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Founded: 1082Category: Religious sites in Germany
Historical period: Salian Dynasty (Germany)
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Reichenbach Priory was a house of the Benedictine Order located at Klosterreichenbach. The monastery was founded, against the background of the Investiture Controversy and the Hirsau Reforms, as a priory of Hirsau Abbey, from where it was settled, in 1082; in 1085 the church was dedicated to Saint Gregory the Great by Bishop Gebhard of Konstanz.
The Vögte (lords protectors) of the monastery were the Counts of Eberstein, but the equivalent rights over Hirsau lay with the Counts of Württemberg, who considered that as Reichenbach was a priory of Hirsau, their rights should extend there also. The conflict between the two factions continued until the Reformation, when the monastery was turned into a Protestant establishment in 1603. It had been re-catholicised during the Thirty Years" War and occupied by monks from Wiblingen Abbey, who however had to leave again after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.
Since then the village of Klosterreichenbach which had developed around the monastery remained Protestant. The buildings of the former monastery have been partially restored in the 19th and 20th century. The church is now the parochial Lutheran church of the village.
References:The Jan Hus Memorial stands at one end of Old Town Square. The huge monument depicts victorious Hussite warriors and Protestants who were forced into exile 200 years after Hus, and a young mother who symbolises national rebirth. The monument was so large that the sculptor designed and built his own villa and studio where the work could be carried out. It was unveiled in 1915 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Jan Hus' martyrdom. The memorial was designed by Ladislav Šaloun and paid for solely by public donations.
Born in 1369, Hus became an influential religious thinker, philosopher, and reformer in Prague. He was a key predecessor to the Protestant movement of the sixteenth century. In his works he criticized religious moral decay of the Catholic Church. Accordingly, the Czech patriot Hus believed that mass should be given in the vernacular, or local language, rather than in Latin. He was inspired by the teachings of John Wycliffe.