Perched dramatically upon a rocky cliff overlooking the wooded ravine of the Vrchlice River on the southwestern edge of historic Kutna Hora (some sixty-five kilometers east of Prague in the Central Bohemian Region), St. Barbara's Church, Kutna Hora (known in Czech as Chram svate Barbory) rises against the horizon like an openwork stone crown surmounted by three concave pyramid spires shaped like medieval tents and braced by a dense two-tiered forest of sculpted stone flying buttresses. Between the late thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, rich subterranean veins of silver ore and the Royal Mint at the Italian Court (Vlassky dvur), which struck the famous silver Prague Groschen (Prazsky gros), transformed Kutna Hora into the financial treasury of the Kingdom of Bohemia, second in wealth and political influence only to Prague itself. To proclaim their civic pride and gratitude to God, in 1388 the wealthy mine owners and silver miners' guilds of Kutna Hora founded this cathedral-scale sanctuary just outside the city walls in honor of Saint Barbara, the celestial protectress of miners laboring in the perilous darkness beneath the earth.
Built across more than five centuries from 1388 until its final completion in 1905, St. Barbara's Church unites the genius of three successive generations of Central Europe's greatest Gothic master builders: Johann Parler the Younger (Jan Parler), son of Peter Parler, who laid out the five-aisled plan and ring of eight radiating choir chapels in the late fourteenth century; Matej Rejsek, who carved the lace-like upper buttresses and vaulted the high choir at the close of the fifteenth century; and the visionary royal architect Benedikt Rejt (Benedikt Ried) in the first half of the sixteenth century, who elevated the central nave into a luminous hall crowned at a height of thirty-three meters by his extraordinary swirling six-petalled net vault (krouzena klenba). Entering this monument of Catholicism, visitors are captivated not only by its soaring stone ribs but also by authentic late fifteenth-century frescoes portraying white-hooded Kutna Hora silver miners praying beside their oil lamps and royal coiners hammering silver Groschen coins. In 1995, St. Barbara's Church and the historic center of Kutna Hora were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List (Ref. 732).
ISaint Barbara, Patroness of Silver Miners, Subterranean Faith, and the Fifteenth-Century Frescoes of Mining and Minting
According to its fourteenth-century foundation charters, the great church at Kutna Hora was dedicated jointly to Corpus Christi ( the Body and Blood of Christ / Bozi Telo) and to Saint Barbara of Nicomedia (Svata Barbora), one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers most fervently venerated across medieval Christendom. In the hagiography of Catholicism, Barbara was a late third-century noble maiden in Asia Minor whose pagan father Dioscorus locked her inside a fortified stone tower; having secretly embraced Christianity, she ordered masons to pierce a third window in the tower wall as a profession of faith in the Most Holy Trinity. Led to a mountaintop to be beheaded, she prayed that anyone who remembered her martyrdom at the hour of death would never die suddenly without receiving the sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist; the moment she was martyred, a bolt of lightning struck down her executioner.
Because of her association with stone towers, lightning cleaving rock, and her intercessory promise against sudden, unprovided death without the Last Sacraments, Saint Barbara became the supreme patron saint of the silver miners (haviri) of Kutna Hora. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Kutna Hora miners descended four hundred to five hundred meters underground into narrow, waterlogged shafts (such as the Osel mine, then the deepest mine in the world), facing constant danger from rockfalls, flooding groundwater, and suffocating gases. Before descending into the dark pits with tallow lamps in hand, every miner prayed to Saint Barbara for safe return to the light of day, or, should a tunnel collapse, for the salvation of his soul.
This intimate bond between Christian devotion and subterranean labor produced an artistic phenomenon at St. Barbara's Church that is virtually unique among European cathedrals: the direct portrayal of working miners and coin minters inside liturgical frescoes alongside Christ and the saints. Within the Winch Operators' Chapel (Hasplirska kaple) and the Coin Minters' Chapel (Mincirska kaple) in the southern aisle, painted between 1480 and 1500, Late Gothic muralists depicted Kutna Hora silver miners wearing their distinctive white hooded smocks (known as perkman or kape, designed to shield their heads from falling rock dust and dripping mine water). Beneath upper scenes of the Crucifixion and Saint Barbara holding her tower and chalice, the frescoes show miners operating horse-drawn wooden windlasses (hasple) to hoist ore baskets from deep shafts, an angel physically holding up a collapsing rock ceiling to save a praying miner's life, and royal coiners at the Italian Court striking silver Prague Groschen coins with iron hammers.
