RIGHT WE SEE THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL NEO-GOTHIC BUILDING, 1900

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n 1772 Prus­sian troops en­tered Gniew and with them a Ger­man ad­min­is­tra­tion, which re­mained here un­til Poland re­gained its in­de­pen­dence (1918). The cas­tle ini­tial­ly housed bar­racks, but was soon trans­formed in­to a huge gra­na­ry, which en­tailed rad­i­cal changes to its ex­te­ri­or, fa­cades and in­te­ri­or lay­out. The Goth­ic vaults and toi­let tow­er were de­mol­ished, some of the win­dows were bricked up, and an ad­di­tion­al gate was made in the west wing to fa­cil­i­tate the trans­port of grain from the town.

THE CASTLE'S WEST GATE DATES FROM THE LATE XVIII CENTURY

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n 1854, the Prus­sian Min­istry of the In­te­rnal Affairs bought the cas­tle to house a tough prison for re­cidi­vists of the Luther­an faith. Adapt­ing it for new pur­pos­es, part of the walls were dis­man­tled and the main tow­er was de­mol­ished, be­ing re­placed by a small­er one, the same as the oth­er cor­ner tur­rets. The chapel's (dam­aged) vault was re­con­struct­ed, but its orig­i­nal height was low­ered by about 2.5 me­ters, and a new al­tar, pul­pit and bench­es for of­fi­cials and pris­on­ers were placed in­side. A new in­ter­ior di­vi­sion in the wings was made, as a result of which each wing now had four equal floors. In ad­di­tion, pumps were in­stalled in the well to sup­ply wa­ter to the north­ern tow­er, which took o­ver the func­tion of a wa­ter tow­er.

THE CASTLE ON COLORED POSTCARDS FROM THE TURN OF XIX AND XX CENTURY

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f­ter the end of World War I, Gniew be­came part of the re­born Pol­ish state. Ini­tial­ly, the cas­tle housed of­fices of the dis­trict gov­er­nor, and in 1920 it was turned o­ver to the army for use as bar­racks and an am­mu­ni­tion de­pot. How­ev­er, the very next Ju­ly the buidling burned down un­der sus­pi­cious cir­cum­stances. The source of this great tragedy has nev­er been ex­plained, and while no con­clu­sive ev­i­dence could be ob­tained, it was wide­ly ru­mored to be a de­lib­er­ate act of ar­son per­pe­trat­ed by a Ger­man sabo­teur. In sub­se­quent years, de­spite pres­sure from con­ser­va­tion­ists to car­ry out preser­va­tion work, they were un­able to en­force it on the mil­i­tary ad­min­is­tra­tion that man­aged the cas­tle. Ac­cord­ing to de­ci­sion-mak­ers at the time, the Prus­sian-era re­con­struct­ed build­ing had lit­tle his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance, and the mil­i­tary's lack of in­ter­est in re­build­ing it in­flu­enced the de­ci­sion to leave it as a per­ma­nent ru­in.

GREAT FIRE OF THE CASTLE IN JULY 1921

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ur­ing World War II, in the par­tial­ly ru­ined cas­tle, the Na­zi Ger­man oc­cu­pa­tion au­thor­i­ties or­ga­nized a paramil­i­tary school for Aryan youth, and then a tem­po­rary camp for two thou­sand Pol­ish fam­i­lies, who were ex­pelled from Tczew and its sur­round­ings. Af­ter 1945, a bat­tal­ion of sap­pers was sta­tioned in the sur­viv­ing south wing of the cas­tle and in the palace of Ma­ry­sień­ka, and for a short pe­ri­od a prison al­so func­tioned here. The first works to save the Goth­ic strong­hold were car­ried out in 1968-74. They in­clud­ed re­pair­ing the crown of the walls and the four tur­rets, the con­struc­tion of a steel and con­crete roof struc­ture and its cov­er­ing with ce­ram­ic tiles, as well as the con­struc­tion of ceil­ings in the south wing and the ceil­ing o­ver the base­ment in the west wing. The main rea­son­ing for ob­tain­ing funds for this pro­ject was that in the event of a war emer­gen­cy, the un­der­ground part of the cas­tle could be used as a safe shel­ter.

PHOTO SUPPOSEDLY FROM THE 1940S

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f­ter the re­con­struc­tion, the build­ing had to serve as a cul­tur­al cen­ter, but the or­ga­ni­za­tion­al en­thu­si­asm and funds were al­ready lack­ing in the mid-1970s, which caused the in­vest­ment to stop. And it was on­ly in 1992, when the sec­ond stage of re­con­struc­tion be­gan as part of pub­lic works. It in­clud­ed de­bris re­moval from cel­lars, restora­tion of ceil­ings, as well as adap­ta­tion of the cas­tle's in­te­ri­ors for ex­hi­bi­tion and ac­com­mo­da­tion pur­pos­es. In 2010, the cas­tle be­came the prop­er­ty of a pri­vate com­pa­ny Pol­mlek and it has since been operating pri­mar­i­ly as a ho­tel and con­fer­ence cen­ter.

