HISTORY
The castle was built by the Teutonic Order after the conquest of Old Prussia. Its main purpose was to strengthen their own control of the area following the Order's 1274 suppression of the Great Prussian Uprising of the Baltic tribes. No contemporary documents survive relating to its construction, so instead the castle's phases have been worked out through the study of architecture and the Order's administrative records and later histories. The work lasted until around 1300, under the auspices of Commander Heinrich von Wilnowe. The castle is located on the southeastern bank of the river Nogat. It was named Marienburg after Mary, patron saint of the religious Order. The Order had been created in Acre (present-day Israel). When this last stronghold of the Crusades fell to Muslim Arabs, the Order moved its headquarters to Venice before arriving in Prussia.
Malbork became more and more important in the aftermath of the Teutonic Knights' conquest of Gdańsk (Danzig) and Eastern Pomerania in 1308. The Order's administrative centre was moved to Marienburg from Elbing (now Elbląg). The Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, Siegfried von Feuchtwangen, who arrived in Marienburg from Venice, undertook the next phase of the fortress' construction. In 1309, in the wake of the papal persecution of the Knights Templar and the Teutonic takeover of Danzig, Feuchtwangen relocated his headquarters to the Prussian part of the Order's monastic state. He chose the site of Marienburg conveniently located on the Nogat in the Vistula Delta. As with most cities of the time, the new centre was dependent on water for transportation.
The castle was expanded several times to house the growing number of Knights. Soon, it became the largest fortified Gothic building in Europe, on a nearly 21-hectare (52-acre) site. The castle has several subdivisions and numerous layers of defensive walls. It consists of three separate castles - the High, Middle and Lower Castles, separated by multiple dry moats and towers.
The favourable position of the castle on the river Nogat allowed easy access by barges and trading ships arriving from the Vistula and the Baltic Sea. During their governance, the Teutonic Knights collected river tolls from passing ships, as did other castles along the rivers. They controlled a monopoly on the trade of amber. When the city became a member of the Hanseatic League, many Hanseatic meetings were held there.
In 1361 the future Grand Duke of Lithuania Kęstutis was briefly imprisoned in the castle. In 1365, Polish King Casimir III the Great visited the castle.
In the summer of 1410, the castle was besieged following the Order's defeat by the armies of Władysław II Jagiełło and Vytautas the Great (Witold) at the Battle of Grunwald. Heinrich von Plauen successfully led the defence in the Siege of Marienburg (1410), during which the city outside was razed.
In 1456, during the Thirteen Years' War, the Order – facing opposition from its cities for raising taxes to pay ransoms for expenses associated with its wars against Kingdom of Poland – could no longer manage financially. Meanwhile, Polish General Stibor de Poniec of Ostoja raised funds from Danzig for a new campaign against them. Learning that the Order's Bohemian mercenaries had not been paid, Stibor convinced them to leave. He reimbursed them with money raised in Danzig. Following the departure of the mercenaries, King Casimir IV Jagiellon entered the castle in triumph in 1457, and in May, granted Danzig several privileges in gratitude for the town's assistance and involvement in the Thirteen Years' War (1454–66) as well as for the funds collected for the mercenaries that left.
Residence of the Polish kings
In 1466 both castle and town became part of the Polish Malbork Voivodeship in the province of Royal Prussia. Since 1457 it served as one of the several Polish royal residences, fulfilling this function for over 300 years (over twice as long as it was headquarters of the Teutonic Order) until the Partitions of Poland in 1772. During this period the Tall Castle served as the castle's supply storehouse, while the Great Refectory was a place for balls, feasts, and other royal events. Polish Kings often stayed in the castle, especially when travelling to the nearby city of Gdańsk/Danzig. Local Polish officials resided in the castle. From 1568 the castle housed the Polish Admiralty (Komisja Morska) and in 1584 one of the Polish Royal Mints was established here. Also, the largest arsenal of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was located in the castle. By the decision of King John II Casimir Vasa of 1652, Jesuits took care of the castle chapels of Mary and St. Anne.
During the Thirty Years' War, in 1626 and 1629 Swedish forces occupied the castle. They invaded and occupied it again from 1656 to 1660 during the Deluge. Then the castle was visited by Swedish kings Gustav Adolf (in 1626) and Charles X Gustav (in 1656).
After the Partitions of Poland
After Prussia and the Russian Empire made the First Partition of Poland in 1772, the town was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia and in 1773 it became part of the newly established province of West Prussia. At that time, the officials used the rather neglected castle as a poorhouse and barracks for the Prussian Army. The last Jesuits left the castle in 1780. In 1794 David Gilly, a Prussian architect and head of the Oberbaudepartement, made a structural survey of the castle, to decide about its future use or demolition. Gilly's son, Friedrich Gilly, produced several engravings of the castle and its architecture, which he exhibited in Berlin and had published by Friedrich Frick from 1799 to 1803. These engravings led the Prussian public to "rediscover" the castle and the history of the Teutonic Knights.
