Bač castle

Bač fortress Бачка тврђава
Bač Serbia
Remains of Bač fortress
Type	Fortification
Site information
Open to the public	Yes
Condition	Remains
Site history
Built	14th century
Materials	Stone
Demolished	1711

Bač Fortress (Serbian: Бачка тврђава) is a medieval fortress in Serbia, Vojvodina. It is located in the town of Bač.

The medieval fortress in Bač is known as one of the great fortresses of its time in the Pannonian plain. It was built by the town of the same name to the west, on a small island on the river Mostonga. The Fortress in Bač is known as one of the so-called "Water Towns", because it used to be surrounded by the Mostonga river on all sides, approachable only by the drawbridges. The fortress has a pentagonal basis on which corners are projecting towers. Inside the fort there is another, superior, central (or dungeon defender) tower. The tower has served as an important part of the defense system of the fortress, but also as an observation post.

According to some chronicles, Bač was also an Avar fortress (873). It was inhabited by both Avars and Slavs. The Hungarian King Stephen I founded the Bač County, and at the turn of the first millennium Bač was already a well built and fortified town, connected to the Danube by the river Mostonga. During the Árpád dynasty, Bač became not only the ecclesiastical seat of the Archdiocese, but a royal city, where nobles and rulers came to their councils and assemblies. In the twelfth century Bač fortress is first mentioned in written sources.

At the head of Bačka county there were governors appointed by the king. Until the Mongol invasion in 1241, the governors were the managers of the area. They collected donations, set up military and civilian commanders. In addition to the governors of the fort there were also lower prefects, judges, and military personnel. Since the twelfth century, the custom of annual royal visits to the fort was established.

At the beginning of the fourteenth century a dynasty change occurred in the Kingdom of Hungary. The Hungarian King Charles Robert I (1310–1342) founded the new town (fortress) on Mostonga between the 1338 and 1342, with the quadrangular tower with six floors, important for the defense of the city. There primarily existed eight towers, various chambers of the county manager, a chapel, guard towers, kitchen, well, barn, and various other premises, the remains of which stand today.