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KOWALEWO POMORSKIE

relics of Teutonic castle

A PILLAR OF DANSKER, THE BEST PRESERVED RELIC OF THE CASTLE IN KOWALEWO POMORSKIE

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING


T

he first castle in Ko­wa­le­wo was prob­a­bly built by Teu­ton­ic Knights short­ly af­ter re­ceiv­ing this land from mis­sion­ary bish­op Chris­tian (d. 1245), which took place in 1231. In 1269, this pre­sumed tim­ber-soil stronghold stopped the siege of Prus­sian tribe of Barts, but the ar­cha­ic con­struc­tion based on frag­ile build­ing ma­te­ri­als was not able to guar­an­tee the safe­ty of their de­fend­ers in the fu­ture. The Or­der found out about this on­ly three years lat­er, when a pa­gan tribe of Jać­wę­go­wie in­vad­ed and then burnt down the Teu­ton­ic col­ony. Short­ly af­ter these events, a com­man­dery was es­tab­lished in Ko­wa­le­wo and the con­struc­tion of a brick cas­tle began. In 1330, Ko­wa­le­wo repul­sed an in­va­sion of Pol­ish, Hun­gar­i­an and Rus­sian armed forces led by Wła­dys­ław Łok­ie­tek. The cas­tle, de­fend­ed by com­man­der Her­man von Op­pen, was severe­ly dam­aged then, but was not con­quered due to the lack of heavy siege equip­ment.



A PLATE WITH AN APPROXIMATE DATE OF CASTLE ERECTION PLACED ON THE PILLAR OF THE DANSKER

I

n Ju­ly 1410, in the bat­tle of Grun­wald, com­man­der Michael von Viltz was killed, and soon af­ter­wards the Pol­ish units un­der the com­mand of Mi­ko­łaj Pi­lew­ski and Jan from Puł­ków oc­cu­pied the town. Ko­wa­le­wo was then leased to Mi­ko­łaj Trą­ba (d. 1422), one of the clos­est and most trust­ed roy­al courtiers. The Pol­ish oc­cu­pa­tion of the town, which last­ed sev­er­al months, was end­ed by an of­fen­sive of Teu­ton­ic mil­i­tary troops sup­port­ed by knights of Li­vo­nia un­der the com­mand of Land­mar­shal Bern He­vel­mann, while the first Peace of Toruń sanc­tioned the own­er­ship of these lands, that re­mained Teu­ton­ic. At the be­gin­ning of 1454 cit­i­zens of Ko­wa­le­wo joined an up­ris­ing against the Or­der and took o­ver the stronghold with­out any fight. Three years af­ter these events it was given to Oldřich Čer­von­ka (d. 1465), whose name opens a long list of the starosts of Ko­wa­le­wo, who were in of­fice at the cas­tle from 1457 to 1772. On the ba­sis of the peace agree­ment signed in To­ruń in 1466, the town be­came the part of Pol­and.



REMNANTS OF CASTLE FOUNDATIONS

U

nder Pol­ish rule the cas­tle lost much of its for­mer glo­ry, and at the be­gin­ning of the 17th cen­tu­ry its con­di­tion was so bad that the lo­cal par­lia­ment in Gru­dziądz de­mand­ed its re­pair. The build­ing was severe­ly dam­aged dur­ing the Swed­ish oc­cu­pa­tion in 1629 when it was tak­en o­ver and plun­dered by units com­mand­ed by Gen. Wrangl. The dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion of the starost's seat af­ter the end of the wars with Swe­den is shown by the in­spec­tion of the cas­tle car­ried out in 1662, in which we read: There's on­ly one bas­tion in the court­yard where there's a room where the gov­er­nor stands. [...] The sta­bles are all bro­ken. The tow­er [...] col­lapsed and ru­ined. In 1685 Sejm de­cid­ed to re­build the cas­tle, but due to lack of funds the in­vest­ment was aban­doned. It was used un­til 1772, when it was fi­nal­ly left be­hind due to its con­di­tion. Since then, suc­ces­sive de­mo­li­tion of Goth­ic strong­hold be­gan, and the brick re­gained as a re­sult was used to build an evan­gel­i­cal church with a parish house. In 1911 a wa­ter tow­er was erect­ed in the area of a for­mer upper cas­tle.



VIEW OF THE RUINS FROM THE TIMES WHEN STRAŻACKA STREET WAS YET A DIRT ROAD (1918)

CASTLE HILL WITH AN XXTH-CENTURY WATER TOWER, POSTCARD FROM AROUND 1915


HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING


T

he cas­tle was erect­ed on high, south­ern shore of a vast lake (1), in the vicin­i­ty of nar­row isth­mus, which led the trade route to­wards Brod­ni­ca. It con­sist­ed of a reg­u­lar quadri­lat­er­al brick con­ven­tu­al build­ing and three bai­leys, sur­round­ed by walls and in­te­grat­ed with the town. With a high de­gree of prob­a­bil­i­ty we can de­ter­mine that the con­vent house (2) was a build­ing made of brick on stone foun­da­tion with a length of 45 me­ters each side, with an en­trance (3) on the south-west. Pre­sum­ably, in its south­ern wing there was a chapel (5) (on the east­ern side) and a re­fec­to­ry (6) (on the west­ern side), and in the west­ern wing (7) there were dor­mi­to­ries with com­man­der's apart­ment.



