Tokaj Castle: A Medieval Fortress on the Bodrog and Tisza Rivers
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Hungary
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Habsburg, Hungarian, Principality of Transylvania
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page17 sections
History
Tokaj Castle is a medieval Hungarian fortress in Tokaj, Hungary, built during the second half of the fourteenth century to protect the crossing of the Tisza River and oversee important regional roads. It stood beside the confluence of the Bodrog and Tisza, where waterways and roads connected the Tokaj Hills, Bodrogköz, Taktaköz, and Nyírség. Repeatedly rebuilt during conflicts between Hungarian rulers, the Zápolya family, Transylvanian princes, and the Habsburg dynasty, it became one of the leading Habsburg fortresses in Hungary before being demolished in 1704–1705.
Early fortresses and the medieval castle
An earlier fortress called Kőrév occupied a hill on the right bank of the Bodrog in the Tokaj Hills. The Mongol invasion destroyed it. In 1283, King Ladislaus IV authorized the nobles of Nyíri to construct another castle. The resulting stone fortress was held by Amadeus Aba, who was plotting against the king. Ladislaus besieged it in an attempt to seize it, and the castle was probably destroyed during or soon after the assault.
The earlier position was not rebuilt. Instead, a new fortress was raised on the left bank of the Bodrog in the second half of the fourteenth century, where it offered better control of the roads. The castle first appears in written evidence in 1410, when King Sigismund granted it to John, son of Palatine Nicholas Garai. Its value was then placed at 12,000 florins, although Sigismund exchanged it for estates in Bosnia before the end of that year.
Around 1422, the castle was granted to the Serbian despot Stefan Lazarević as compensation. It later passed to his successor, George Branković. In 1451, it came into the possession of John Hunyadi, a Hungarian military leader and regent of Hungary, and subsequently passed to King Matthias Corvinus, who ruled from 1458 to 1490. Matthias modernized the fortress and added four corner towers. In 1458, local nobles gathered at Tokaj to support the newly elected king against the Hussites, followers of the reform movement associated with Jan Hus that had become a political and military force in central Europe.
The Zápolya period and the struggle for the throne
Matthias granted Tokaj Castle to Imre Zápolya in either 1459 or 1469. It then became an important center of the increasingly powerful Zápolya family. John Zápolya was proclaimed king there after the Battle of Mohács, the 1526 defeat that opened a prolonged struggle for control of the Hungarian crown. During the conflict between Zápolya and Ferdinand, imperial forces defeated Zápolya and damaged the castle walls.
In 1527, Ferdinand granted the fortress to his supporter Stephen Báthory, voivode of Transylvania, a title for a regional governor or military ruler. Zápolya recaptured Tokaj in January 1528, and the castle changed hands several more times by 1530. Ferdinand eventually granted it to Gáspár Serédi, but Zápolya besieged the fortress again and briefly captured it in 1537. The two monarchs divided the castle in 1538 and maintained a joint garrison. In practice, however, the Serédi family treated it as its own property and formally recovered it in 1541, retaining it until 1555.
Fortification under the Ottoman threat
The growing Ottoman threat led to renewed defensive work, including the construction of an artillery bastion, a projecting fortification that allowed defenders to fire along adjoining walls. After Benedek Serényi died, his widow, Zsófia Dobó, refused to surrender the castle to György Serényi, who claimed it. The castellan Ferenc Némethi repelled his attack while also guarding the heir, István Serédi. Némethi soon defected to John Sigismund, who enlarged the castle and completed an outer fortified wall with round and square bastions. John Sigismund reinforced its garrison of 2,000 men with 1,000 cavalry and 600 infantry.
Lazarus von Schwendi, commander of Maximilian II, besieged and captured Tokaj between 4 and 12 February 1565. Ferenc Némethi died during the siege, and Captain Jakob Raminger directed the subsequent repairs. Tokaj thereafter became one of the most important Habsburg fortresses in Hungary. Its defenses were repeatedly rebuilt and modernized, with Italian military engineers including Francesco del Pozzo, Ottavio Baldigara, Giulio Baldigara, and Cristodoro della Stella taking part in the work.
Construction was made difficult by shortages of materials and repeated flooding. A pontoon bridge over the Tisza was destroyed by a flood in 1591. In 1605, the hajdú forces of Stephen Bocskai occupied Tokaj after a year-long siege. Hajdú were armed frontier communities and soldiers who also served as military forces in the region. After Bocskai died, the castle returned to imperial control.
The Thurzó and Bethlen years
In 1607, György Thurzó, who later became palatine, acquired the castle for 71,590 florins and attempted to strengthen it. A palatine was one of the highest political and judicial officeholders in the Hungarian kingdom. Act 51 of 1609 required residents of eight counties to work on the project without pay. Thurzó’s son inherited the fortress in 1616 and supported Gabriel Bethlen, Prince of Transylvania from 1613 to 1629 and a leading opponent of Habsburg power.
Bethlen attacked Tokaj in 1619 because the Holy Crown of Hungary was being kept there. The crown was regarded as the central symbol of the Hungarian kingdom and its lawful kingship. In 1622, with imperial approval, Bethlen incorporated the castle into his possessions. He enlarged the complex with a northwestern bastion and married there in 1628. After Bethlen’s death, his widow, Catherine of Brandenburg, lived at the castle for a time before surrendering it to Ferdinand II. Ferdinand then granted Tokaj to the judge János Homonnai. By this point, the buildings had deteriorated so severely that they appear to have been virtually uninhabitable.