Throughout the Napoleonic period, the army used the castle as a hospital and arsenal. Napoleon has visited the castle in 1807 and 1812. After the War of the Sixth Coalition, the castle became a symbol of Prussian history and national consciousness.
With the rise of Adolf Hitler to power in the early 1930s, the Nazis used the castle as a destination for annual pilgrimages of both the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls. The Teutonic Castle at Marienburg served as a blueprint for the Order Castles of the Third Reich built under Hitler's reign. In 1945 during World War II combat in the area, more than half the castle was destroyed.
After World War II
At the conclusion of the war, the city of Malbork and the castle became again part of Poland. The castle has been mostly reconstructed, with restoration ongoing since 1962 following a fire in 1959 which caused further damage. A significant recent restorative effort was of the main church in the castle (i.e., The Blessed Virgin Mary Church). After being restored just before World War II and then destroyed in battle, it was in a state of disrepair until a new restoration was completed in April 2016. In 1961 the Castle Museum (Muzeum Zamkowe) was founded and in 1965 an amber exhibition was opened.
ARCHITECTURE
Teutonic stronghold consists of three main elements: upper, middle and low castle (ward). The whole occupied a huge area of about 21 ha. The basic material for the construction of the castle was brick, limestone and granite. The foundations and elements exposed to destruction were laid out from the granite, architectural details were made of stone, and the bricks and timber were used to construct the basic parts of the buildings. The stronghold was placed on the right bank of the Nogat, in a defensive site. It was a long elevated strip of land, surrounded on the west and partly north by the river, and on the east by extensive swamps.
The seat of the convent was a upper castle, built on a rectangular plan with sides 51×61 meters. The outer corners obtained four-sided turrets, that made the castle’s shape more slender and sophisticated. In the fourteenth century, the inner (upper) courtyard was surrounded by two-story cloisters, and three-storey from the south. A well was placed in the middle. In the ground floor there were mainly utility rooms, in the west range the kitchen and bakery. In the north range on the first floor there was a chapter house and a chapel, in the western range was a commander’s and treasurer’s chambers, and in the eastern dormitory. The southern range housed above the warehouses, two bedrooms and a refectory on the third floor. The attic area served as a granary. From the outside of the façade, the crown of the walls was surrounded by a defensive porch, communicated with corner towers. In the western part of the ground floor there was an oblique gate passage. Its unusual layout is explained by topographical reasons, the desire to increase defensiveness or simply a change in the architectural concept. The main gate was placed in a high, pointed-arch recess, covering the machicolations. The gate was led by a drawbridge over the moat, and extended foregate with a guard tower and the house of a doorman. Also diagonally in relation to the corpus of the upper castle, there was a dansker tower, about 40 meters from the west corner.
The upper castle from 1344 housed the church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 38 meters long and 14,4 meters high. Its interior was topped with a high stellar vault and decorated with rich architectural details. The vault was based on wall-mounted ancillary columns, which were decorated in a sophisticated way. Under its corbels stood the life-size statues of the 12 apostles, based on consoles with images of evil powers. Lighting in the church was provided by high ogival windows, glazed with colorful stained glass. The chancel was extended in front of the wall and was given a three-sided closure with the statue of the Virgin Mary placed inside. Under the church was located the chapel of St. Anna, planned as the burial place of the great masters. In its crypt, under the floor, the body of the deceased great master was put on the catafalque. After the death of the successor, the remains of the predecessor were slipped into the depths of the tunnel carved under the catafalque, which was filled by the land brought by the monks from the Holy Land. The chapel and the church received a rich sculptural and painting decor, including the so-called Golden Gate. It is a decorative portal from the cloisters to the chapel, dated around 1280. Placed in a deep niche with a rib vault. It owes its name to the rich, polychrome sculptural and painting decoration which, according to the spirit of the Middle Ages, also has a symbolic meaning. The beautiful archivolt contains, among others, the parable of the Stupid and Clever Virgins and the statues of Ecclesia and the Synagogue.
The upper castle was surrounded by two external circuits of the walls, which separated the zwinger area and by the moat, which was fed with water from the Dąbrówka Lake, distant by 8 km, through a specially dug canal. It was recognized that you can not rely on the Nogat, where the water level was too unstable. Thanks to this investment, castle mills could also function. The area of the eastern zwinger was allocated for the cemetery of teutonic knights. In the zwinger there was also castle gardens, among others rose garden on the south side. A main tower-belfry, stood next to the church, with a height of 66 meters. In the 14th century, in the northeastern corner, a residential tower called Klesza (Priests) was erected on the foundations of the older, thirteenth-century tower. It had the chambers of brothers – priests serving in the castle’s church.
The middle castle, which was originally an outer ward of the upper castle, in the fourteenth century, obtained the shape of a quadrilateral with three ranges and a side of about 100 meters in length. It had mainly the representative and administrative buildings of the Teutonic Order. In the first phase, peripheral walls and two free-standing buildings along the eastern and western curtains were built. From the north, an entrance gate has been located. In the years 1318-1324, a Great Refectory with a palm vault was built by the western curtain, and next to it a Palace of the Grand Masters, connected to their private chapel of St. Catherine. The palace had an elongated rectangular plan and was supported from the west on the defensive wall.
