The Castle of Diósgyőr never served military purposes. Its significance would have increased after the fall of the Castle of Eger since the fortified castle-palace with four corner towers stood in the middle of the country up to that point, now, however, it became a castle on the border with the Ottoman-occupied part of Hungary.
Turks knew better
than besieging a castle in vain: however, their raiding parties kept ravaging and plundering the area. According to the testimony of Gáspár Szentkereszti Leutenant of Diósgyőr, Turks from Eger came ravaging around the castle twenty-seven times around 1641. They killed 22 soldiers, including the vice commander of the castle, took 48 men, women and children, including eight soldiers, the wife of a lieutenant, four herdsmen… The whole of the herd of Diósgyőr was driven away, and twenty horses were rustled within a short period of time. In 1643 Samuel Haller commander general fell in a battle with the Turks himself.
It would have been time the medieval castle was fortified but the alternating tenants did not even make repairs to the crumbling walls or the hollow roof, thus leaving the one-time lustrous royal castle to decay.
In 1662, commissioned by the Treasury Office of Szepes,
János Podmár surveying master surveyed the fortress,
and wrote that “… the whole castle is deteriorating, it does not have a single shingle on it. The two towers standing at the outer castle gate are sinking in, the great palace is in ruins all the way to the cellar. The chapel is used as an arsenal. If the castle is to be reconstructed, it will cost at least four thousand forints to make it habitable for sure.”