Olomouc Castle

During the high Middle Ages, the Olomouc Castle was one of the most important castle complexes in the Czech lands. Its remnants are located on St Wenceslas Hill near the historical centre of Olomouc. Its blood-red letter day in history occurred when the last Přemyslid King of Bohemia, Wenceslas III, was murdered there in 1306.

The advantageously elevated position of the hillock has been used for habitation since prehistoric times – at least three prehistoric settlements have been found there, and later, it was a site of a Great Moravian hill fort.

The hill fort was gradually turned into a castle; it was first mentioned in the Chronicle of the Bohemians by Cosmas of Prague, stating that a stone castle stood there in 1055. At the time, the Olomouc castle was the seat of the Přemyslid princes and was primarily utilised for secular and aristocratic purposes.

The Diocese of Olomouc was officially established in 1063, and in the 1130s, Bishop Jindřich Zdík built his residence, which also served as the chapter house, in close vicinity of the castle and the newly constructed Saint Wenceslas Church. At the time, the appanage princes of Olomouc shared the castle with the Bishops of Olomouc.

After the Olomouc branch of the Přemyslids died out in the early 13th century, administration of the Olomouc appanage was transferred directly to the king. The castle lost its residential function, but retained military and administrative functions. At the time, extensive, late-Romanesque redevelopment was carried out after a major fire in 1204.

By the second half of the 13th century, the ecclesiastical element began to dominate over the residential and landowning ones. At the time, the princely (margravial) palace was either demolished, or rebuilt into a burgraviate, which also, sadly, has not survived to this day.

The complex underwent numerous redevelopments. It gained a new fortification layout, and the cathedral was rebuilt in the Gothic (13th century), Baroque (17th century), and Gothic Revival (19th century) styles. The Chapter House was remodelled into a Renaissance building in the 1620s.

Only the foundations and a Gothic round tower have been preserved from the original castle. The uncovered foundations are on display in the coach room and cellar of the Archdiocesan Museum.

Building adaptations, carried out between 1998 and 2006 as part of the establishment of the Archdiocesan Museum, interconnected the former secular and ecclesiastical parts of the site for the first time in history. Thanks to this, the summer guided tours also show the best-preserved and most important parts of the Bishop’s Palace: Romanesque windows with rich ornamental decorations reminiscent of sculptured lacework, unparalleled in the 12th-century Czech lands. Mistakenly believed to be the Přemyslid Palace, only the late-20th century surveys revealed that it was in fact Bishop Jindřich Zdík’s palace (and, therefore, is now called Zdík’s Palace).

Since 1962, the site has been a national cultural monument, bearing the name Olomouc Castle and Saint Wenceslas Cathedral. In 2015, the European Commission included it, together with the Archdiocesan Museum in Olomouc, onto the list of significant monuments, and awarded it the European Heritage label.