Seiz Charterhouse
Encyclopedia
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
Domus Valli Sancti Johannis, was a Carthusian
Carthusian
The Carthusian Order, also called the Order of St. Bruno, is a Roman Catholic religious order of enclosed monastics. The order was founded by Saint Bruno of Cologne in 1084 and includes both monks and nuns...
monastery or charterhouse situated at the end of the narrow valley of the Žičnica stream, also known as the Valley of Saint John the Baptist after the church dedicated to John the Baptist
John the Baptist
John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...
at the monastery, near the village of Žiče
Žiče, Slovenske Konjice
Žiče is a village in the Slovenske Konjice municipality in eastern Slovenia. It lies on the right bank of the river Dravinja near its conflunece with the Žičnica stream, a minor right tributary that flows just south of the village...
(German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
: Seiz, formerly Seitz) in the Slovenske Konjice
Slovenske Konjice
Slovenske Konjice is a town and a municipality in northeastern Slovenia. The area was part of the traditional region of Lower Styria.- Slovenske Konjice municipality :...
municipality
Municipality
A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...
in Lower Styria
Lower Styria
Lower Styria or Slovenian Styria is a traditional region in northeastern Slovenia, comprising the southern third of the former Duchy of Styria. The population of Lower Styria in its historical boundaries amounts to around 705,000 inhabitants, or 34.5% of the population of Slovenia...
, Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
.
The charterhouse was founded between 1155 and 1165, and was oldest Carthusian monastery in Slovenia. It was also the first Carthusian foundation in the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
sphere of influence of the time, and indeed the first outside France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
or Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. The monastery was also famous for having one of the oldest pharmacies on the territory of what is now Slovenia.
History
The Žiče Charterhouse was founded between 1155 and 1165 by the MargraveMargrave
A margrave or margravine was a medieval hereditary nobleman with military responsibilities in a border province of a kingdom. Border provinces usually had more exposure to military incursions from the outside, compared to interior provinces, and thus a margrave usually had larger and more active...
of Styria
March of Styria
The March of Styria was originally broken off the Duchy of Carinthia before 970 as a buffer zone against the Magyars. Originally it was known as the Carantanian march , after the former Slavic principality of Carantania, a predecessor of the Carinthian duchy...
Ottokar III
Ottokar III of Styria
Ottokar III was Margrave of Styria from 1129 until 1164. He was the son of Leopold the Strong and father of Ottokar IV, the last of the dynasty of the Otakars. His wife was Kunigunde of Chamb-Vohburg....
, and his son Duke Ottokar IV of Styria, of the house of Traungau, both of whom were buried there. The monastery was settled by Carthusian monks from the Grande Chartreuse
Grande Chartreuse
Grande Chartreuse is the head monastery of the Carthusian order. It is located in the Chartreuse Mountains, north of the city of Grenoble, in the commune of Saint-Pierre-de-Chartreuse , France. Originally, the château belonged to the See of Grenoble...
in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
(Ecclesia Maior), which also financed the construction, led by Master Aynard, and influenced the arrangement of the premises. As with French charterhouses two monasteries were built here: the upper one (Žiče Charterhouse), where the cloister monks lived according to the strict rule of the Carthusians; and the lower one in the village of Špitalič
Špitalic pri Slovenskih Konjicah
Špitalič is a small village in the Municipality of Slovenske Konjice in the Styria region of Slovenia.The church in the village, dedicated to the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is the only remaining part of the Ecclesia minor associated with the nearby Carthusian monastery..-External links:*...
for the lay monks
Lay brother
In the most common usage, lay brothers are those members of Catholic religious orders, particularly of monastic orders, occupied primarily with manual labour and with the secular affairs of a monastery or friary, in contrast to the choir monks of the same monastery who are devoted mainly to the...
, who spent less time in prayer and worked as craftsmen, supporting the upper monastery and contributing to its prosperity. The monastery church dedicated to Saint John the Baptist
John the Baptist
John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...
was consecrated on 24 October 1190, by patriarch Bertold of Aquileia.
At the time of the Great Schism
Western Schism
The Western Schism or Papal Schism was a split within the Catholic Church from 1378 to 1417. Two men simultaneously claimed to be the true pope. Driven by politics rather than any theological disagreement, the schism was ended by the Council of Constance . The simultaneous claims to the papal chair...
in the western Roman Catholic church in the 14th century, Žiče Charterhouse became the seat of the Prior General of the Carthusian order for a while in 1391.
The monastery was attacked during an Ottoman raid
Ottoman wars in Europe
The wars of the Ottoman Empire in Europe are also sometimes referred to as the Ottoman Wars or as Turkish Wars, particularly in older, European texts.- Rise :...
in 1531. This marked the beginning of a decline in its influence and fortunes. In 1564 it passed into the hands of commendatory abbots and in 1591 to the Jesuits of Graz
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...
.
It was recovered by the Carthusians in 1593, after which it prospered again. In 1782 Emperor Joseph II
Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor
Joseph II was Holy Roman Emperor from 1765 to 1790 and ruler of the Habsburg lands from 1780 to 1790. He was the eldest son of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Francis I...
abolished the monastery, one of the earliest to be dissolved under the Josephine Reforms.
