Cistercian Order

Cistercian monks of Sedlec Abbey, whose cemetery became a desired burial site after earth from Golgotha was sprinkled there.

The Cistercian Order in Kingdom Come Deliverance is represented through the Sedlec Abbey, a former Cistercian monastery in Sedlec, a suburb of Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic. In 1278, Henry, the abbot of the Cistercian monastery in Sedlec, was sent to the Holy Land by King Ottokar II of Bohemia. He returned with a small amount of earth he had removed from Golgotha and sprinkled it over the abbey cemetery. The word of this pious act soon spread and the cemetery in Sedlec became a desirable burial site throughout Central Europe. Around 1400, a Gothic church was built in the center of the cemetery with a vaulted upper level and a lower chapel to be used as an ossuary for the mass graves unearthed during construction.

Quick Facts

Affiliation: Catholic Church

Lore & Background

The Cistercian monastery in Sedlec was founded before 1278, when its abbot Henry was sent to the Holy Land by King Ottokar II of Bohemia. He brought back earth from Golgotha and sprinkled it over the abbey cemetery, making it a desirable burial site throughout Central Europe. In the mid 14th century, during the Black Death and after the Hussite Wars in the early 15th century, many thousands were buried in the abbey cemetery, so it had to be greatly enlarged. After 1511, according to legend, a half-blind monk of the order was given the task of exhuming skeletons and stacking their bones in the chapel. Between 1703 and 1710, a new entrance was constructed to support the front wall, and the upper chapel was rebuilt in the Czech Baroque style, designed by Jan Santini Aichel.

Reader's Guide

The Sedlec Ossuary is a Roman Catholic chapel, located beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints, part of the former Sedlec Abbey in Sedlec, a suburb of Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic. The ossuary is estimated to contain the skeletons of between 40,000 and 70,000 people. In the game Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, Henry, the player character, goes to the ossuary and arranges the bones into pyramids. The ossuary is presented as almost empty and in disarray. It also features the blind monk of the legend, whom they called Morticius. The ossuary has appeared in various media: a 1970 film by Jan Švankmajer, the documentary Long Way Round with Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, Dan Cruickshank's Adventures in Architecture, the John Connolly novel The Black Angel, the Dungeons & Dragons movie, Blood & Chocolate, and two versions of The Amazing Race.