Sedlec Monastery

The Sedlec Monastery is the oldest monastery of the Cistercian monks in the Czech Republic and it was founded in 1142. This brought wealth and fame to the city of Kutna Hora, which was founded in 1276 not far from Sedlec, and it also provided the financial means to the construction of the monumental church of Assumption of the Virgin Mary. This five-aisled basilica was the first French style Gothic building in the Czech Republic. In 1421 the cathedral and the monastery survived the attacks of the husista armies, but it was then destroyed by fire. The Cathedral was later renovated in the late 17th and 18th centuries by Jan Santini Blazer to look the way it does today.