Broumov Monastery
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HRADEC KRÁLOVÉ REGION EN KLADSKO BORDERLAND Broumov Monastery the Pearl of Baroque 1 © Daniel Baránek, CC BY-SA 3.0 © Daniel Baránek, CC BY-SA HISTORY OF THE MONASTERY The Benedictine monastery in Broumov and its originally-Gothic cathedral, consecrated to St. Adalbert, was built on the site of a fortress in the first half of the 14th century. The significance of the place rose, mainly during the Hussite Wars. The fact that the Břevnov monastery in Prague was set alight by the Hussites in 1420 meant that Nicholas II decided to make for Broumov together with a few monks. They took with them a number The frescoes on the ceiling of the monastery church of on the ceiling of monastery The frescoes church and they Jakub Steinfels by St. Adalbert created were of St. Adalbert.depict the life The monasterythe State complex was included in heritage of of architectural Program Preservation devastated its severely Republic due to the Czech condition. of valuable artefacts. One such artefact 1 2 was one of the most important medieval manuscripts of Czech origin, Codex gigas, which has been housed in Sweden since 1648 as the spoils of war. century in th The order became extremely prominent at the time of the Catholic Reformation after 1620 and there came a time of grandiose 2 , also nicknamed as the Devil‘s Bible , also nicknamed as the Devil‘s CODE GIGAS manuscript in the world. The Code was is the greatest written at the beginning of 13 most likely the Monastery near Chrudim. The author‘s of Podlazice all existing knowledge in summarize intention was to with one book. That is how the Code weighing 75 kg, a height of the back measuring almost a meter came to existence. 1 2 3 The construction of „the group of churches in Broumov Region“ was initiated by the abbot Otmar Zinke. He intended to replace the existing network of wooden churches - that was taken care of by father and son Dientzenhofer, who created twelve Baroque pearls in this region. The statue of St. Jan of Nepomuk in front of Broumov Monastery. 4 building work. It was under the watch of Abbot Sartorius that work began on the conversion of the monastery church from Gothic to Baroque under the guidance of Italian maestro Martin Allio of Löwenthal between 1685 and 1688. Work was completed under Abbot Zinke, who entrusted completion work to prominent Baroque architect Christoph Dientzenhofer 1689 Prague – 1751 and his son Kilian Ignaz. The German community was expelled from Broumov after the Second World War and two of the monks at one of the parishes in the area were even murdered. Then, in 1946, Czech-American Benedictine monks from the St. Procopius Abbey in Lisle, not far from Chicago, tried to settle the monastery. However, they were expelled from the country in 1948 after the communists had taken power. KILIAN IGNAZ DIENTZENHOFER and builder of German origin, the fifth son architect An architect of the High Baroque was the representative Dientzenhofer, Christopher Monastery as well for and his most famous buildings include Broumov of St. Nicholas in the Old Town the Church Monastery, example Břevnov in Šonov. of St. Margaret in Prague or the Church Square The view of the Benedictine the River Monastery from Stěnava. 5 © Dezidor, CC BY-SA 3.0 CC BY-SA © Dezidor, 3 6 3.0 © Daniel Baránek, CC BY-SA The monastery was then used as an internment camp for monks and nuns of various orders from 1950 onwards. The nuns interned here lived under inhumane conditions and were forced to work in factories and in agriculture in Broumov and the surrounding area. The situation only improved in 1968, when changes in the political situation allowed the nuns to work in charity homes. Only Dominican nuns remained in Broumov, here baking wafers for all parishes in Bohemia and Moravia. They too, however, moved in 1990, to a nunnery in Moravia. There are no members of the Benedictine order living in the monastery at this time. The abbey is run from Břevnov by administrator Prokop Siostrzonek, the monastery itself by Přemysl In the Church of St. Adalbert (Vojtěch) you can see some of St. Adalbert you In the Church (Vojtěch) of the saints. of the ten Reliquaries, which hide the remains of them is the Reliquary the founder The rarest of St. Prokop, Monastery. of Sázava Sochor. 4 THE MONASTERY GRAMMAR SCHOOL We believe from the sources we have that a monastery school was first established in 1306, when the monastery was built and the Benedictine monks were obliged to care for education. The Benedictine monastery school (later a grammar school) was very well-known before the Hussite Wars. As was the case with other monastery schools, the one in Broumov concentrated on religious education and was primarily intended to teach future members of the order. Activity at the school was obviously interrupted by the Hussite Wars. The school re-opened under Abbot Benn Falk, who established a grammar school with four years of study in 1624, making it the third oldest grammar school in Bohemia. Abbot Otmar Daniel Zinke later tried to transform the grammar school into a lyceum focusing on philosophy and theology. He did not manage 1663 Praque – 1738 Broumov to do so, however, as a result of the low number of students, but he was able to have a new grammar school building erected within the monastery grounds in 1711. The grammar school was closed by the Nazis in 1939. It was used as a State College during the War and after 1945 as a Czechoslovak State Realschule, the seat of which was relocated to new premises. The grammar school building ZINKE OTMAR DANIEL he was also a student abbot in 1700 (previously He became Břevnov-Broumov and in the architectural an initiative of the local Grammar school) and took of Broumov. economic development is now used as the Centre for Regional Development in the Broumov Region and is home to the Kreslírna conference hall, a café, the ticket office for tours of the grounds and 5 7 3.0 © Daniel Baránek, CC BY-SA office space for local organisations. Among the prominent people to have graduated from the school are the first Archbishop of Prague, Arnošt of Pardubice, historian Bohuslav Balbín, patriotic priest Josef Regner Havlovický and writer Alois Jirásek, a native of the nearby Hronov. Minister of Finance of the first Czechoslovak government Alois Rašín also studied at the school. THE MONASTERY LIBRARY The library was established when the monastery was in its infancy, the founder of the order, St. Benedict, having placed great importance on reading among his monks. The library is now one of the few monastery libraries to have been preserved in the Czech Republic and houses some 17,000 volumes. However, the collection was once considerably larger. According to some Broumov Monastery Library many abbots, was for centuries managed by Broumov collection and extensive a very valuable create who succeeded to looting, etc.). Scholarly writings have fire, despite many obstacles (large in in Latin that students played as well written plays been preserved in the square. the monastery and even witnesses, several thousand books were loaded 6 onto a truck by the communists and taken away to paper-mills. The books in the library are written in Latin, Hebrew, French, German, Spanish, English, Czech and many other languages. In the same way you can find books here about theology, philosophy, history and natural science and indeed the classics. VALUABLE EXHIBITS In addition to the library, the monastery is also home to a rare replica of the Turin Shroud that was created in 1651. The shroud was discovered in the monastery church in 1999, above the Chapel of the Holy Cross (kaple sv. Kříže), in a wooden box behind a gilded stucco garland bearing the inscription of Sancta Sindon. An original document was found with the shroud, from which it is clear that it was gifted by the Archbishop of Turin Julius Caesar Barbera to Matthäus Ferdinand Sobek von Bilenberg, who would later become the Archbishop of Prague and who subsequently gifted it to the monastery in Broumov. There of linen fabric, which mainly is a relic are around 40 similar replicas throughout the world, the one in Broumov being the only one in Central Europe. Another special exhibit is a collection of 34 mummies that were originally found in the crypt of the parish Church of St. Procopius (kostel sv. Prokopa) in Vamberk. Due to the unsuitable SHROUD TURIN OF of the body Catholics claim that it was used for covering is a distinct There the cross. from Jesus Christ after his removal 4.36 m x 1.1 m on the linen sized of a male figure impression copy is the same as original). Broumov linen size (Broumov can be seen as part of the monastery. of the tour conditions, however, these were moved from their original place of rest to the extensive cellar areas of the monastery in Broumov in 2000. The oldest mummy dates back to the 17th century, but most of them come from 7 8 the 18th. These are primarily the mummies of burghers from Vamberk, of priests, organ players and other prominent people. One of the most important people to have been buried in the crypt is the founder of lacemaking in Vamberk Magdalena Grambová. There are also two mummies of children. MONASTERY GARDENS Gardens were created beside the monastery sometime around 1676 under Abbot Sartorius. A decorative, terraced garden was created at the front in the Baroque Italian style, with regular, geometric ornamentation.