Trebon Monastery

In the Middle Ages, the Trebon Monastery was a recognized center for the development of education and painting in the south of the Czech Republic. The monastery was founded by the four sons of Peter I of Rožmberk , whom the Archbishop of Prague Jan I Ochko from Vlasim on May 12, 1367 ^[1] granted permission to convert the Trebon Cathedral of St. Elijah into the monastery of regular canons of St. Augustine . Rožmberki also ensured the existence of the first eight monks, three of whom were sent from the Augustinian monastery Roudnice nad Labem by his probst Mikulas. Over the next 20 years, on the site of a small parish church, the Gothic monastery church of Queen Mary and St. Elijah and the adjacent convention building were erected.

The villages of Domanin, Dunajevice, Palace, Grachoviste, Miletin, Spoli and Šalmanovice were granted the monastery. According to the land register of 1378, 162 peasant households with a total area of ​​70 guf were in feudal dependence at the monastery. The total income of the monastery from these farms in that year amounted to 1907 pennies ^[1] . The monastery developed rapidly thanks to the support of the Rozhmberks. In 1380 the community of the monastery consisted of 18 monks, and in 1389 - of 21. In 1385, the first probst of the Benes monastery achieved royal confirmation of the Rogemberk constituent letters.

On February 2, 1389, Pope Urban VI granted the request of the brothers Jan and Oldřich from Rožmberk raised the status of probst of the Trebon Monastery to the rank of abbot. After that, the canons of the monastery received the right to independently elect the abbot from their midst. The first abbot Benes retired in 1390 and died five years later.

Along with an increase in the ownership of the Rozmberk, the well-being of the monastery, which became a large landowner, also grew. In addition to estates donated and bequeathed to the Rožmberks, the monastery bought and exchanged new and new possessions both in the Czech Republic and abroad (for example, a vineyard in Austria). Probably, from the Jindřich III of Rožmberk, the monastery received, in addition to several courtyards and meadows, the Dekanets pond and some income from the villages of Branna and Slaboszowice as compensation for the village of Opatovice, flooded by the rymberk pond, which for this reason was called Opatovitsky.

During the Hussite wars, the Trebon Monastery, thanks to the protection of Oldrich II of Rožmberk , was not plundered and burned, unlike many other Czech monasteries. On the other hand, the estates of the monastery did not suffer from Oldrich himself, who captured during the war huge monastic possessions in the south of the Czech Republic (in particular, the land of the Zlatokorunsky monastery ). Despite this, in 1421 the Třeboская Brotherhood moved for safety reasons to the Austrian monasteries and returned to Třeboонь only in the early 1930s. Monastic estates, unlike the monastery itself, were repeatedly looted by the Hussites during the war along with the estates of the Rozhmberkov: in 1422 , 1425 and 1433 .

After the monks return, a new stage of consolidation and the rise of the Trebon Monastery begins. In the 15th century, the Třeboонь convention reached such widespread fame and authority that its monks were invited and sent to participate in the establishment of new monasteries, both in the Czech Republic and Austria (in particular, in 1455 they participated in the establishment of the Augustinian monastery in Borovany ) .

During the military confrontation between King Jiri of Podebrad and the Catholic Zelenogorsky Union in 1467 - 1468, the possessions of the Trebon Monastery were attacked and robbed.

In the next century, the situation changed dramatically. In the middle of the XVI century, in the Trebon Monastery, as in other monasteries, there was a significant weakening of discipline and a decline in morals. It came to the point that on November 24, 1556, Vladyr Vilya from Rozhmberk sent a strict message to the monastery demanding to increase the discipline of the monastery and stop moral decay. However, this did not help: the moral decline of the fraternity went so far that the monks drunk even went to commit crimes ^[1] . Due to poor management of the monastery, he plunged into excessive debts.

Villemus from Rožmberk decided to radically eliminate the problems of the Třebo бра Brotherhood and in 1566 with the consent of King Maximilian I closed the Třebo монасты Monastery. Wanting to rectify the situation in the spiritual realm, Villem invited the Jesuits to Třeboонь, but they refused to send their priests there. Then Vilhem reassigned the Třeboскийsky parish to the Milevsky monastery of premonstrants , while secular administrators were appointed to the parishes of Třeboя and Mladoszowice . The property of the Trebon Monastery, including archives and the library, passed into the possession of Vilém from Rožmberk.

In 1631, the Czech king Ferdinand II , who at that time owned the Třeboские estates of a suppressed Rozmberk family, decided to restore the Třeboонь and Borovansky monasteries and return to them all their possessions and other property, including archives and libraries. The functions of the temporary administrator of the monastery were entrusted to the abbot of the Austrian monastery Klosterneuburg . From Austria, new canons of the monastery were sent, which were originally housed in Trebon Castle .

Construction work on the reconstruction of the monastery complex lasted until the end of the 30s, and the restoration of war-ravaged estates - until the 60s. The monastery was run by the Klosterneuburg abbot as interim administrator until 1663 . The last administrator, Bernard Schmeding, petitioned the king to resume the election of the Třebo аб abbot or probst , since he could no longer manage two monasteries at the same time, but the king introduced the post of vice administrator, who assumed direct control of the Třeboским monastery and the Borovan canons.