PLAN OF UPPER CASTLE RUINS ACCORDING TO B. WASIK: 3. ENTRANCE GATE IN THE SOUTH WING, 4. GATE NECK, 5. CHAPEL,
6. REFECTORY, 7. WEST WING, 8. COURTYARD, 9. PILLAR OF THE TOILET TOWER (PRESERVED), 10. INTER-WALL, 11. EAST WALL (PRESERVED)

O

th­er wings prob­a­bly served as kitchen, ware­hous­es, bak­ery, etc. All the build­ings of the upper cas­tle were cel­lared except small frag­ments of the south­ern and east­ern parts, and their width was about 13 me­ters. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween rooms was pro­vid­ed by porch­es leading around a square wooden court­yard (8). The cas­tle did not have a main tow­er, and in all prob­a­bil­i­ty it al­so had no cor­ner tur­rets.



CASTLE AND TOWN PLAN BY C. STEINBRECHT: 1. LAKE, 2. UPPER CASTLE 3. ENTRANCE TO THE CASTLE FROM THE BAILEY,
9. TOILET TOWER, 12. SOUTH BAILEY, 13. QUADRILATERAL TOWER, 14. SOUTH WALL TOWER, 15. MIDDLE BAILEY,
16. TOWER, 17. WEST BAILEY, 18. TOWN, 19. CHURCH

A

porch, sup­port­ed by a pil­lar (9), was led out of the upper cas­tle to the north, and end­ed with a toi­let tow­er. Rich­ly dec­o­rat­ed with blends and friezes, the brick pil­lar is to­day the best pre­served rel­ic of Teu­ton­ic Cas­tle. The con­ven­tu­al part of the stronghold was sur­round­ed by ex­ter­nal walls form­ing an in­ter-wall (10), which in its east­ern sec­tion (11) al­so sur­vived to the pre­sent day. Aux­il­iary func­tions to the cas­tle were car­ried out with­in three bai­leys lo­cat­ed south-west of the con­vent house. The south­ern­most out­er bai­ley (12) had a plan sim­i­lar to rect­an­gle with sides of 118x58 me­ters - it was for­ti­fied by a quadri­lat­er­al tow­er (13) on the west and a tow­er in the south­ern side (14). From north­east, it was ad­ja­cent to the mid­dle bai­ley (15) of about 60x70 me­ters plan, with a tow­er (16) in the south­ern wall.




WALLS OF THE SOUTHERN BAILEY

T

he small­est one was the west­ern bai­ley (17), how­ev­er, due to poor leg­i­bil­i­ty it is not pos­si­ble to­day to clear­ly de­fine its di­men­sions and lay­out. On the north­ern side, the upper cas­tle was pro­tect­ed by two se­mi-cylin­dri­cal tow­ers. The in­ter­nal part of the bai­ley con­sist­ed of wood­en build­ings of eco­nom­ic and mil­i­tary char­ac­ter: malt house, brew­ery, flour store­hous­es, bak­ery, tem­ple work­shop, pow­der mag­a­zine and sta­bles.



PLATEAU OF THE CASTLE HILL


HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING


T

he pillar of the toilet tower (dansker) has been pre­ser­ved in good con­di­tion to this day, as well as, to a cer­tain ex­tent, parts of bai­ley walls. Al­so small frag­ments of south­ern wall and foun­da­tions of the con­vent hou­se hid­den un­der­ground ha­ve sur­vi­ved. On the cas­tle hill, pro­ba­bly wit­hin for­mer court­yard, stands the early 20th-century wa­ter to­wer.


Admission free



ABOVE: THE CASTLE HILL, BELOW: DANSKER PILLAR AND THE XX-CENTURY WATER TOWER


GETTING THERE


K

owale­wo Po­morskie is lo­cat­ed 30 km north­east of Toruń, by the Toruń-Ol­sztyn rail­way route. The rail­way sta­tion is 30 min­utes walk away from the cas­tle hill. Relics of the me­dieval cas­tle are lo­cat­ed in the north­ern part of the town, on Stra­ża­cka Street.


A large num­ber of park­ing places are near­by.




BIBLIOGRAPHY


1. M. Chorowska: Rezydencje średniowieczne na Śląsku, OFPWW 2003
2. I. T. Kaczyńscy: Zamki w Polsce południowej, Muza SA 1999
3. L. Kajzer, J. Salm, S. Kołodziejski: Leksykon zamków w Polsce, Arkady 2001
4. R. Łuczyński: Zamki, dwory i pałace w Sudetach, Wspólnota Akademicka 2008
5. M. Perzyński: Dolnośląskie zamki, dwory i pałace, Wrocławski Dom Wydawniczy 2012
6. M. Świeży: Zamki, twierdze, warownie, Foto Art 2002
7. A. Wagner: Murowane budowle obronne w Polsce X-XVIIw., Bellona 2019



CYLINDRICAL TOWER IS A RELIC OF THE OLD TOWN FORTIFICATIONS


Castles nearby:
Golub-Dobrzyń - Teutonic castle from the 14th century, 12 km
Wąbrzeźno - relics of Chelmno bishops' castle from the 14th century, 17 km
Lipieniek - relics of Teutonic castle from the 14th century, 27 km
Złotoria - ruins of the royal castle from the 14th century, 27 km
Toruń - ruins of Teutonic castle from the 13th century, 27 km
Toruń - ruins of the royal castle Dybów from the 15th century, 28 km
Radziki Duże - ruins of a knight's castle from the 14th/15th century, 29 km
Papowo Biskupie - ruins of Teutonic castle from the 14th century, 30 km
Radzyń Chełmiński - ruins of Teutonic castle from the 13th century, 30 km
Brodnica - ruins of the Teutonic castle from the 14th century, 33 km




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text: 2020
photos: 2005, 2019
© Jacek Bednarek