The picturesquely situated site has a very clear terrain form preserved in the landscape and is one of the few objects of this type in Upper Silesia.

History of the structure

The motte-and-bailey castle in Płużnica Wielka (site 4, AZP 94-42/2) dates to the late Middle Ages, the 14th-15th centuries. The origin of small defensive structures, erected on artificially raised mounds or natural hills and surrounded by a moat, is associated with the Normans and Western Europe, where such objects were common as early as the mid-ninth century, and according to some the oldest may even date from the eighth century. In France, these types of mounded settlements are referred to as motte, while in Germany the term Wasserburge is used.

In Poland, the so-called motte-and-bailey castles are usually dated to the 13th-15th centuries. Such settlements became common in the second half of the 13th century, most probably the majority of them were erected in the 14th century, in the 15th century they slowly began to fall into disuse, and the period of their functioning ended at the beginning of the 16th century, although individual settlements survived until the 18th century. According to L. Kajzer, tower castles were an element of the symbolism of the knighthood state and were created and shaped along with its other determinants. Castle experts estimate that there were about ten times more small knight’s castles, “defensive mansions” and “wooden castles” in the territory of today’s Poland than there were large brick castle complexes. In the 14th century they were already very popular and numerous in the cultural landscape of the Polish Middle Ages.

In 1972, Eugeniusz Tomczak conducted a survey at the archaeological site, which confirmed the late medieval history of the monument.

Description of the structure

The monument is located east of the village, about 350 m east of the church. Overgrown with trees and bushes, the hillfort is located in the park and manor environment, near a small, nameless watercourse and an equally small and nameless rectangular pond. The area of the park is surrounded by arable fields and single houses as well as farm buildings (post-manor house, former state-owned farms and buildings belonging to the stud farm).

The area of the whole settlement, i.e. the mound, moat and pond is less than 50 acres. A moat surrounds the mound to the northwest, while a roughly rectangular pond adjoins the relics of the hillfort to the southeast. The mound of the hillfort is small in size, circular in plan, 25-27 m in diameter and less than 6 acres in area.

The site is an example of the preserved relics of a late-medieval, small, wooden-earth settlements with a residential and defensive function, which was most probably a knight’s residence.

An interesting element of the hillfort in Płużnica Wielka is the mentioned above, small rectangular pond, adjacent to it. Such a solution is not typical for motte-and-bailey castles. It is not certain that the pond was in operation during the same period as the hillfort (it may be younger), but if so, we have an interesting case here. The pond impeded access to the hillfort and could have been used economically. The second intriguing site, an oval plateau inscribed in a rectangular area (well readable on LiDAR imagery), is less than 100 m west of the hillfort, and one can cautiously risk the hypothesis that the sites may have been contemporaneous and related. In any case, it would be worth checking, but it is important to remember that a stud farm also operated here and both the pond and the mysterious object may be associated with that.

Thanks to archaeological excavations carried out throughout the country, we now know what medieval wooden-earth fortified settlements looked like and how they were built. Due to their small size, they are also referred to as hillforts or knight’s mansions, or even as “wooden castles”. Sites with permanent access to water and defensible in nature were preferred for the location of the settlements. The settlements were usually located in wetlands, meadows and marshes in the immediate vicinity of small river courses, which provided access to water and limited the access to the site, and thus increased its defensibility. Some settlements were built on low hills dominating the surroundings or on elevated promontories of river terraces. According to J. Kaźmierczyk, the location of particular motte-and-bailey castles in Silesia is to a large extent connected with the course of borders of particular principalities.

In general, the “classical” so-called knight’s castle-town was a relatively small, modest residence and in fact was a very simple defensive structure. It had a solid wooden residential and defensive tower, built in the log technique and placed on an artificially raised mound-embankment. The earthen mound with a tower was surrounded by a wide moat, which was excavated during the construction of the embankment. On the one hand, raising a mound made the settlement more inaccessible and therefore increased its defensibility; on the other hand, it was often necessary and served to isolate the residence-manor from the marshy ground. The height of preserved mounds is usually only a few meters, their bases are usually circular or slightly oval in plan, much less quadrilateral, and their diameters usually range from 20-50 meters. In the case of castles built on hills and promontories, the workload was saved because the artificial embankment did not have to be high and the moat did not necessarily have to surround the object - it was enough to cut it off from the rest of the promontory with this obstacle. It is believed that the tower, together with any accompanying small buildings, was surrounded by a wooden palisade or fence, and the mound itself was reinforced with e.g. stilts or fascines, so that it was as stable and resistant to landslides as possible. A fortified settlement of this kind certainly had a wooden bridge over a wide moat. Relics of settlements have also been discovered that were originally more developed and somewhat larger, e.g. they consisted of two mounds or had an additional rampart (originally probably wooden and earth) and a second moat surrounding the whole. The preserved ducal tower in Siedlęcin, Jelenia Góra district, Dolnośląskie Voivodeship, is an example of this type of a luxurious residential and defensive structure of a wealthy feudal lord.

Visitor access. The site is accessible all year round.

Author of the note: Michał Bugaj, Regional Branch of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Katowice, 23.02.2018

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