Castle of the Masovian Dukes in Czersk: A Gothic Water Castle in Poland
Site at a Glance
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- Country
- Poland
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Kingdom of Poland
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page13 sections
History
The Castle of the Masovian Dukes in Czersk is a medieval Gothic brick castle in Poland, built by the dukes of Masovia between 1388 and 1410. It replaced an earlier earth-and-timber stronghold that had served as the principal administrative center of the Duchy of Czersk, a medieval principality within Masovia.
The earlier stronghold
An eleventh-century wooden-and-earth stronghold occupied the site before the brick castle. Its defenses included izbica structures, timber-framed internal chambers or box-like units incorporated into an earthwork system. The stronghold probably originated during the reign of either Bolesław the Bold or Władysław Herman.
Czersk appears in several important medieval events. In 1224, Piotr Pilch held the office of castellan, an official responsible for the administration and defense of the stronghold. In 1229, Duke Konrad of Masovia imprisoned Duke Henry the Bearded there. Henry was released after Hedwig of Silesia intervened and agreed to renounce his claims to Lesser Poland. In 1239, Konrad also imprisoned Bolesław the Chaste at Czersk.
Religious buildings formed part of the stronghold’s history. On 27 April 1245, Bishop Bogufał II of Poznań consecrated a wooden Church of Saint Peter in the courtyard, in the presence of Konrad II and his sons. Before 1406, that church was replaced by a small masonry collegiate church, served by a college of clergy rather than by a monastic community or a single parish priest.
The brick castle of the Masovian dukes
The earlier defenses suffered during a Lithuanian raid. A document issued in 1350 by Duke Kazimierz I Trojdenowicz required villages belonging to the bishop to rebuild the damaged izbica structures.
During the fourteenth century, Duke Janusz I the Elder ordered the obsolete stronghold to be replaced with a brick Gothic castle. Construction continued from 1388 to 1410. The new castle became one of Janusz I’s principal residences, and he died there on 8 December 1429.
Royal administration and decline
In 1526, the Czersk lands were incorporated into the Kingdom of Poland, bringing the castle into the Polish royal domain. From 1547, Queen Bona Sforza, the Italian-born queen of Poland and grand duchess of Lithuania, administered Czersk as part of her royal estates. She ordered the courtyard’s wooden buildings to be replaced with masonry construction. During her administration, orchards, gardens, and vineyards were established on the slopes of the hill, while Czersk served as a center of her widowed royal estates.
After Bona left Czersk, the castle entered a period of architectural decline. By 1656, neglect under the Parys family, whose members served as starosts of Czersk, had left it severely ruined. During the Swedish Deluge, the Swedish invasion of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the mid-seventeenth century, a few hundred retreating Swedish soldiers occupied the abandoned stronghold for several days after their defeat by the Polish commander Stefan Czarniecki near Warka. They then left voluntarily under an agreement with Polish forces.
Between 1762 and 1766, Czersk starost and Grand Crown Marshal Franciszek Bieliński attempted to repair the castle so that it could accommodate the castle and land courts and their archive. A new masonry bridge across the moat was built during this work. After the Third Partition of Poland placed Czersk under Prussian rule, parts of the castle walls were demolished, and the castle remained a ruin.
Conservation and archaeological investigation
The first conservation campaign took place from 1907 to 1911. The Society for the Care of Historic Monuments of the Past financed the work, which was carried out by Kazimierz Skórewicz. Fighting between German and Russian forces damaged the castle in 1915 during the First World War.
Archaeological investigations begun in 1927 revealed the foundations of the Church of Saint Peter within the castle walls. The castle is entered in Poland’s heritage register under number 1009/116, dated 25 January 1958.
Remains
The surviving castle is an irregular brick enclosure on a hill above the left bank of the Vistula. Its plan follows the perimeter of the earthwork embankments belonging to the earlier stronghold. The principal surviving elements are the entrance tower, two cylindrical towers, connecting wall sections, and the masonry bridge built in the eighteenth century.
Defensive enclosure
Gate tower
The entrance occupies a monumental square-plan Gothic gate tower that rises 22 metres. A burgrave’s chamber was located inside the tower. In the eighteenth century, the lower part of the gateway passage was lowered to make movement across the newly constructed masonry bridge easier.
South and West towers
Two cylindrical towers originally rose only to the height of the surrounding walls. They were raised to their present levels between 1526 and 1547, after Czersk entered the Polish royal domain. The south-western tower is 24 metres high. It had an entrance from the wall walk and a prison cell at ground level. The western tower was reached from the courtyard and contained chambers for weapons and ammunition.
Walls and bridge
The towers originally carried pointed wooden roofs. The wall sections between them were initially 7 to 8 metres high, while the foundations extend as much as 5.5 metres into the ground. The walls are approximately 1.80 to 1.85 metres thick. The surviving eighteenth-century masonry bridge forms part of the later approach to the enclosure.
Courtyard buildings and church foundations
Former courtyard buildings
Two masonry buildings stood inside the courtyard. The smaller was an elongated structure against the Vistula-side wall and contained two rooms. The larger building, positioned to the right of the gate, originated in the fourteenth century while the stronghold was still in use. It was later enlarged into a palace measuring 10 by 30 metres, known as Bona’s residence, the Feliks Parys Court, or the Great House.
Church of Saint Peter
The foundations of the castle Church of Saint Peter remain within the enclosure. Archaeological work carried out from 1927 identified the foundations of the masonry church that had replaced the earlier wooden building before 1406.