Seventeenth-century wars and destruction
During the campaign of George Rákóczi I in 1644, the garrison surrendered without a fight. Rákóczi renovated the interior buildings, built a new outer gate with a drawbridge, and constructed a bridge over the Bodrog. Damaged sections of the walls were protected only by palisades, defensive barriers made from stakes or timber. After George Rákóczi II died, the castle returned to imperial control. In 1660, General de Souches’s army camped below its walls for almost a year while preparing a campaign against Transylvania.
During the Upper Hungarian revolt, Francis Rákóczi I’s forces captured the castle captain, Rüdiger Starhemberg, on 10 April 1670. A 12,000-man kuruc army then besieged Tokaj. The kuruc were anti-Habsburg insurgents active in historical Hungary, especially during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Led by Mátyás Szuhai and Pál Szepessy, they failed to take the fortress. Imperial forces quickly repaired the siege damage, and a larger bridge over the Tisza was built in 1673.
The kuruc attacked Tokaj again in 1678 but failed and burned the town while retreating. Imre Thököly occupied the castle in 1682. After his fall and capture, General Schultz recovered it for the Habsburgs in 1685. A census from 1694 lists 63 Hungarian and German soldiers in the garrison.
During Ferenc Tokaji’s Hegyalja kuruc revolt in 1697, insurgents defeated Gáspár Bajusz, commander of the castle’s Hungarian hussars. On 1 July, Ferenc Tokaji entered Tokaj with 500 kuruc soldiers and became its captain. Tokaj and Patak served as the revolt’s two principal centers, but the insurgents could not retain them after their defeat at the Battle of Bőcs. Vaudemont stormed the town on 17 July and bombarded the castle for two days. The insurgents then withdrew across the Tisza.
Francis Rákóczi II’s forces began besieging Tokaj in autumn 1703. When the rivers froze, the attackers launched their first assault, and the defenders surrendered. In autumn 1704, Rákóczi ordered the castle demolished. The work was apparently complete by spring 1705. The walls were dismantled, the Bodrog was diverted through a trench cut across the foundations, and the castle’s cannon were transferred to the siege of Eger. Tokaj Castle was never rebuilt. The destruction may have reflected revenge connected with the destruction of Sárospatak Castle, Rákóczi’s inability to finance repairs, and his wish to prevent Tokaj from serving as a base for operations against him.
Excavation and interpretation
Archaeological excavation began in 2007 under the direction of Miklós Makoldi. The first campaign identified principal structures, including the eastern cannon tower, the bastion built in the 1550s and 1560s, the foundations of the residential tower, and an inner-enclosure rondel, a rounded artillery or defensive tower. Detailed work in the inner castle began in 2008, followed by investigation of the stone bridge, inner walls, and bastion in 2009. Excavation of the bridge showed that the seven-metre moat beside the castle was filled during the seventeenth century to enlarge the fortress and increase its usable area.
Remains
Tokaj Castle stood immediately north of the Bodrog and Tisza confluence. Water protected two sides, while an artificial canal defended the northern side, leaving the fortress accessible only by boat during periods of flooding. The castle’s position on the left bank of the Bodrog differed from the earlier hilltop earthwork of Kőrév on the opposite bank. Its defenses developed into a complex of inner and outer enclosures, bridges, bridgeheads, wedge-shaped town walls, towers, bastions, and earth-and-timber works.
Inner castle and residential buildings
Residential tower
The fourteenth-century inner castle included a two-storey residential tower. Its foundations have been identified through excavation, along with remains of the inner enclosure. Palace wings were added during the fifteenth century, when the fortress was modernized under Matthias Corvinus and became associated with the Zápolya family.
Inner enclosure and moat
The inner enclosure was strengthened by four round towers. A stone bridge connected the castle tower and the cannon tower, while the former inner-castle moat survives as a crescent-shaped lake. The moat was filled in during the seventeenth century to expand the fortress’s capacity and area, but its later form remains a visible trace of the earlier defensive arrangement.
Artillery defenses and outer works
Eastern cannon tower
The eastern cannon tower is among the principal structures identified by excavation. A sixteenth-century artillery bastion projected beyond the ramparts and swept the ground outside the fortress. At least two stone bastions formed part of the later defensive system, and the outer wall included both round and square examples. Gabriel Bethlen’s expansion added a bastion on the northwestern side.
Outer wall and gate
The outer fortification combined masonry walls with later earth-and-timber defenses. In the seventeenth century, the complex included an outer gate with a drawbridge. Interior buildings, the gate, the bridge, and two stone bastions were renovated during fortification works directed first by Jakob Holst and later continued by Battmayer, Ssicha, and Strasoldo.
Bridges, finds, and surviving fabric
River crossings
Bridges over both the Tisza and the Bodrog formed part of the castle complex, together with bridgeheads. Flooding repeatedly damaged these connections. A pontoon bridge over the Tisza was destroyed in 1591, and a larger replacement was built in 1673. The stone bridge between the castle tower and cannon tower has also been investigated archaeologically.
Excavated objects and visible remains
Excavation has uncovered Renaissance building remains, silver coins, tiles, glass and ceramic objects, tools, and the foundations of major structures. The castle walls were dismantled after 1704–1705, while later river floods caused further damage to the ruins. By the end of the nineteenth century, fishermen were building huts on rubble mounds that rose above the water level. The visible remains now consist principally of a fragment of the southwestern bastion, approximately 2 metres high and 5 metres long, and the crescent-shaped former moat. Together, these features indicate the location of the demolished fortress.
