The monastery was established as a Cistercian convent by Queen Eliška Rejčka in 1323. In 1783 it became a possession of the Augustinians. One of the order’s abbots was Johann Gregor Mendel, the founder of genetics. In 1987 Pope John Paul II elevated the status of the remarkable Gothic Cathedral of the Assumption of Our Lady, which from that time has borne the title “basilica minor“. The basilica is the Europe’s most southern Gothic building built in bricks.