The charterhouse was allowed to fall into decay. The ruins were bought in 1826 from the Religious Foundation by Prince Weriand of Windisch-Graetz
Windisch-Graetz
The House of Windisch-Graetz, also spelled Windisch-Grätz, was a princely family in the Austrian Empire, serving the Habsburg dynasty.The name derives from the town of Windischgrätz in the Duchy of Styria, which is today Slovenj Gradec in the Carinthia region of Slovenia...
and remained the property of this family until the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Now the owner is the Slovenske Konjice Municipality
Slovenske Konjice
Slovenske Konjice is a town and a municipality in northeastern Slovenia. The area was part of the traditional region of Lower Styria.- Slovenske Konjice municipality :...
.
Library
Žiče once had one of the richest libraries in the whole of Europe. On 30 May 1487, the visiting Bishop of Caorle stayed in the Žiče charterhouse, as an emissary of the Patriarch of Aquileia. His secretary Paolo Santonino wrote in his Itinerary that the monks had more than 2,000 volumes (manuscripts). Now only 120 are known, with fragments of a further 100 or so.When, in the mid-16th century, as the result of a number of tragic events in the preceding half-century, the monastery was nearly abandoned, Archduke Charles II of Styria
Charles II, Archduke of Austria
Charles II Francis of Austria was an Archduke of Austria and ruler of Inner Austria from 1564...
ordered the books to be moved to the library of the Jesuit College in Graz
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...
.
Žiče Manuscripts
The Carthusian order never preached religion through the spoken word, but took to spreading it in writing, accepting in the Order only people with a good knowledge of foreign languages (mostly GermanGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
and Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
) and exemplary writing skills. They devoted a large part of their lives to producing precise copies of existing texts as well as creating new ones on a wide range of topics, from theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
to astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
, from practical science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
s to those more literary in nature. Among the texts still in existence are many notable works which are part of the intellectual heritage of this region and the wider Middle-European sphere.
Despite the loss of most of the manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
s, the remnants of impressive library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
can still provide a valuable insight into several centuries of continuous development of the medieval book.
Today about 120 manuscripts and 100 fragments are known. This is but a fraction of the whole, and even this small part is almost entirely outside Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
n borders. Yet this is the only group of medieval manuscripts from Slovenia, allowing us to follow nearly four centuries of unbroken manuscript production within one monastic community. The manuscripts from Charterhouse Žiče include many notable texts written by famous authors, living in Žiče or the nearby Jurklošter
Jurklošter
Jurklošter is a settlement in the Municipality of Laško in eastern Slovenia. The area was traditionally part of the Lower Styria region. It is now included with the rest of the municipality into the Savinja statistical region....
Charterhouse. Examples include texts by Phillip of Žiče (Seitz), Nicolaus Kempf and Sifried of Swabia.
Several of these manuscripts are also signed by monks or copists from outside, who were probably benefactors, and their hand-written works makes of rich palette of paleographical forms. It is also the only group of manuscripts in Slovenia which is complete enough to follow the development of flourished (penwork) initial
Initial
In a written or published work, an initial is a letter at the beginning of a work, a chapter, or a paragraph that is larger than the rest of the text. The word is derived from the Latin initialis, which means standing at the beginning...
s and consequently to speak about the "Žiče style". Some manuscripts also display colourful painted initials and other illuminated
Illumination (image)
Processing of illumination is an important concept in computer vision and computer graphics....
elements, created by professional and - as was in those times common practice - by itinerant painters
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
.
Present day
Today the charterhouse is an important cultural monument with about 20,000 visitors per year. Reconstruction work under expert supervision is still in progress. Just outside the charterhouse is the "Gastuž" inn, purporting to be the oldest inn on Slovenian territory (dating to 1467).Sources
GermanGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
:
- Graus, 1872: Die älteste Kartause Deutschlands. Kirchenschmuck
- Muchar, 1844: Geschichte des Herzogtums Steiermark. Graz
- Stepischnegg, 1884: Das Kartäuser-Kloster Seiz. Marburg
Slovene
Slovenian language
Slovene or Slovenian is a South Slavic language spoken by approximately 2.5 million speakers worldwide, the majority of whom live in Slovenia. It is the first language of about 1.85 million people and is one of the 23 official and working languages of the European Union...
:
- Stegenšek, AvguštinAvguštin StegenšekAvguštin Stegenšek Ph. D. was a Slovene theologian, philosopher and art historian.After his graduation of theology, he left for Rome to study archaeology and art history. Later, he was awarded a doctor's degree of philosophy sciences at the university of Graz in 1906...
, 1909: Konjiška dekanija, Maribor - Golob, Nataša, 2006: Srednjeveški rokopisi iz Žičke kartuzije (1160-1560). Narodna galerija, Ljubljana
- Zadnikar, Marijan, 1973: Žička kartuzija. Maribor
- Zdravič Polič, Nina, 1995: Gotika v Sloveniji. Narodna galerija, Ljubljana