House of Perkūnas is one of the most original and archaic Gothic secular buildings, located in the Old Town of Kaunas, Lithuania. Originally built by Hanseatic merchants and served as their office from 1440 till 1532, it was sold in the 16th century to the Jesuits who had established a chapel there in 1643. The Jesuits have also completed the Church of St. Francis Xavier at the Town Hall Square in 1722.
The ruined house was rebuilt in the 19th century and served as a school and theatre, which was attended by Polish-Lithuanian poet Adam Mickiewicz. At the end of the 19th Century it was renamed 'House of Perkūnas', when a figure, interpreted by the romantic historians of that time as an idol of the Baltic pagan god of thunder and the sky Perkūnas was found in one of its walls. Today, the house of Perkūnas once again belongs to the Jesuits and houses a museum of Adam Mickiewicz.
Lithuanian historian, theologian and translator Albert Wijuk Kojałowicz was born in the house.
References:Saint-Georges de Boscherville Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey. It was founded in about 1113 by Guillaume de Tancarville on the site of an earlier establishment of secular canons and settled by monks from the Abbey of Saint-Evroul. The abbey church made of Caumont stone was erected from 1113 to 1140. The Norman builders aimed to have very well-lit naves and they did this by means of tall, large windows, initially made possible by a wooden ceiling, which prevented uplift, although this was replaced by a Gothic vault in the 13th century. The chapter room was built after the abbey church and dates from the last quarter of the 12th century.
The arrival of the Maurist monks in 1659, after the disasters of the Wars of Religion, helped to get the abbey back on a firmer spiritual, architectural and economic footing. They erected a large monastic building one wing of which fitted tightly around the chapter house (which was otherwise left as it was).