BELFRY (BERGFRIEDE) OF JOANNIC CASTLES AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF SIMILAR TOWERS BUILT IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

The Order of St. John also is commonly referred to as the Hospitaller Order, the Order of Rhodes, or the Order of Malta. The Order of St. John originated before the First Crusade as a religious brotherhood, founded by European pilgrims in Jerusalem in 1070 at the Hospital of St. John the Almsgiver. The Brotherhood's primary mission was to provide hospitals for pilgrims arriving in the Holy Land. The order established further hospitals at monasteries and churches, initially in the Middle East, and later throughout almost all of Europe. In many kingdoms, commanderies of the order were established on lands and properties donated to the order by rulers and nobles. In present-day Poland, the Knights of St. John appeared as early as the first half of the 12th century, first in Silesia and the Lubusz Land. Later, commanderies of the order appeared sporadically in Greater Poland, Kuyavia, and the Sandomierz Land, as well as in large numbers in the Duchy of the Pomeranian Griffins and in Gdańsk Pomerania. Every medieval castle is unique. No two main towers built exactly alike, although it cannot be ruled out that among the several thousand castle towers erected throughout Europe during the Middle Ages, several very similar ones cannot be found. Each main tower of a castle differs from the next. In total, the Hospitallers left behind relics of approximately 60 structures in Poland, including only three massive strongholds, almost completely preserved to this day. Their uniqueness stems from, among other things, the massive prismatic-cylindrical bergfrieds with their characteristic shapes and parameters, which are the subject of this study (Łagów Lubuski, Swobnica, and Pęzino).