In the eastern range of the middle castle, on the floor were rooms for the guests of the Order, among others crusaders, representatives of European countries and their attendants, and a small church of St. Bartholomew, added at the end of the 14th century. Thanks to the movable partitions, the interiors on the first floor could be freely composed. The ground floor and cellars, of course, had economic and warehouse functions. The communication to the first floor was provided by the walled gallery. The elevation of the east range from the side of the courtyard was decorated with a series of large ogival blendes with large windows of a gallery, and from the outside a series of small gables.
In the northern, gate’s range, on the first floor, triangular vaulted, residential chambers of the great commander, treasury and the infirmary from the east (a hospital for the sick and old brothers) were created. Infirmary residents had their own chapel, refectory and bathhouse on the ground floor, and on the first floor, sleeping rooms. The refectory of the infirmary had stellar vault on a single pillar. The outer façade of the infirmary was adorned with a magnificent, great, triangular gable, decorated with blendes, pinnacles and traceries. It was to be visible and dominate the entrance to the middle ward. A small turret was in the corner, to which a timber porch led.
In the ground floor of east range, which had rib vaults, there were warehouses, a bakery, chef‘s chamber and a kitchen. The most important room of the west range, however, was the Great Refectory, to charm the guests who came to Malbork. Its spacious interior was crowned with palm vaults, supported by three slender, octagonal, granite pillars with decorative capitals and bases. The room was lit with large, ogival windows with colorful stained glass and covered with colorful wall polychromes. The room was warmed with hot air from the furnace, reaching from the channels placed in the floor. From the south, the Great Refectory had a connection with the chambers of the great master, and beneath it the cellars housed warehouses and a hypocaustum furnace.
And so, finally, around 1330, a three-range building was constructed around a trapezoidal courtyard, open from the side of the upper castle. This space was filled only by a wide moat and a low defensive wall. It was probably a deliberate intention of the designers, the upper castle had its massive, lofty shape to dominate and emphasize the strength of the Order.
In the 80s of the 14th century, the Palace of the Grand Masters was extended. It obtained the form of a four-storey residential tower with a rich decoration of facades. Its top floor was occupied by the refectory: Summer and Winter, covered with stellar vaults on the central pillars. The winter refectory, lower and smaller, was heated with warm air, so it could be used throughout the year. The Summer Refectory was set on a square plan with very harmonious proportions and illuminated with large stained glass windows, which play of lights enlivened internal wall polychromes. On the north side of the palace were comfortable living rooms of great masters with their private bath and toilet. Around 1400, representative and residential rooms were covered with paintings with heraldic, figural and floral motifs. Elevations have been given a rich decor in the form of deep window niches, decorative battlement and corner bay windows on decorative brackets. Originally it were better exposed, because the original roof was more withdrawn and lower.
Probably in the 40s of the 14th century, a defensive wall was built, that connected the middle and upper castle. Access to the middle castle was defended by the long foregate, drawbridge over the moat, five metal-framed oak doors, a portcullis and defensive porches.
The low castle had a shape similar to a rectangle measuring 140×270 meters and served as an economic and storage facility. In the years 1300 – 1320, a building for carts was erected by the eastern curtain, the so-called Karwan and monumental, four-storey granary over the Nogat river. Until 1327, the outer ward’s area was surrounded by a moat and brick fortifications. From the west, next to the moat of the middle castle, stood the gate of Saint Laurentius, and on its axis on the eastern side, the main entrance to the castle was located, flanked by two towers: Thesaurarius and Vogts Towers. In addition, the castle was defended by a number of towers, among which stood: Maślankowa Tower performing a prison function, and Clock Tower with a clock dating from the late fourteenth century. In the first half of this century, further buildings were built inside the low castle, among others a building with more than 142 meters in length, which housed rooms for servants, infirmary, brewery, bakery, malt house, kitchen and at the end the church of St. Lawrence. The stables stretched along the northern curtain. The interior of the large courtyard was occupied by workshops, forges, a bell-foundry, warehouses and a small water reservoir. Around 1330 a corner tower called Sparrow and Shoemaker Gate was established, leading to the town through the western zwinger and the next gate of Saint Nicholas for the bridge crossing. The timber bridge was secured by two towers called Water Gate, and on the other side of the river by a fortified bridgehead. The town was included in the mutual system of fortifications only in the years 1351-1383. After the great war in 1411-1413, the low castle was strengthened from the north and east by new earth fortifications called the Plauen Ramparts. Around 1418 the New Gate was built, providing access to the outside of the castle from the south, and in 1441-1448 the Plauen Ramparts were modernized with five semi-circular, low towers and brick retaining wall.
CURRENT SITUATION
Today, visitors are welcome to roam the castle grounds, with many day-tripping from cities such as Gdynia or charming Gdańsk to explore the expansive courtyard and trek along the long corridors that branch off into exhibition halls adorned with armour, ceramics and even tapestries dating back to the 1500s.