CASTLE COURTYARD IN THE 1960S, PHOTO COMES FROM THE WEBSITE FOTOPOLSKA.EU

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

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he Goth­ic cas­tle was erect­ed on the high west­ern bank of the Vis­tu­la Riv­er, near the mouth of the Wie­rzy­ca Riv­er. The head­quar­ters of the con­vent was a mas­sive brick ed­i­fice, con­sist­ing of four wings form­ing a plan sim­i­lar to a square with side of 47 me­ters. The wings had the same height, but de­pend­ing on their pur­pose, each was char­ac­ter­ized by dif­fer­ent in­ter­nal di­vi­sions. The south­ern build­ing had a rep­re­sen­ta­tive func­tion, with a star vault­ed chapel and chap­ter house, which served as a meet­ing place for the monas­tic com­mu­ni­ty. These large, cer­e­mo­ni­al halls were sep­a­rat­ed by a small cham­ber, prob­a­bly in­tend­ed for guards, and this is al­so where the mech­a­nism op­er­at­ing a portcullis was lo­cat­ed.

GOTHIC CHAPEL IN THE SOUTH WING OF THE CASTLE

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he west­ern wing housed a cross-vault­ed re­fec­to­ry, while the east­ern wing con­tained dor­mi­to­ries. In­di­vi­dual beds were prob­a­bly sep­a­rat­ed from each oth­er by wooden par­ti­tion walls. Knights slept with their clothes and shoes on, since the reg­u­la­tions stip­u­lat­ed that they "should be per­ma­nent­ly ready to fight the en­e­my". We don't know the pur­pose of the cham­bers in the north­ern part of the cas­tle. They could have served as the com­man­der's of­fice and/or in­fir­mary, i.e. a place for the old and sick. En­trances to the rep­re­sen­ta­tive rooms of the cas­tle were lo­cat­ed on the sec­ond floor. Ac­cess to them led through wood­en stair­cas­es and clois­ters, which were al­so made of wood for se­cu­ri­ty rea­sons.

PLAN OF THE FIRST FLOOR OF THE UPPER CASTLE ACCORDING TO C. STEINBRECHT (AT THE BEGINNING OF XV CENTURY):
1. CHAPEL, 2. CHAMBER OVER THE GATEWAY,3. CHAPTERHOUSE, 4. REFECTORY, 5. COMMANDER'S OFFICE,
6. DORMITORIES, 7. MAIN TOWER, 8. CORNER TURRET, 9. WELL

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as­tle cel­lars housed store­rooms for goods, as well as prison cells and tor­ture cham­ber. They al­so stored ar­ma­ments and am­mu­ni­tion, main­ly cross­bow bolts and stone or lead bul­lets for ar­til­le­ry weapons. The ground floor of the cas­tle in­clud­ed a pantry, kitchen and bak­ery, as well as some crafts­men's work­shops and store­rooms for tools and equip­ment. Fresh wa­ter for the con­vent and cas­tle staff was sup­plied by a 36-me­ter deep well lo­cat­ed in the cen­tral part of the court­yard. What is in­ter­est­ing is that a hid­den pas­sage leads from the well to the north wing. All of the Goth­ic wings, with the ex­cep­tion of the south­ern one, had a low storey for stor­age and de­fense, which oc­cu­pied the space di­rect­ly above the res­i­den­tial and rep­re­sen­ta­tive parts. It fea­tured a porch go­ing around the en­tire up­per cas­tle.

CROSS-SECTION OF THE CASTLE ACCORDING TO C. STEINBRECHT:
1. REFECTORY, 2. DORMITORIES, 3. WAREHOUSE AND MILITARY STOREY, 4. CLOISTERS, 5. WELL, 6. MOAT

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a­cades of the cas­tle are fin­ished with Goth­ic ar­chi­tec­tural de­tail, par­tic­u­lar­ly el­e­gant in the south­ern wing, whose dec­o­ra­tion is dom­i­nat­ed by four point­ed-arched win­dows of the chapel and three slen­der win­dows of the chap­ter house, as well as rhom­bus­es and zigza­gs made of dark brick. The cas­tle was flanked by three cor­ner tur­rets and a mas­sive bergfried, about 50 me­ters high. It was crowned by a cre­ne­la­ted plat­form, which served as a con­ve­nient ob­ser­va­tion and sig­nal­ing point, as well as a place of last de­fense dur­ing a siege. Bergfried was de­mol­ished in the mid-19th cen­tu­ry and re­placed with a tur­ret sim­i­lar to the oth­er three, and the on­ly sur­viv­ing rem­nant of it to­day is a stone plinth in the north­east cor­ner of the build­ing. The en­trance to the in­ner court­yard orig­i­nal­ly led in the ax­is of the south wing. It was walled up in the 15th cen­tu­ry and from then on the cas­tle was en­tered through the east wing (and from the 18th cen­tu­ry - al­so from the west).

