Piast Upper Castle on the Castle Hill
The building which is most obviously linked to the Cieszyn Piasts dynasty is the Cieszyn castle on the Castle Hill. Archaeological excavations of the site suggest the existence of a settlement there in the 5th century BC. By the 1st century BC the settlement became influenced by the Laten Culture, which is associated with the Celts. According to archaeologists the Castle Hill was not inhabited from the 1st century AD onwards; the next intensive settlement on the Castle Hill – this time by Slavs – dates from the turn of the 9th century. After a period of domination by Great Moravia and the Bohemian Principality, in around 990 the Cieszyn stronghold was incorporated into the kingdom of Piasts and governed by a castellan. The stronghold was fortified by earth and wooden ramparts. Gradually stone buildings began to appear; firstly St. Nicholas’ Rotunda and later a circular keep. From the time the autonomous Duchy of Cieszyn came into being there followed a period of intensive architectural development of the Castle Hill as one of the seats of the Piast rulers. During the rule of Casimir I and particularly Premislaus I Noszak a splendid Gothic residence was built worthy of such sovereign princes who played a significant role in the politics of the Bohemian Kingdom at that time. Premislaus I employed artisans from the Prague workshop of Peter Parler on the building. Examples of their work are the stone coats of arms with Piast eagles which decorate the four quoins of the Piast Tower. Buildings with the Prince’s chambers were located next to the Tower and according to a description dating from 1619 they were “beautiful and finely furnished”. The state rooms were decorated with tiles bearing inscriptions with the name of Prince Premislaus in Latin; while the windows, certainly later, were decorated with coloured glass panels depicting the coat of arms of the Cieszyn Piasts. There were also other rooms, among them the kitchen, associated with a brick and stone hearth in the building excavated next to the keep. St. Nicholas’ Rotunda, which served as the castle chapel, was also situated within the castle courtyard. All this formed the so-called Upper Castle which was surrounded by three concentric defensive walls with towers and a gateway. The access to the gateway was protected by a huge circular flanking tower with a diameter of almost 10 metres and 3.4 metre thick walls. The southern part of the flanking tower protruded almost 4 m beyond the defensive walls providing guards with excellent defence in case of attack. The flanking tower was recently partially reconstructed along with a fragment of the cobbled approach to the Upper Castle. The Lower Castle was situated below and included the living quarters of the castle servants, stores, stables and the armoury.
In 1454 at the height of its glory Cieszyn Castle played host to 2,000 Polish and 300 Bohemian knights belonging to the retinue of Elizabeth of Austria, the fiancée of the Polish King Casimir Jagiellonian. A period of further modifications and enlargements took place during the rule of Prince Casimir II. Probably then a circular bastion protected by cannons was built in the lower part. The Prince deliberately decorated his residence in the style of his great grandfather, Premislaus I Noszak. During that time fire twice seriously damaged the castle; in 1484 and 1520.
The castle suffered another fire in 1603. Chronicles have it that in those times the castle played the role of a kind of arsenal, since Prince Adam Wenceslas ceaselessly waged war, mainly with the Turks. However, at that time the castle had never been besieged. This situation changed however during the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), when the castle was taken by various armies. The most significant of these was the occupation by the Swedish army in 1645 and the siege of the castle by the Habsburg army in the spring of 1646. Drawings made at the time of the siege show the positions of cannons and a view of the castle five minutes before its tragic end. Several weeks of shellfire and sapping resulted in the castle being destroyed before the Swedish army finally chose to capitulate. Princess Elizabeth Lucretia was no longer living in the castle at that time, not did she possess the means to repair it. The new owners, the Habsburgs, were even less interested in it. The offices of the Cieszyn Chamber (Teschener Kammer) were set up in the castle to administer the landed property of the Habsburgs converting the remains of the castle buildings for their purposes. The authorities ordered repair work of the castle walls in times of danger, for instance during the Hungarian Uprisings, but it was never carried out. Existing buildings were used as needed and new ones were built e.g. a distillery and a castle brewery. The Habsburgs themselves visited the castle, as indeed Cieszyn itself, only rarely.
A change only occurred in the 1830s when the present owner of the Cieszyn Duchy, Archduke Charles Habsburg decided to turn the castle into a summer residence. In 1836 he initiated the demolishing of the remains of the Upper Castle, with the exception of the Piast Tower and St. Nicholas’ Rotunda. The latter was modified to complement the neo-Classicist architecture of the Hunting Castle designed by a famous Viennese architect, Josef Kornhäusel. The castle grounds were levelled and a romantic park was established with trees brought from various European countries. From the end of the 19th century the park was occasionally open to the people of Cieszyn. The final construction project in the grounds of the Upper Castle was the building of fake ruins on the site of the keep in 1914.
St. Nicholas’ Rotunda and the Piast Tower are the only remains of the Gothic castle of Cieszyn Piasts to have survived intact. Other parts or fragments of the castle are gradually being restored and at least partly reconstructed for the sake of posterity e.g. the keep or the flanking tower. The foundations of the former castle walls have also survived in fragments.
Editing and selection of illustrations: Renata Karpińska Photographs: Renata Karpińska, Paweł Halama, Anna Fedrizzi, Joanna Rzepka, Tomasz Matysiak, Henryk Tesarczyk, Dominik Dubiel Photograph of the heller of Premislaus I: Wojciech Woźniak
Translation from Polish: Irena and David French