Žiče Charterhouse

The Žiče Charterhouse (Latin Domus in Valle Sancti Johannis) is a former monastery of the Carthusian religious order in the valley of Saint John the Baptist, in the village of Stare Slemene, near the settlement of Žiče in the municipality of Slovenske Konjice.

The charterhouse was founded around 1160 by the last of the Traungau dynasty, the Styrian margrave Otakar III of Styria (*1129 †1164) and his son Otakar IV of Styria, from 1180 the Styrian duke Otakar I (†1192), who confirmed the charterhouse with a founding charter from 1165 (today in the Styrian Provincial Archives in Graz, charter no. 171). It is the nineteenth monastery of this order, the oldest charterhouse in Central Europe and the first charterhouse outside the order's original Romance area in France and Italy. In addition to the decision that the monks settle on the estate of Otakar's ministerial Leopold of Konjice, the last line of the charter already records the name of the first prior, Beremund.
The Styrian historians Pusch and Froelich are of the opinion that a group of twelve fathers and twice as many lay brothers from the French Grande Chartreuse near Grenoble came to Konjice in 1160,[8] where they settled in the parsonage until 1164, when the buildings suitable for habitation in the valley of St. John were completed.[9] Jakob Ignaz Maximilian Stepischnegg, the author of a monograph on the Žiče Charterhouse, also argues for the arrival of the first Carthusians in 1160. The group of Carthusians also included the later first prior Beremund, Earl of Cornwall,[9] a relative of the English royal family,[10] who had until then led the Durbon charterhouse[11] in Provence; they were soon joined by the lay brother Aynard (Aynardus),[6] a master builder who was sent from the Grande Chartreuse to lead the construction work.

Source: Wikipedia