ABSTRACT

This chapter deals with the economic basis of the Hospitaller and Templar commanderies in Bohemia and Moravia and principally with the architectural and structural forms of their houses in this area. From the beginning of the thirteenth century the Hospitallers converted the existing Slavic villages to the emphyteutic system; that is, they settled sparsely inhabited areas with predominantly German colonists. For comparison, the Teutonic Order as a whole paid 200 threescores, and the largest monasteries paid sums similar to the Hospitallers' payments. The majority of the Hospitallers' preceptories were destroyed during the Hussite wars in the 1420s; only Strakonice and Stare Brno survived. In contrast with the Hospitallers and the Teutonic Order, which appeared in Prague and Opava at the turn of the thirteenth century, they came without the king's support, which resulted in their receiving a rather modest endowment of property.