Castle in Jeziorany

Castle in Jeziorany – a castle located in Jeziorany in Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship in Poland, in a bend of the Symsarna, at Plac Zamkowy.

It was built in the Gothic style by Bishop John I of Meissen and John Stryprock in 1350-1373 as the seat of the Warmian episcopal starostas.

The castle resembled the castles in Reszel and Działdowo. It had a quadrangular plan with a corner tower built on the north side, which was quadrangular in its lower part and round in its upper part. The entrance to the castle led from the east over a bridge across the moat and through a gate in a castle building (no longer extant). The entrance gate was flanked by two turrets. On the south side there was a garderobe tower with a gallery leading to it. Of the quadrangle of buildings only the lower stone parts of the western building have survived. On the town side there was an outer bailey with utility buildings.

In the 18th century the outer bailey was entered over a bridge supported on six arches and through a brick gate with the bishop's coat of arms, while on the northern side of the bailey courtyard there was a half-timbered building housing a barn and a stable, and in the southern part a building housing a coach house.

In 1414, during the "Hunger War", the troops of King Władysław Jagiełło captured the castle and the town, which was burned. In 1453 the castle was garrisoned by mercenary troops of the Warmian chapter. In February of the following year a revolt of the inhabitants against the bishop of Warmia broke out. The inhabitants opened the gates of the town and the castle to a Czech mercenary detachment in the service of King Casimir IV Jagiellon. In 1472 the castle became the target of an attack by the troops of the bishop of Warmia, but the Polish garrison defended and held the castle until 1477, when the forces of Bishop Nicolaus von Tüngen captured it.

Machine-translated from “Zamek w Jezioranach” on the Polish Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Castle in Jeziorany ranks #6,639 of 7,044 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #337 of the 360 mapped in Poland. Founded 1400, it is older than 52% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 557 atlas entries founded in the 14th century. See how Poland compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia (in Polish) ↗