Vyšší Brod Monastery
| Hohenfurth Cistercian Abbey Cisterciácké opatství Vyšší Brod | |
|---|---|
 Hohenfurth / Vyšší Brod Abbey |
|
| location |
 Czech Republic Bohemia
|
| Lies in the diocese | Bishopric Budweis |
| Coordinates: | 48 ° 37 '14.3 " N , 14 ° 18' 24.2" E |
| Serial number according to Janauschek |
658 |
| Patronage | Assumption Day |
| founding year | 1259 |
| Year of dissolution / annulment |
1941 |
| Year of repopulation | 1991 |
| Mother monastery | Wilhering |
| Primary Abbey | Morimond |
| Congregation | Austrian Cistercian Congregation |
The monastery Vyšší Brod (lat. Abbatia BMV de Altovado ; [vɪʃiː bread] , Czech Vyšebrodský klaster , German abbey Hohenfurth even Hohenfurt ) is a Cistercian - Abbey and the junction located west Menší Vltavice in the Vltava River in the eponymous town Vyšší Brod ( Hohenfurth ) in the Krumau district in the Czech Republic . It was founded in the 13th century and has been a spiritual and cultural center of South Bohemia ever since . It has been listed as the National Cultural Monument of the Czech Republic since 1995 .
history
Beginnings
The Cistercian monastery Hohenfurth was founded in 1259 by the Bohemian Supreme Marshal Wok von Rosenberg and settled with twelve monks from Wilhering Abbey near Linz . According to tradition, Wok is said to have built the monastery out of gratitude for his salvation from the floods of the Vltava . The day the monastery was founded is June 1, 1259, when the monastery church was built by Prague Bishop Johann III. was consecrated. During the Hussite Wars , the monastery church was damaged, the monastery property was devastated and several patronage churches were destroyed.
.jpg)
Around 1530, the manor of Hohenfurt Abbey included the Hohenfurth and Höritz markets and 108 villages. During the Thirty Years War the monastery had to endure numerous billeting and looting, and the convent was temporarily housed in other monasteries. In 1627 the abbot received a seat and vote in the Bohemian state parliament as an infulfilled prelate. Around 1650, three towns (Hohenfurth, Höritz and part of Priethal ) as well as 103 villages and 14 hamlets belonged to the manor in accordance with a tax role . In addition to the actual Hohenfurth monastery rule , the monastery also owned the Komarzitz monastery , which was administered separately. Around this time the monks increasingly took over pastoral care in the patronage parishes, as there was a lack of diocesan priests. On June 17, 1690, the monastery was badly damaged by fire. In Josephinism , the monastery narrowly escaped abolition. In 1786 the abbot Hermann Kurz was relieved of his office, the admission of novices was forbidden and the large estates were partially divided up and leased. In 1789 the measures were reversed by imperial decree and in 1790 the monastery was granted its previous privileges . In return, the monastery had to undertake to provide four or later five professors for the Philosophical School and later at the German grammar school in Budweis . This obligation continued until 1921.
Modern times to 1848 and the 19th century
The patronage of the monastery and the monastic properties was incumbent on the Lords of Rosenberg until 1611 , afterwards for a short time Johann Zrínsky von Seryn, who was a nephew of the last Rosenberg, Peter Wok von Rosenberg , and the emperors Matthias and Ferdinand II. From 1622 the patronage lay with the new owners of the Krumau rule , the lords of Eggenberg , and from 1719 with the princes Schwarzenberg . On February 28, 1822, Abbot Isidor Teutschmann succeeded in breaking away from the rule of Krumlov. Thus the monastery exercised secular rule over the monastery property and its income until the abolition of the manorial rule in the revolutionary year 1848 .
At the end of the 19th century, under Abbot Leopold Wackarž , who had been elected Abbot General of the Cistercian Order in 1891, extensive construction work was carried out, which also extended to the incorporated parishes. His successor Bruno Pammer († 1924) built a power station on the monastery property in 1904. From 1911 the monastery took part in the construction and operation of the electric railway, with which the area was connected to the railway network.