Complementing these fifteenth-century murals are a polychrome carved wood statue of a Kutna Hora silver miner from around 1700 (holding a mining pick and lamp while wearing the white kape tunic and leather rear apron), late-fifteenth-century oak choir stalls carved with the crossed mining hammers (mlatek a zelizko), and in the eastern sanctuary the Neo-Gothic carved oak High Altar of 1905 (designed by Josef Mocker and Ludvik Labler), whose central reliefs depict the Last Supper (Corpus Christi) flanked by the Martyrdom of Saint Barbara.
Of exceptional importance for the history of Northern Renaissance painting inside St. Barbara's Church is the Smisek Chapel (Smiskovska kaple) in the southeastern ambulatory. Decorated between 1485 and 1492 under the patronage of the wealthy silver mine entrepreneur and copper merchant Michal Smisek of Vrchoviste, the chapel walls preserve four luminous tempera frescoes that blend Late Gothic devotion with early Italian Renaissance perspective and humanistic learning: the Crucifixion of Christ (including kneeling portraits of Michal Smisek and his family), the Queen of Sheba before King Solomon, the Justice of Emperor Trajan, and a remarkable Liturgical Still Life in a Humanist Scholar's Niche showing open illuminated manuscripts, transparent Venetian glassware, and communion vessels painted with extraordinary optical realism.
IIOver Five Centuries of Construction: From the 1388 Kutna Hora Silver Boom Through Three Great Gothic Architects to the 1905 Completion
The building history of St. Barbara's Church mirrors the dramatic rise and exhaustion of the Kutna Hora silver mines. In the late thirteenth century, the discovery of immense veins of silver ore around the lands of the Cistercian Abbey of Sedlec triggered the greatest silver rush in medieval Europe. In 1300, King Wenceslas II of Bohemia issued his famous Royal Mining Code (Ius regale montanorum) and centralized the kingdom's entire coinage at the Italian Court in Kutna Hora to mint the silver Prague Groschen (Prazsky gros). Yet all parish churches inside the town walls remained under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Sedlec Abbey. Determined to establish a magnificent sanctuary free from monastic control, in 1388 the wealthy burghers of the Brotherhood of Corpus Christi (Bratrstvo Boziho Tela) selected a rocky promontory just outside the southern city walls (on land belonging directly to the Archdiocese of Prague rather than Sedlec Abbey) to found St. Barbara's Church.
The initial design of 1388 was entrusted to Johann Parler the Younger (Jan Parler mladsi, c. 1359 to 1405), son of Peter Parler and master of the St. Vitus Cathedral workshop in Prague. Drawing inspiration from French High Gothic cathedrals and St. Vitus Cathedral, Johann Parler planned a colossal five-aisled basilica with a polygonal choir encircled by an ambulatory and eight radiating trapezoidal chapels. Within twelve years (by c. 1400) the eastern ring of chapels and nave piers had risen, but the outbreak of the Hussite Wars in 1419 and the burning of Kutna Hora halted all construction for more than sixty years (from 1420 to 1481).
- 1300 and 1388Minting of the Prague Groschen and foundation of St. Barbara's Church by the Corpus Christi BrotherhoodAfter Kutna Hora becomes the royal mint of the silver Prague Groschen (1300), in 1388 the Brotherhood of Corpus Christi founds St. Barbara's Church on a rocky spur outside the walls under architect Johann Parler the Younger.
- 1388 to 1420 and hiatus 1420 to 1481Erection of the eight radiating choir chapels and sixty-year interruption during the Hussite WarsJohann Parler's workshop builds the eastern ambulatory with eight chapels and the main piers before the Hussite Wars bring construction to a standstill for six decades.
- 1482 to 1499Resumption under King Vladislaus II Jagiellon and Late Gothic mastery of Matej RejsekWith renewed silver prosperity, work resumes in 1482; from 1489 master builder Matej Rejsek erects the choir clerestory, ornate flying buttresses with gargoyles, and completes the reticulated choir vault in 1499.
