The villages nestling around Zengő Hill stretch back to the time of the Hungarian settlement. In the 10th Century the centre of the region was the town of Pécsvárad, lying at the foot of Zengő Hill.
St. King Stephen founded a Benedictine Abbey here and its first abbot Asztrik brought the crown from Rome for Stephen, who introduced Christianity to the country. The chapel of the 10th Century castle and its remaining frescoes form a unique memorial to that time. The monastery which King Stephen founded in 1000 made Pécsvárad an important national centre of state and religion.
The form of today’s castle, with its many angles, derives from the 13th Century. The best preserved part is the south eastern gun tower. The ruins of the abbey buildings may be seen in the north western part of the castle and beside these lies the three-nave abbey church deriving from 1015. One of the finest national treasures from the time of St. Stephen is the former monastery chapel, which may be approached from the north through the mediaeval draw-bridge entrance to the castle. To the west of the entrance we may still see the slit archery windows of the Romanesque courthouse. To the east of here is the castle museum which affords a glimpse into the flowering during the mediaeval period of one of the oldest national Benedictine monasteries.