With the land reform carried out after the establishment of Czechoslovakia , the monastery lost part of its large estates in favor of the newly founded state. Nevertheless, Abbot Tecelin Jaksch was able to arrange the renovation of the monastery church and other churches and parsonages. In doing so, during the inflation of the monetary currency in 1923 and the mass unemployment of 1929 and 1930, he provided many people with work and bread.
The monastery during the Second World War
A major catastrophe for the monastery followed, however, with the occupation of the Sudetenland after the Munich Agreement of 1938. The area was politically attached to the Upper Danube Gau at that time and the diocese of Linz was churchly attached. On November 21, 1939 Abbot Tecelin Jaksch was arrested for his loyal attitude to the Czechoslovak state and sentenced to six months in prison. In January 1939 a government commissioner appointed by the Gau Oberdonau took over the administration of the monastery. Father Dominik Kaindl , who was elected coadjutor by the convent for the duration of Abbot Jaksch's absence , lost all influence. It was precisely at this time that the monastery had the highest number of staff in its almost 700-year history and consisted of 69 members. On April 17, 1941, the Hohenfurth monastery was finally closed by the Linz Gestapo . The few monks still present were distributed to the collegiate parishes. Father Vinzenz Pils, who was responsible for keeping the bookkeeping as the rent master, and Father Alois Martetschläger, who was initially allowed to continue the services in the monastery church, were allowed to stay. The monastery buildings now served as a camp for German resettlers from Bessarabia and towards the end of the war as a reserve hospital for the Wehrmacht . Of the 21 members of the Order who were drafted into the war, ten died. On November 1, 1942, Father Engelbert Blochl, pastor of Heuraffl , died of hunger and abuse in the Dachau concentration camp .
The monastery in the communist era
After the end of the war, Abbot Tecelin Jaksch worked hard to get the convent back and the rightful return of the possessions. The existence of the monastery seemed to be secure after he managed to return with the support of the also returned President Edvard Beneš . As a result of the Beneš decrees , however, the majority of the monastery priests were expelled together with the German population , so that only a small convent remained, whose situation became increasingly untenable. The communist authorities soon became hostile to the persecution by the National Socialists . After the Communists seized power in February 1948, Abbot Tecelin Jaksch left Vyšší Brod on July 26, 1948 and was accepted into Zwettl Abbey . The abolition of the monastery followed on May 4, 1950, in which only two Czech monks, three juniors, a novice and a lay brother were present. They were not allowed to exercise pastoral care and were taken to the internment camp for priests in the abolished Osek Monastery . In the same year, the Hohenfurter Konventuale Matthäus Quatember was elected Abbot General of the Cistercian Order.
After 1950 the monastery buildings served as barracks for the Czechoslovak Army . Border guards who were needed to guard the nearby Austrian border, the so-called Iron Curtain , were quartered later . After all, the monastery buildings were empty and some of them were left to decay.
Rein-Hohenfurth Abbey
The last Hohenfurt abbot Tecelin Jaksch was appointed Apostolic Administrator of Rein Abbey in 1949. After his death on May 23, 1954, the last pastor and dean of Hohenfurth, Father Nikolaus Lonsing, tried as "Prior regens" to re-establish the Hohenfurth Convention in the former Capuchin monastery in Schillingsfürst in Middle Franconia. Since the convent could not develop there and the general chapter of the Cistercian order had already proposed a union of the convents of Rein and Hohenfurth in 1958, the re-establishment was canceled in 1959. The members of the order returned to Rein, where on October 7, 1959 the association came about under the name “Stift Rein-Hohenfurth”. In doing so, the monastery took on the obligation to repopulate Hohenfurth Abbey as soon as an opportunity arose.
New beginning after 1989
After the political change in 1989, two priests were able to return to Vyšší Brod, where they are striving to renew monastic life. They were supported with material help from Austria, especially from Heiligenkreuz Abbey . In 1991 the library was restituted.
