The Rosenbergs' Last Resting Place

According to legend, Vok of Rosenberg founded the local church and Cistercian monastery in 1259 in thanks for his rescue from the ford here. In the northern aisle of the Church of the Ascension of the Virgin Mary is a late Gothic altar of St Roch from 1524, with a relief of St Christopher among the scenes on the inner sides of its wings. The chancel also contains the early-seventeenth-century tomb slab of Petr Vok of Rosenberg, and St Benedict's Chapel that of his relative Jan Zrinský, who initiated the hermetic paintings at Bechyně in 1612. Legend says an underground tomb lies beneath the chancel, entered by no human foot for almost five hundred years. According to Balbín, the Rosenberg rulers are not buried in coffins but sit in precious chairs arranged in a circle. Once a year, at midnight on All Saints' Day, they come to life and go fully armed into the church to hear Mass. Afterwards they return and confer until morning. Surroundings: