Hroznata, Bl.
HROZNATA, BL.
Crusader, monastic founder, and Premonstratensian canon; b. Tepl, Bohemia, c. 1170; d. Alt-Kinsburg, near Cheb, present-day Czechoslovakia, July 14, 1217. A descendant of the counts of Mielnic, as a young man he found a place at the court of Henry Bretislav (d. 1197), prince-bishop of Prague. The sudden and tragic death of his wife and young son brought about a profound transformation in his life, leading him to join the Crusade of Emperor henry vi. When the expedition failed to get under way, Hroznata sought a dispensation from his crusading vow, which Pope celestine iii commuted into a vow to found a religious institute, and returned to Bohemia, where he tried to end the civil war that raged over the inheritance of Henry Bretislav. Before he had left on Crusade he had founded a monastery at tepl and settled it with premonstratensians from strahov. After he returned he established a convent of nuns of the same order in his family castle at Choteschau. Hroznata himself entered Tepl, receiving the habit from innocent iii when he went to Rome in 1202 to seek confirmation of his foundations, and was placed in charge of the abbey's temporal affairs. A group of local nobles, envious of the house's growth and wishing to extort some of its revenues, seized the holy founder, who died of the maltreatment he received at their hands. Venerated as a martyr, he was buried at Tepl; his cult was approved by leo xiii in 1897.
Feast: July 14.
Bibliography: j. le paige, Bibliotheca praemonstratensis ordinis (Paris 1633) 440–445. Acta sanctorum July 3:793–810. Analecta ecclesiastica 5 (1897) 452–453. i. van spilbeeck, Vie du bx. Hroznata, prince de Boheme (Tamines, Belg. 1897). geudens, Life of Blessed Hrosnata (Manchester 1899). Todestage: Zum 700 jährigen, des seligen Hrozanta (Marienbad 1917). n. backmund, Monasticon Praemonstratense 1:315. f. petit, La Spiritualité des Prémontrés aux XII e et XIIIe siècles (Paris 1947), passim. a. butler, The Lives of the Saints 3:102. a. k. huber, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche 2 5:500–501. r. gazeau, Catholicisme 5:996.
[l. l. rummel]