The Dissolution of the Monasteries

JAN 01 1782 · 12:00

Strahov Monastery on Hradčany, viewed from Úvoz street. The Premonstratensian house survived Joseph II's Aufhebung by reclassifying itself as a teaching foundation; hundreds of contemplative cloisters in Bohemia and Moravia did not, and their libraries flowed down to the Klementinum. Place: Bohemia and Moravia; the Klementinum, the Strahov, the Servite house at Na Slupi, hundreds of provincial cloisters Figures: Joseph II · Gottfried van Swieten, presiding over the Klementinum library reform · the abbots and abbesses of the contemplative orders Joseph II distinguishes between religious houses that teach, heal, or preach (which he keeps) and contemplative houses (which he closes as unproductive). The criterion is utility, measured against the welfare of the state. By the decree of January 1782, the Carthusians, the Camaldolese, the Capuchin nuns, the Poor Clares, and most Benedictine and Cistercian houses fall within the dissolved category. In Bohemia, roughly half of all religious houses are suppressed within five years. About six hundred buildings change use. The proceeds, in theory, fund a Religion Fund for parish stipends and new parishes. In practice they fund the army and the civil service. The Strahov Premonstratensian abbey above Hradčany survives by reinventing itself as a scholarly institution within weeks of the decree, transferring valuable manuscripts from suppressed houses into its library and emphasizing teaching.