On March 11, 1663, the king appointed Norbert Herrmann the first vice-administrator. The new abbot established a strict schedule in the monastery and significantly increased the monastery's income by the competent management of its estates. In addition, Herrmann personally wrote a chronicle of the house of the Rozmberk . It should be noted that the active and entrepreneurial abbot did not have a relationship with the new owners of the Trebon Pons, the princes Schwarzenberki , with whom he had been leading property disputes for a long time, throwing complaints over both them and the royal chancellery. In the process of conflict development, Herrmann closed the papal oratorio in the monastery church, and Prince Johann Adolf I zu Schwarzenberg decided to move the monastery outside of Třeboя. The archbishop of Prague intervened, ordering Herrmann to stop squabbling, but the conflict ended only with the death of the vice administrator in 1699 .

In 1738, the vice-administrator of the monastery Vojtech Prechtl received the status of abbot. The restoration of the monastery by that time was completely over and the monastic brethren, by ethnic composition, had again become Czech. The Trebon Monastery became a recognized center of the spiritual and cultural life of the city and the countryside, taking care not only of strengthening the Catholic faith, but also of the development of science, art and education. At the same time, the monastery mill was reconstructed near the Opatovitsky Pond, a new building of the Abbey House, the chapel of St. Barbara and other structures were built.

The last abbot of the monastery in 1750 was Augustin Marek from Bavorov, whose name is still bearing the Markovsky Pond created by him. Under him, the flowering of the Třeboского Monastery continued, but at the end of the life of the abbot, the monastery suffered a series of unexpected calamities and destruction: a crop failure occurred for three consecutive years, causing famine and an epidemic of plague . The fourth year in the autumn gave good shoots, but a strong hail destroyed them almost completely, and those that survived were eaten by a massive invasion of mice. In addition, cattle died from the plague. To top it all off, in 1771, due to the carelessness of workers who were repairing the church tower, the monastery began to shake, which became the strongest in the history of Trebon. In addition to the monastery complex, 68 houses, a town hall with a tower, a brewery, butcher shops were completely burnt out. The fire did not touch only the Trebon Castle and 21 houses beyond. At the monastery church, only the roof burned down, but as a result a spire collapsed, which, when it fell, broke through the arch of the presbytery . The church was repaired as soon as possible, however, as a result, the new vault lost its original Gothic features , acquiring a baroque look . The new roof was lower than the previous one, and the upper part of the church tower acquired the outline of a bulb .

The monastery was practically rebuilt after the fire when Abbot Augustin Marek died on July 14, 1785 , and on October 20, 1785 during the religious reform of Joseph II, the Trebon Monastery was closed. The monks were not allowed to bury their last abbot in the abbey crypt of the monastery, so Augustin Marek from Bavorov was buried in the city cemetery. The administrator of the monastery property allowed the brethren to remain in the monastery until March 1786 , after which they were scattered in various parishes of the kingdom. The management of the parishes of Trebon , Mladoszowice and Borovan was transferred to the secular pastor. Each of the former canons of the monastery was assigned an annual pension of 300 guilders . The monastery’s possessions were valued at 146,708 guilders and put up for auction, where Iagann I Nepomuk, the 5th prince Schwarzenberg , purchased them for 162,876 guilders . Former monastery estates became part of the Krumlov Duchy of the Schwarzenbergs , and the prince’s forests and hunting reserves were located in the monastery complex. Since then, the monastery gates bear the wooden relief of St. Hubert , the heavenly patron of hunters, as one of the decorations.

The dominant area of ​​the monastery is the Church of St. Elijah and Queen Mary. Adjacent to its northern side is a two-story square-shaped convent convention building with a cloister preserved almost in its original form from the end of the 14th century . The cloister with wide pointed arcades with narrow balustrades serves as a traditional setting for the inner square " paradise yard " (garden). In the center of the east wing of the cloister is the chapel of St. John the Evangelist, standing on the original foundation. In the middle of the garden is a well.

The courtyard of the monastery consists of a complex of buildings, mainly erected in the XVIII century in the Baroque architectural style . An exception is the building on the south side of the courtyard with the Gothic chapel of St. Vincent on the ground floor, built before 1380 at the direction of Peter II of Rožmberk . Initially, it served as the Rozmberk family chapel, but in 1395 it was transferred to the monastery (it has not survived to our time). In the middle of the monastery courtyard is a stone fountain of the late 17th century .

The monastery has preserved Gothic windows, decorated with beautiful patterns, and wall paintings of the late XIV - XVI centuries .

The famous masterpiece of the monastery church of St. Elijah and Queen Mary is the “ Trebon of the Altar ” - one of the most famous Czech works of international Gothic at the end of the 14th century , made by an unknown author, called the Master of the Trebon of Altar .

• 1565 - 1631 the monastery did not function
• 1631 - 1663 years. the administrators of the monastery were the abbots of Klosterneuburg

• Bývalý augustiniánský klášter
• Augustiniánský klášter v Třeboni
• Michal Čech Řeholní kanovníci sv.Augustina v Třeboni //michal.cech.sweb.cz
• Jaroslav Kadlec Klášter augustiniánských kanovníků v Třeboni. Karolinum. 2004. ISBN 80-246-0695-X

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