Visitors to the monastery can take part in church services and view the Gothic church, the cloister, the chapter house, the baroque library and a number of art objects in exhibitions in the monastery collections.
In 2011 the monks of Vyšší Brod used the opportunity provided in the Motu Proprio "Summorum Pontificum" of 2007 and returned to the extraordinary form of Holy Mass and the old customs that were valid until 1962.
After the monastery was initially unable to benefit from a restitution of church property by the Czech state, which began in 2013, 3600 hectares of forest and 22 hectares of pond areas were returned to the monastery in 2017. With the land expropriated by the communists in 1950, the monastery was given new economic scope. First, however, investments are required. The return was delayed because a required document was missing that certified the monastery in 1947 that it had not collaborated with the National Socialists. This letter has since been found in the archives of the Czech Ministry of Defense.
From 2007 to 2019, Father Justin Berka was the prior administrator of the Vyšší Brod monastery community. On May 17, 2019, he was officially elected prior.
In 2013, along with Freistadt and Bad Leonfelden, the monastery was one of the locations of the Upper Austrian provincial exhibition “Old Traces, New Paths”, which addressed the historical connections between Bohemia and the Mühlviertel. In 2017, three monks with solemn profession and one wafer lived in Hohenfurth . The community has been in a growth phase since 2018.
Monastery church
The originally wooden monastery church of the Assumption of Mary was consecrated in 1259 and built from stone between 1270 and 1280. The vault of the three-aisled church was not completed until between 1360 and 1370.
Before 1347, Peter I von Rosenberg donated a cycle of paintings with nine pictures from the life of Christ for the main altar. It was created by the master von Hohenfurth and has been in the National Gallery in Prague since 1938 . The famous Gothic panel painting of the Madonna von Hohenfurth , which was first mentioned in 1384 , is also exhibited there.
The late Gothic, carved winged altars of St. Rochus and St. Barbara was created 1524–1525. The architectural main altar in the early Baroque style was built in 1644–1646. In the years 1830–1862 and 1878–1882, as well as in the late 1920s and again after 1989, the monastery church was rebuilt and renovated, the organs come from Orgelbau Breinbauer , Ottensheim.
The monastery church served as the burial place of the Lords of Rosenberg from 1262 to 1611 . The epitaph was created on behalf of the pen chapter 1622–1629.
Other monastery buildings and special rooms
- The chapter house was built in 1285-1300,
- the cloister was created in 1360-1380. The picture gallery is located on the first floor above the western wing of the cloister. This was created from 1835 onwards through the reconstruction of the monastery cells according to the plans of the master builder Karl Jambora from Krumlov in the neoclassical style. Bohemian vaults on Tuscan columns are the defining feature of this room.
- the refectory and the dormitory in 1385.
- The monastery library, built in 1757, was decorated with ceiling paintings at the beginning of the 19th century. It consists of three rooms: the library corridor, the philosophical hall and the theological hall.
- The Gothic Gallery was set up for the 2013 state exhibition. Here art treasures from the restituted monastery collections are exhibited.
-
The multimedia exhibition "Zawischkreuz - splendor mysticus" is presented in the Gothic cellar vault of the abbey, which is dedicated to the most valuable of the exhibits in the house, the Zawischkreuz and its archaeological investigations. The Zawisch Cross itself can be viewed on the upper floor of the abbey church. You can only get there in small groups via a spiral staircase and after passing special security measures. This two-armed Byzantine cross is one of the most valuable reliquaries in the world and unique of its kind. It is the only object in the so-called Rosenberg Oratorio.
Illustration of the Zawisch Cross
Scientific importance
In the 19th century the monastery experienced a scientific heyday. Fr. Maximilian Millauer wrote numerous theological and historical works and worked as a lecturer at Charles University , where he held the post of rector in 1834 . P. Siegfried Kühweg wrote the "Codes diplomaticus monasterii Altovadensis 1259–1844", on which the "Document Book of the Cistercian Monastery B. Mariae Virginis zu Hohenfurth in Bohemia", later published by Matthias Pangerl , was based, which was published in 1865 as Volume XXIII. the "Fontes rerum austriacarum" was published. The "Urbar des Klosters Hohenfurth von 1524" published by the later director of the Stiftsgymnasium Valentin Schmidt around 1900 is an important source for local and family researchers.