- 1512 to 1547 and cessation in 1558Royal architect Benedikt Rejt creates the upper galleries, swirling petal vaults, and three tent spiresFrom 1512, Benedikt Rejt transforms the nave into a lofty stepped hall with upper galleries, spans the 33-meter ceiling with his six-petalled curvilinear vault (completed 1540-1548), and raises three tent roofs; work stops in 1558 as silver mines flood.
- 1626 to 1773Jesuit administration, construction of the Jesuit College, and the Barborska Avenue of 13 SaintsEntrusted to the Jesuits in 1626, who build the adjacent Jesuit College, line the cliffside promenade with 13 Baroque statues by Frantisek Baugut (1703-1716), and replace the lightning-damaged tent spires with a Baroque gable roof.
- 1884 to 1905Neo-Gothic restoration and completion by Josef Mocker and Ludvik LablerArchitects Josef Mocker and Ludvik Labler extend the nave westward by one bay, build the Neo-Gothic western facade, and faithfully reconstruct Benedikt Rejt's three concave tent-shaped spires.
- 1995 to presentInscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List and ongoing conservationIn 1995, St. Barbara's Church together with the Historical Town Centre of Kutna Hora and Sedlec Cathedral is inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (Ref. 732).
The historic architectural turning point of 1512 under Benedikt Rejt and the silver crisis of 1558. Municipal archives of Kutna Hora record a decisive architectural debate in 1512, six years after the death of Matej Rejsek (1506). The city council invited Benedikt Rejt (Benedikt Ried, c. 1454 to 1534), Royal Master Builder of Prague Castle and creator of the famous Vladislav Hall, to take charge of St. Barbara's Church. Rejecting the conservative proposal of Rejsek's pupils to finish the nave with low, dark basilican side aisles, Benedikt Rejt boldly raised the three inner aisles to the full height of the choir, creating a flooded-with-light stepped hall church with upper emporia (galleries) and crowning the central span with his weightless curvilinear rib vault of six-petalled stone flowers. By the 1540s, however, groundwater flooded the deepest Kutna Hora silver shafts while cheap silver from Spanish America depressed European prices; with municipal revenues exhausted, in 1558 the town council ordered construction halted at half the planned length and sealed the unfinished western end with a temporary wall that stood for over three hundred years until Josef Mocker's completion of 1884 to 1905.
IIIThree Concave Tent Spires, Matej Rejsek's Forest of Flying Buttresses, and Benedikt Rejt's Swirling Petal Net Vault
St. Barbara's Church in Kutna Hora is a living architectural encyclopedia displaying the three greatest phases of Central European Gothic architecture across a monument measuring 70 meters in length, 40 meters in width, and 33 meters in interior vault height (with its exterior tent spires rising more than 55 meters). At ground level along the eastern choir and outer walls, the church follows Johann Parler's 1388 plan of a five-aisled cathedral; yet above the ground-floor arcade, Benedikt Rejt narrowed the upper elevation into a three-aisled hall flanked by spacious second-story galleries (emporia) with traceried stone balustrades overlooking the central nave.
Seen from afar, the unmistakable silhouette of St. Barbara's Church is defined by its three concave pyramidal tent-shaped roof spires (tri stanove strechy) aligned along the ridge of the nave roof, evoking three giant medieval miners' or knights' pavilions pitched atop the cliff. Framing the lower walls beneath those tent spires is a spectacular two-tiered forest of 24 stone flying buttresses begun by Johann Parler and carved with exuberant Late Gothic virtuosity by Matej Rejsek between 1489 and 1499: every buttress pier is crowned by crocketed pinnacles and populated by dozens of carved stone gargoyles in the shape of winged demons, monkeys, bats, harpies, and hybrid monsters designed to channel rainwater and ward off evil spirits.
Gazing upward 33 meters to the ceiling of the central nave reveals one of the supreme structural achievements of Late Gothic and early Renaissance stone vaulting, designed by Benedikt Rejt. Abandoning straight diagonal ribs and transverse arches, Rejt curved the slender stone ribs in three dimensions so that they intersect in a continuous web of giant six-petalled flowers floating effortlessly across the ceiling, surrounded by painted heraldic shields of the Kingdom of Bohemia, noble donors, and Kutna Hora mining guilds.
