The Premontre monastery church of Zsámbék is a ruin of a Romanesque church in the town of

Zsámbék Zsámbék () is a town in Pest County, Hungary. Location Zsámbék is located 30 km west of Budapest along the M1 motorway in the Gerecse Mountains. Its neighbouring villages are Tök, Perbál, Páty, Herceghalom, Mány, Bicske, and S ...

, Pest County,

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

. The construction of the church started in 1220.

History

The construction of the church started as a part of a

Premonstratensian The Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré (), also known as the Premonstratensians, the Norbertines and, in Britain and Ireland, as the White Canons (from the colour of their habit), is a religious order of canons regular in the Catholic Chur ...

monastery. It was the third consecutive church standing at the same site. The construction was completed in the 13th century. It was a private family church (), built by a single family, the ''gens'' Smaragd (the family of Aynard), and might have been the last of such churches in Hungary. The church was a three-

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica (Greek Basiliké) was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek Eas ...

; the cloister was attached to one of the sides. In 1398, the Aynards went out of favor and the king ordered their property to be confiscated. Zsámbék was transferred to the Maróthi family, and in 1477, when these became extinct,

Matthias Corvinus Matthias Corvinus (; ; ; ; ; ) was King of Hungary and King of Croatia, Croatia from 1458 to 1490, as Matthias I. He is often given the epithet "the Just". After conducting several military campaigns, he was elected King of Bohemia in 1469 and ...

transferred the monastery to the Pauline Fathers. The church and the monastery were subsequently rebuilt in the Gothic style. The monastery was badly damaged during Turkish rule in Hungary. In the 17th century, the church became property of the

Zichy family The House of Zichy (of Zich and Vázsonykő) is the name of an ancient Magyar family of the Hungarian nobility, conspicuous in Hungarian history from the latter part of the 13th century onwards. History The first authentic ancestor of the Zic ...

which used a chapel in the monastery for services instead. On June 28, 1763, the church collapsed as a result of an earthquake, and since then has been deserted.

References

External links

Medieval Buildings And Architectural Sights In Hungary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zsambek Premontre Monastery Church Smaragd (genus) Romanesque architecture in Hungary Buildings and structures in Pest County