Siedlęcin Tower () is a 14th-century

tower castle A tower castle is a small castle that mainly consists of a fortified tower or a tower-like structure that is built on natural ground. It is thus different from the motte-and-bailey castle, which it may resemble, but whose main defensive structur ...

situated in the southwestern Polish village of

Siedlęcin Siedlęcin () () is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Jeżów Sudecki, within Karkonosze County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It lies approximately west of Jeżów Sudecki, north-west of Jelenia Góra, and ...

in the

Karkonosze County __NOTOC__ Karkonosze County () is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, south-western Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms pass ...

. The

keep A keep is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word ''keep'', but usually consider it to refer to large towers in castles that were fortified residen ...

in Siedlęcin is one of the best-preserved examples of such buildings in Central Europe; its construction was probably started in 1313 or 1314 by Henry I of Jawor. He and his wife Agnes of Bohemia also commissioned the medieval Gothic fresco murals depicting the legend of

Lancelot Lancelot du Lac (French for Lancelot of the Lake), alternatively written as Launcelot and other variants, is a popular character in the Matter of Britain, Arthurian legend's chivalric romance tradition. He is typically depicted as King Arthu ...

that are painted in the great hall of the keep. The tower, surrounded by a moat, is a keep of a relatively modest sort, which combines the functions of housing, ceremony, and defence in a vertical disposition analogous to those found in other castles in Europe: the lower storeys were designed for defence and for trade and business; the upper floors consisted of living quarters, and fulfilled the ceremonial functions of the dukes; the topmost floor also served defensive purposes.

References

External links

Reconstruction drawings
of Siedlęcin Tower
History and photos of the Ducal Tower in Siedlęcin
14th-century architecture in Poland Castles in Lower Silesian Voivodeship Gothic architecture in Poland Karkonosze County Tower houses {{Poland-struct-stub