Landek Castle

Landek Castle stands in Dubí-Slezská Ostrava, Czech Republic, on a site first occupied by a Slavic fortified settlement of the Golensizi around the turn of the eighth to ninth century.

A stone stronghold was raised on the hill in the mid-thirteenth century under the direction of the Moravian margrave Ottokar II Přemysl, who later became King of Bohemia. The fortress was established to watch the nearby frontier with the Piast duchy of Teschen and served as the residence of a castellan who held the castle and its associated lands as a fief. In 1269 Ottokar II transferred the surrounding Troppau land, including Landek, to his illegitimate son Nikolaus I. The castle appears in a formal border agreement dated 2 August 1297, recorded between Bishop Theoderich of Olomouc and Duke Mesko I of Teschen. The first individually named holder is Siegfrid von Baruth in 1303.

By 1318 the castle and its lordship belonged to the Duchy of Troppau, and Nikolaus II succeeded then as duke. Nikolaus II expanded his holdings by marriage in 1337, taking the title associated with Ratibor and thereafter styling his domain as the Duchy of Troppau–Ratibor. In 1359 he granted 4,000 marks on Landek and the nearby town of Leobschütz to his third wife, Jutta von Falkenberg. When the Duchy of Teschen came under direct rule of the Bohemian crown in 1348, Landek ceased to function as a border fortress.

Territorial rearrangements in 1377 assigned Landek together with Troppau and Leobschütz within the duchy, and in the wake of financial strain the site was pawned after 1381 to Duke Konrad II of Oels. During the Hungarian–Bohemian war of 1474 troops loyal to King Matthias Corvinus took and severely damaged the castle; following that action the manorial center was transferred to the castle at Hultschin. In 1492 King Ladislaus Jagiello pledged Landek, the Hultschin lordship, and the estate Petrzkowitz to Duke Kasimir II of Teschen.

At the start of the sixteenth century the ruined stronghold had become a shelter for bands of robbers. Duke Sigismund of Troppau led an assault to clear the site, ordered the execution of the captured brigands, and had the remaining walls pulled down. On 15 February 1506 Barbara, Duchess of Troppau and Ratibor, together with Georg of Schellenberg, renounced overlordship in favor of Johann, Nikolaus and Valentin of Ratibor. The derelict castle later passed into the hands of Bernhard von Zwole in 1517. Excavations undertaken in the 1820s and 1830s recovered weapons that were later displayed by Hubert Stücker von Weyershof in Schloss Schillersdorf. Up to the 1840s parts of the circular defensive wall and the double ramparts were still visible, but subsequent removal of masonry for local building work greatly reduced the remains.