Above the stone vault rises a massive timber truss supporting three four-sided concave pyramidal tent roofs, first erected by Benedikt Rejt in the early sixteenth century and faithfully reconstructed by Josef Mocker and Ludvik Labler at the end of the nineteenth century. Shining atop the copper finials are three historic emblems of Kutna Hora: the double-tailed Bohemian Lion, the Jagiellonian Eagle, and the Star and Chalice.
The eastern sanctuary preserves Johann Parler's late fourteenth-century cathedral layout with a semicircular ambulatory opening into eight trapezoidal radiating chapels modeled on St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague. Above the choir arcade rises a traceried triforium and Matej Rejsek's intricate diamond-mesh net vault, inscribed with its completion date of 1499.
Lining the side aisles and ambulatory chapels is a priceless ensemble of original late fifteenth-century mural paintings: the Smisek Chapel (1485-1492) with its four humanistic early Renaissance compositions, and the southern miners' and minters' chapels portraying white-hooded silver miners working underground winches and royal minters striking silver Prague Groschen coins.
During the 1884-1905 completion of the church, rather than using conventional stained-glass mosaic, painter Frantisek Urban hand-painted and kiln-fired vibrant Art Nouveau scenes directly onto large glass panels across 27 tall Gothic windows, depicting the legend of Saint Barbara, Emperor Charles IV, the history of Kutna Hora, and the 1905 visit of Emperor Franz Joseph I.
| Architectural & Artistic Element | Date and Master Creator | Technical Character and Heritage Significance |
|---|---|---|
| Polygonal Choir and 8 Radiating Chapels | 1388 to 1420 (Johann Parler); Choir vault 1499 (Matej Rejsek) | French-style cathedral chevet with ambulatory and Late Gothic reticulated choir vault completed in 1499 |
| Two-Tiered System of 24 Flying Buttresses | 15th century (completed by Matej Rejsek, 1489 to 1499) | Exterior structural buttressing richly carved with crocketed pinnacles, floral finials, and grotesque stone gargoyles |
| Swirling Six-Petalled Net Vault (Krouzena klenba) | 1512 to 1548; royal architect Benedikt Rejt | Masterpiece of Late Gothic curvilinear stone vaulting 33 meters high formed by intersecting ribs shaped like blooming petals |
| Three Concave Tent Spires and Western Facade | 16th century (Benedikt Rejt); Restored 1884-1905 (Mocker & Labler) | Iconic silhouette of three concave tent roofs above the nave and the Neo-Gothic western entrance bay |
| Smisek, Miners', and Coin Minters' Chapel Frescoes | c. 1480 to 1500; Bohemian Late Gothic muralists | Unique European pictorial record of medieval subterranean silver mining, horse-drawn winches, and royal coin minting |
| Barborska Promenade of 13 Baroque Statues | 1703 to 1716; Jesuit sculptor Frantisek Baugut | Cliffside stone gallery linking the Jesuit College to St. Barbara's Church, often compared to Charles Bridge in Prague |
IVSacred Landscape and Orientation
It should be stated clearly that the medieval silver miners of Kutna Hora and master builders Johann Parler, Matej Rejsek, and Benedikt Rejt did not practice East Asian geomancy (Feng Shui). Their choice of the rocky spur on the southwestern edge of Kutna Hora in 1388 was dictated by ecclesiastical law (building outside the parish boundaries controlled by Cistercian Sedlec Abbey) combined with dramatic cliffside topography directly above the ancient silver lodes and canonical East-West Christian orientation. The observations below offer a comparative reading through the lens of traditional landscape form analysis practiced at the Van Dao Duong library.
Viewed within the macro-topography of the Kutna Hora mining district at coordinates 49.9444 degrees North, 15.2636 degrees East (approximately 265 meters above sea level), St. Barbara's Church commands the highest rocky promontory at the southern tip of a silver-bearing gneiss ridge (Silver-Vein Dragon Spur) jutting out high above the deep gorge of the Vrchlice River (also known as the Pach Stream). In classical landscape lore, a mountain ridge rich in native silver ore represents a powerful condensation of Terrestrial Metal Qi (Kim tinh ket huyet); crowning the very prow of that silver ridge above the river gorge turns St. Barbara's Church into a guardian peak pagoda anchoring the spiritual vitality of the entire mining town.