SOUTHERN ELEVATION OF THE CASTLE, YOU CAN SEE THE ORIGINAL GATEWAY (WALLED UP),
"DANZIG - WESTPREUSSEN EIN DEUTSCHES KULTURLAND, VERLAG DANZINGER VERLAGS-GESELLSCHAFT", 1895

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he cas­tle-clois­ter was sur­round­ed by a de­fen­sive wall form­ing a rough­ly square plan, for­ti­fied by three cor­ner tur­rets. Dur­ing a siege, this area pro­vid­ed an ad­di­tion­al buffer, and in peace­time it was used as a place for walks and per­son­al prayer. Res­i­den­tial build­ing for cas­tle ser­vants al­so stood here, as well as a heavy war equip­ment. The out­er line of for­ti­fi­ca­tions of the strong­hold was formed by walls sur­round­ing a farm yard, sep­a­rat­ed from the up­per cas­tle by a moat about 15 me­ters wide. The farm yard served as an eco­nom­ic fa­cil­i­ty for the com­man­dery and the con­vent. Here there were build­ings of an util­i­ty na­ture ar­ranged along the walls, in­clud­ing sta­bles, a smithy, a brew­ery, cow­sheds, store­rooms and crafts­men's work­shops, gra­naries and a mill. A small fruit or­chard prob­a­bly grew here as well.

RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CASTLE FROM THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD ACCORDING TO J. SALM, "LEKSYKON ZAMKÓW W POLSCE"

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

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or more than a decade the cas­tle has been in the hands of a pri­vate own­er, who has not spared any funds for its ren­o­va­tion and on­go­ing main­te­nance, which is ev­i­dent as soon as you cross the gate lead­ing to the farm yard. The en­tire sur­round­ings of the fort­ress give the im­pres­sion of hav­ing been dec­o­rat­ed with taste and very well cared for. This feel­ing is height­ened by a vis­it to the beau­ti­ful court­yard, which is both aus­tere and el­e­gant. Nowa­days, the cas­tle pri­mar­i­ly per­forms ho­tel and com­mer­cial func­tions, but some of the cham­bers have been opened to the pub­lic. How­ev­er, there are not many of them and com­pared to the huge Mal­bork, the tourist of­fer here is quite poor.

COURTYARD OF GNIEW CASTLE

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he tour in­cludes the cas­tle chapel, porch­es and sev­er­al cham­bers, which house ex­hibits ded­i­cat­ed to the Bat­tle of Grun­wald and the events of World War II. There's al­so a tor­ture cham­ber, dec­o­rat­ed in the kitschy style loved by chil­dren, with col­or­ful il­lu­mi­na­tion and moans com­ing from the speak­ers.

Ad­mis­sion to the court­yard is free, to the mu­se­um ­ paid.

A tour of the cas­tle lasts about 40 min­utes.

FRAGMENT OF THE MUSEUM EXHIBITION: CHAPEL (ABOVE), ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPOSITION

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n the sum­mer, the cas­tle hosts bat­tle re-en­act­ments, knight­ly tour­na­ments and his­tor­i­cal per­for­mances. Among them stands out an event called Vi­vat Vasa!, which is a free re­con­struc­tion of a 1626 bat­tle, when Pol­ish hus­sars fought against Swedish in­fantry armed with can­nons and mus­kets. An­oth­er in­ter­est­ing event is the King Jan III So­bie­ski Knights Tour­na­ment held in Ju­ly, the qual­i­ty and grandeur of which put it among the best shows of that kind in all of Eu­rope. Gniew Cas­tle al­so or­ga­nizes his­to­ry lessons and craft class­es that al­low their par­tic­i­pants to learn to some ex­tent about liv­ing con­di­tions in for­mer cen­turies and ex­pe­ri­ence time trav­el.

GETTING THERE

G

niew is lo­cat­ed on the left bank of the Vis­tu­la Riv­er, about 40 kilo­me­ters south­west of Mal­bork and about 50 kilo­me­ters north of Gru­dziądz. The A1 high­way runs 10 kilo­me­ters west of the town, so get­ting there by car should not be a prob­lem. Gniew can al­so be reached by in­ter­ci­ty bus­es, for ex­am­ple from Tczew. The near­est rail­way sta­tion is 10 km away (Mo­rzesz­czyn vil­lage).

You can park ia car on Wą­ska Street, near the main en­trance to the cas­tle.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. M. Haftka: Zamki krzyżackie w Polsce, 1999
2. I. T. Kaczyńscy: Zamki w Polsce północnej i środkowej, Muza SA 1999
3. L. Kajzer, J. Salm, S. Kołodziejski: Leksykon zamków w Polsce, Arkady 2001
4. P. Lasek: Prywatne zamki polskich dowódców z czasów wojny 13-letniej, Komunikaty Mazursko-Warm.
5. T. Olszacki, A. Różański: Zamek w Gołańczy, Gołaniecki Ośrodek Kultury 2015
6. M. Pratat, K. Zimna-Kawecka: Konserwatorskie i społeczne aspekty ochrony ruin zamków...
7. M. Stokowski: Zamek Gniew – siedziba krzyżackich komturów i królewskich starostów, TopSpot Guide
8. J. Struczyński, J. Rusinek: FAMA jako mecenas dóbr kultury
9. A. Wagner: Murowane budowle obronne w Polsce X-XVIIw., Bellona 2019

THE CASTLE SEEN FROM THE SOUTHEAST

Castles nearby:
Kwidzyn - castle of the Pomezanian chapter from the 14th century, 18 km
Nowe - ruins of Teutonic castle from the 14th century, 23 km
Sztum - Teutonic castle from the 14th century, 26 km
Osiek - relics of Teutonic castle from the 15th century, 31 km
Malbork - Teutonic castle from the 13-15th centuries, 42 km

WORTH SEEING:

The Old Town, where the me­dieval lay­out, cob­bled streets and low ar­cad­ed hous­es dat­ing from the 15th to the 19th cen­tu­ry have been pre­served. In cen­tral part of the Mar­ket Square stands the Goth­ic Town Hall, erect­ed at the turn of the 14th/15th cen­turies and still serv­ing as the seat of mu­nic­i­pal au­thor­i­ties. The fa­mous Pol­ish painter Leon Wy­czół­kow­ski lived and worked for some time in one of the his­toric hous­es of the Old Town of Gniew.

The Goth­ic parish church of St. Ni­cho­las from the 14th cen­tu­ry, lo­cat­ed in the south-west­ern cor­ner of the Mar­ket Square. It is a three-nave build­ing of the hall type, with a sep­a­rate pres­bytery and a bell tow­er in­te­grat­ed in­to the cen­tral nave. Its old­est part is the polyg­o­nal apse, which ad­joins the nave to the east. The fur­nish­ings are Baroque and in­clude a beau­ti­ful pul­pit, as many as five al­tars and two chapels. Of note are the late Re­nais­sance stalls for ten cler­gy­men and the 14th-cen­tu­ry stone bap­tis­tery stand­ing near the en­trance. Be­neath one of the chapels, a crypt with hu­man re­mains found dur­ing ar­chae­o­log­i­cal work is ex­posed.

The so-called Gar­den of His­to­ry com­posed of stat­ues and mon­u­ments de­pict­ing in an orig­i­nal way the most im­por­tant events in the his­to­ry of the town. There is a col­umn with a bench shaped like vol­umes of books com­mem­o­rat­ing the grant­ing of town rights, a stat­ue of the Ra­dzi­wiłł's Trea­sure Guard, a two-me­ter high match re­mind­ing of the great fire of the cas­tle in 1921, and a stone door with two key­holes, rem­i­nis­cent of Jan So­bies­ki's stay in Gniew. There is al­so a wall with three trick mir­rors and stones com­mem­o­rat­ing no longer ex­ist­ing sacral build­ings.

The most im­por­tant and pop­u­lar fig­ure in the Gar­den, how­ev­er, is Ted­dy Bear called Ma­ciuś. His stat­ue stands near St. Ni­cho­las Church, on a pedestal built in­to the front wall of one of the town­hous­es. The fig­ure of the bear is as­so­ci­at­ed with an ur­ban leg­end re­fer­ring to the bat­tle with the Swedes in 1626, dur­ing which an­i­mals, flushed out of the forests by the ring­ing of church bells, came run­ning to the tem­ple,...to pray to­geth­er for peace (?). They were to be led by a bear. To­day Ma­ciuś is the of­fi­cial mas­cot of the town and the on­ly man in Gniew he has his own dress­mak­er, who sews cos­tumes for him for var­i­ous oc­ca­sions.

text: 2020
photographs: 2015
© Jacek Bednarek