te chapel in the south, the monks’ cells on the west, a scriptorium and a library, and from the east economic buildings.
Since the 12th century the church and abbey was defended by a moat about 5 meters wide and about 2 meters deep, and probably an earth ramparts with a palisade, while the least fortified southern side was naturally protected by the Pilica River. At the end of the Middle Ages, the whole was surrounded by a ring of pentagonal late gothic fortifications in the form of a curtain wall and six towers (including two gate towers) surrounding an area of about 12,000 m2. Four towers were erected on a quadrangle plan, one on a semicircular plan, and one was cylindrical. The wall was about 7 meters high, 1.1 meters thick and loop holes were pierced in it. On the southern side, due to the river, its construction was abandoned. The defensive barrier there could have been monastery buildings set on the edge of the escarpment, and the latrine as the tower extended beyond escarpment, which, judging by the thickness of the walls, could be adapted for defensive tasks.
In the south-west corner there is a semicircular Moorish Tower protecting the nearby wicket gate. It received four floors with a height of 12 meters and an internal span of 6 meters. Communication between its first and third floor was provided by stairs in the thickness of the wall, and at a height of 7 meters there were passages leading to the adjacent defensive wall-walks in the crown of the walls. At the confluence of the eastern and northern sections of the fortifications, the Abbot’s Tower was erected, protruding from the face of the wall, four-sided, with an internal diameter of 5 meters and a height of just over 15 meters. Its timber ceilings divided the interior into four floors, the stone body constituting the base of the brick upper floor of a larger diameter, based on stone corbels, between which machicolation was created. From the north-east, north and west, the defense was provided by the remaining towers located at intervals of about 35-40 meters. The nearest to Abbot’s Tower was a round Music Tower with an interior diameter of 2.8 meters and an original height of at least 11-13 meters. Another tower called Kraków was located on the north side of the monastery. It served as a gate erected on a square plan with a side of 4.6 meters. Its oldest part of the walls, 1.2 meters thick, rose to a height of 14 meters. The Attic Tower was located in the north-west corner of the perimeter, on a plan similar to a square (3.4 x 3.6 meters) with a wall thickness of about 1 meter, reaching a height of 12 meters. This part was built of sandstone, while higher above the corbels there was originally a brick superstructure with machicolation, probably similar to the Abbot’s Tower. The Knight’s Tower defended the western part of the abbey. Projecting to the face of the circuit, founded on a rectangular plan with dimensions of 3 x 4 meters, served as the second gate. Based on an old woodcut, it is known that it also had an upper machicolation floor based on corbels.
The original condition of the church was violated by repeated fires and numerous early modern rebuildings. They particularly affected the gables of the chancel, transept and western façade, exchanged for baroque, then classicist and eventually replaced in the interwar period with new ones referring to the original state. The original ridge turret at the crossing of the naves has not survived, of which only the lower part remained. A 19th-century helmet was placed on its base. The cornice and window frames of the church were restored during renovation, the original ones survived in the eastern wall of the chancel, on the gable of the northern transept and in the eastern part of the southern nave. Cylindrical windows are also original, but only the western rosette has kept its tracery. The interior of the church has largely retained its original character, slightly disturbed by baroque altars and rococo stalls. In the unknown period the rib vault of the presbytery was also replaced to the cross one.
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