In terms of Bright Hall (Minh Duong), Water Dynamics, and Ceremonial Approach, the eastern and southern flanks of St. Barbara's Church look directly out over the curving wooded valley of the Vrchlice River and the terraced vineyards on the opposite slope, forming an open valley Bright Hall embraced by flowing water. Even more remarkably, in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the Jesuits constructed the two-hundred-meter-long Jesuit College (Jezuitska kolej) along the northern cliff edge together with the Barborska Street terrace lined by 13 Baroque statues of saints. This cliffside promenade acts as a Azure Dragon Ceremonial Approach, guiding pilgrims from the medieval town center and the Italian Court mint along the ridge crest as the three tent spires of St. Barbara's Church rise ever higher against the sky.
VFeast of Saint Barbara on December 4, Corpus Christi Processions, and the Royal Silvering Festival of Kutna Hora
Administered by the Roman Catholic Archdeanery Parish of Kutna Hora (within the Archdiocese of Prague), St. Barbara's Church is not only a world-renowned UNESCO monument welcoming hundreds of thousands of visitors annually, but also a living liturgical sanctuary preserving over six centuries of Central European silver-mining traditions.
| Season / Date | Calendar System | Feast or Traditional Event | Distinctive Liturgical and Cultural Observances at St. Barbara's Church |
|---|---|---|---|
| May or June annually (Thursday or Sunday after Trinity Sunday) | Roman Catholic Liturgical Calendar | Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi / Bozi Telo) | Honoring the original 1388 co-dedication of the church by the Brotherhood of Corpus Christi with solemn High Mass and Eucharistic procession. |
| Third weekend of June annually | Gregorian Calendar | Royal Silvering of Kutna Hora (Kralovske stribreni Kutne Hory) and the Silver Mass (Stribrna mse) | Central Bohemia's grandest medieval historical festival recreating the early fifteenth-century court of King Wenceslas IV: a royal procession and miners clad in white hooded smocks (perkman) enter St. Barbara's Church for the solemn 'Silver Mass' beneath Benedikt Rejt's petal vaults. |
| September 28 annually | Gregorian Calendar (Czech Statehood Day) | Feast of Saint Wenceslas (Svaty Vaclav) and Kutna Hora Vintage Blessing | Solemn Mass for the Czech nation accompanied by the blessing of the grape harvest from the historic vineyards surrounding St. Barbara's Church. |
| December 4 annually | Gregorian Calendar (Catholic Feast Day) | Patronal Feast of Saint Barbara (Slavnost svate Barbory - Miners' Day) | The supreme patronal feast of the cathedral: mining associations, geologists, and parishioners process with oil lamps into the church for Pontifical High Mass and observe the Czech custom of cutting 'St. Barbara cherry branches' (Barborky). |
The Czech winter tradition of cutting Saint Barbara's Cherry Branches (Barborky) on December 4. Closely tied to the patronal feast day of St. Barbara's Church (December 4), families across Kutna Hora and the Czech Republic cherish the centuries-old winter custom of cutting Barborky. On December 4, bare twigs of cherry or plum trees are cut from the frozen garden and placed in a vase of water on a warm windowsill. If the bare branch bursts into pure white blossoms by Christmas Eve (December 24), it is hailed as a sign of divine blessing, good fortune, and marriage in the coming year, recalling how Saint Barbara's faith blossomed into eternal life within her dark prison tower.
VILocation And How To Get There
- Address
- Barborska Street, Rocky Bluff above the Vrchlice River Valley, 284 01 Kutna Hora, Central Bohemian Region, Czech Republic
- Getting there
- St. Barbara's Church stands at the southern end of the pedestrian Barborska Street promenade, 284 01 Kutna Hora, approximately 65 km east of Prague. Direct express trains (Line R9 toward Brno) depart Prague Main Station (Praha hlavni nadrazi) every hour and reach Kutna Hora Main Station (Kutna Hora hlavni nadrazi) in about 50 minutes. From the main station, visitors can first visit Sedlec Cathedral and the Ossuary (800 meters away) and then take either the local branch train two stops to Kutna Hora mesto station or the tourist shuttle bus / scenic 35-minute walk through the medieval town center and along the statue-lined Barborska terrace to St. Barbara's Church.
