LOCATIONS — 252/262 — Sedletz monastery
The Sedletz Monastery used to be the oldest Cistercian abbey in the Czech Kingdom. Founded by the Bavarian Abbot Gerlach in 1142 , it was later abandoned and reoccupied many times in its history, either due to wars or poor financial situations. In 1421, it was burnt down by the Hussites, only the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist survived. After the end of the war, only a few monks returned and it remained in this dismal state until the 17th century. In 1783, the monastery was completely abolished by an imperial decree. The cemetery church of All Saints with the adjacent burial ground was originally part of the monastery, but later it began to serve as the municipal cemetery for Kuttenberg, because as records showed, burials were taking place there long before the arrival of the monks. The cemetery was at its busiest during wars and plague epidemics. In 1318 alone, 30,000 dead were buried there, and another 10,000 during the Hussite wars. The site is shrouded in many legends. The most famous one states that the abbot of the Heidenreich Monastery brought a handful of dirt from Jerusalem on his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which he then scattered around the cemetery and the ossuary. Thus, the cemetery ground became sacred and highly sought after, not only by the people of Kuttenberg, but also by pilgrims and those wishing to be buried there from all over Bohemia and neighbouring regions. Who wouldn’t want to rest in the ground where Jesus Christ himself once walked? Today, a cigarette factory is located on the site of the former monastery.
TRIVIA
— According to a local legend, the nobleman Miroslav of Zimburg was travelling through the region when he stopped to rest in a forest clearing. While he slept with his saddle beneath his head, his companions witnessed a strange sight: a white bird with golden wings flew into his mouth and then out again. When Miroslav awoke, he told them that an angel had appeared to him in a dream and instructed him to found a monastery on that blessed spot. He obeyed, and the new settlement was said to have taken its name, Sedlec, from the saddle (sedlo) on which he rested.
In reality, Sedlec Abbey was founded in 1142 by Miroslav of Zimburg with the support of Prince Vladislav II and Bishop Jindřich Zdík. A year later, monks from the Cistercian monastery of Waldsassen arrived, establishing the first Cistercian abbey on Czech land. For more than a century Sedlec remained a relatively unremarkable institution and at one point was even considered for dissolution due to poverty.
Its economic status changed drastically with the discovery of rich silver deposits on monastery lands near Kutná Hora. The silver mining industry transformed Sedlec into one of the wealthiest monasteries in Bohemia, due to the monastery leasing the land to the miners. Under Abbot Heidenreich, a close adviser to King Wenceslas II, the abbey gained considerable political influence and became involved in the events surrounding the ascension of the Luxembourg dynasty to the Bohemian throne. At its socio-political peak the monastery controlled more than fifty villages, the towns of Malín and Malešov, including other estates across the kingdom.
However, despite the proximity to its neighbours, the relations with Kutná Hora were not always friendly. The growing mining town frequently clashed with the monastery over influence and parish rights, which were a source of considerable income. In July 1412, there was a clash between miners and the monastery's subjects, which ended with the burning of the Sedlec town of Malín and the murder of its inhabitants. Sources suggest this conflict was also a result of the rising contempt for the wealthy German monks residing in the monastery.
Although activity eventually returned to the monastery, Sedlec never fully recovered. The abbey experienced a final period of renewal after the Thirty Years' War, when Abbot Jindřich Snopek commissioned architect Jan Blažej Santini-Aichel to rebuild much of the complex. This revival ended in 1783, when Emperor Joseph II dissolved the monastery as part of his reforms.
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