Monastery library
The monastery library has a rich old inventory that goes back to the 13th century. She was from 1950 the State Scientific Library in Ceske Budejovice slammed (České Budějovice) and in 1991 returned the pen.
The Hohenfurt songbook from the middle of the 15th century (Ms. 8b), the song manuscript Ms. 42 from 1410 and the manuscript Ms. 28 with the oldest version of the Quempas are of particular importance .
See also
literature
- Joachim Bahlcke , Winfried Eberhard, Miloslav Polívka (eds.): Handbook of historical places . Volume: Bohemia and Moravia (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 329). Kröner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-520-32901-8 , pp. 195-196.
- Václav Bok: Literature maintenance in the monastery Vyšší Brod / Hohenfurt from the 13th to the 15th century. In: Anton Schwob , Karin Kranich-Hofbauer (ed.): Cistercian writing in the Middle Ages. The scriptorium of the Reiner Mönche (= yearbook for international German studies. Series A: Congress reports. Vol. 71). Contributions to the international conference in the Cistercian monastery Rein, May 2003. Lang, Bern et al. 2005, ISBN 3-03-910416-0 , pp. 179–191.
- Maximilian Millauer : The origin of the Cistercian monastery Hohenfurt in Bohemia. A diplomatic sketch . Prague 1814, online at google.de .
- Josef Proschko: Forays into the history and legend of the country above the Enns. V. Hohenfurth Abbey. In: Fourteenth report on the Francisco-Carolinum Museum. Linz 1854, pp. 100–116, online (PDF) in Forum OoeGeschichte.at, pp. 110–112 about Maximilian Millauer (1784–1840)
- Castles, monasteries and chateaus Waldviertel, Danube region, South Bohemia, Vysočina, South Moravia ISBN 978-3-9502262-2-5 , p. 114 f
Web links
- Abbey website
- Vyšší Brod Monastery . In: Online encyclopedia encyklopedie.ckrumlov.cz about Krummau .
- Hospital in Vyšší Brod . In: Online encyclopedia encyklopedie.ckrumlov.cz about Krummau .
- Entry on the monastery library in the manual of the historical book collections online
Individual evidence
- ↑ Klášter ve Vyšším Brodě ÚSKP 25193 / 3-1489 in the monument catalog pamatkovykatalog.cz (Czech).
- ↑ Kontribuční sýpka (the construction of the large granary in Komařice was delayed by the monastery fire of June 17, 1690 ) on komarice.cz (Czech).
- ^ Jiří Kohout: Tecelin Jaksch (1885-1954). Abbot of Hohenfurt in turbulent times. In: Analecta Cisterciensia . Vol. 57, 2007, pp. 99-194.
- ↑ http://www.summorum-pontificum.de/mektiven/europa/135-zisterzienser-rechen-zum-alten-ritus-zurueck.html
- ↑ Bohemia: Cistercians get property back. Die Tagespost , September 20, 2017, accessed on September 26, 2017 .
- ^ Jiří Kohout: Tecelin Jaksch. 43. Abbot of Hohenfurt / Vyšší Brod Abbey. Univ. Diploma thesis, Vienna 2002, p. 74, online at klastervyssibrod.cz (German).
- ^ Raphael Pavel: Description of the manuscripts in the Hohenfurt Abbey. In: The manuscript directories of the Cistercienser monasteries Reun in Styria, Heiligenkreuz-Neukloster, Zwettl, Lilienfeld in Nieder-Wilhering and Schlierbach in Upper Austria, Ossegg and Hohenfurt in Boehmen, Stams in Tyrol. Volume 2: Wilhering, Schlierbach, Ossegg, Hohenfurt Stams (= Xenia Bernardina 2, 2). Hölder, Vienna 1891, pp. 165–461 digitized .