- Coordinates
- 49.9449, 15.2636
St. Barbara's Church in Kutna Hora is open to visitors and pilgrims daily throughout the year (from April through October from 09:00 to 18:00; in November and March from 10:00 to 17:00; from December through February from 10:00 to 16:00; on Sunday mornings early hours are reserved for parish Mass before sightseeing begins). Visitors may purchase an individual admission ticket for St. Barbara's Church or a combined Kutna Hora heritage ticket (covering St. Barbara's Church, the Cathedral of the Assumption of Our Lady at Sedlec, and the Sedlec Ossuary). Admission includes access not only to the ground-floor nave and chapels, but also up the spiral stone staircase to the upper galleries (emporia) for an close-up view of Benedikt Rejt's six-petalled net vault and the historic timber roof trusses. Modest attire and quiet reverence are required.
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?Quick Questions
Why did the medieval silver miners of Kutna Hora choose Saint Barbara as the patroness of their great church?
Saint Barbara was a third-century Christian virgin martyr imprisoned in a stone tower who prayed before her execution that anyone invoking her memory would never die a sudden death without receiving Penance and the Holy Eucharist. Because fourteenth- to sixteenth-century Kutna Hora silver miners worked hundreds of meters underground facing constant danger from tunnel collapses, flooding, and gas, they revered Saint Barbara as their heavenly protectress against sudden death beneath the earth and founded this church in her honor in 1388.
Why does a provincial town like Kutna Hora possess a Gothic church rivaling St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague?
During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Kutna Hora sat atop the richest silver veins in Europe and housed the Royal Mint at the Italian Court, which struck the silver Prague Groschen (Prazsky gros) for the entire Kingdom of Bohemia. As the second wealthiest and most politically powerful city in the kingdom after Prague, the mine owners and burghers of Kutna Hora hired Prague's premier royal architects (Johann Parler, Matej Rejsek, and Benedikt Rejt) to build St. Barbara's Church as a monument to their civic wealth and independence from Sedlec Abbey.
What did each of the three famous Gothic architects (Johann Parler, Matej Rejsek, and Benedikt Rejt) contribute to St. Barbara's Church?
Each master shaped a distinct level of the cathedral: (1) Johann Parler the Younger (son of Peter Parler) began the church in 1388, designing the five-aisled plan, the eastern ambulatory with 8 radiating chapels, and the lower buttresses; (2) Matej Rejsek (1489 to 1499) built the upper choir clerestory, carved the ornate upper flying buttresses and gargoyles, and completed the reticulated choir vault in 1499; (3) Benedikt Rejt (from 1512) raised the central nave with upper galleries, spanned the 33-meter ceiling with his swirling six-petalled net vault (krouzena klenba), and designed the three concave tent spires.
What makes Benedikt Rejt's 'swirling petal net vault' (krouzena klenba) inside the nave so famous in architectural history?
Designed by royal architect Benedikt Rejt in 1512 and completed between 1540 and 1548 at a height of 33 meters above the nave floor, the 'krouzena klenba' is a masterpiece of the transition from Late Gothic to the Renaissance. Instead of straight diagonal ribs meeting at pointed arches, Rejt carved double-curved stone ribs that weave seamlessly across the entire ceiling in the shape of giant six-petalled flowers, dissolving the boundaries between individual bays.
Why are the fifteenth-century frescoes inside St. Barbara's Church considered unique among European cathedrals?
Unlike most medieval churches whose wall paintings depict only biblical or hagiographical scenes, the southern chapels of St. Barbara's Church preserve authentic late fifteenth-century frescoes portraying the everyday labor of local workers: silver miners in white hooded smocks (perkman) praying with oil lamps, operating horse-drawn wooden winches to hoist silver ore, an angel holding up a collapsing mine tunnel to save a miner, and royal minters hammering silver Prague Groschen coins.
What do the three concave tent-shaped spires on the roof represent, and when were they completed?
The three four-sided concave pyramidal spires rising along the roof ridge are known as the 'three tent roofs' (stanove strechy), evoking the canvas tents of medieval silver miners or knights' pavilions. Originally erected by architect Benedikt Rejt in the first half of the sixteenth century, they were later damaged by lightning and replaced by a conventional Baroque roof during the Jesuit era, before being faithfully reconstructed to Rejt's sixteenth-century design by architects Josef Mocker and Ludvik Labler between 1884 and 1905.