13. století
The Knights of Cross with Red Star
The only knights Order founded in Bohemia
Significant photo
Info text
The Knights of the Cross with Red Star was an order of knights founded as a hospice brotherhood in 1233 by St. Agnes of Bohemia, sister of King Wenceslas the First.
In 1237, Pope Gregory the Ninth promoted it to the status of order and they started expanding. They settled down in Hungary and Poland very fast. The order became more powerful during the reign of the Luxembourg. But further rise of the order was prevented by the Hussite Wars, which was literally disastrous for its existence. It took it 100 years to recover from the damage caused. Many members later returned from different diasporas.
The heydays
of the order was in the 16th century, when the grand masters of the order were simultaneously serving as Prague archbishops. The order also survived the Estate Revolt in 1618, but it was in deeper trouble during Joseph the Second´s reign who actually thought of abolishing it. However, he died without having taken that decision. During the 19th century, the power of the order was low and in the 20th century, it was persecuted by the two worst totalitarian regimes ever, Nazism and Communism. The Communist drastically reduced the number of members. Today the order is much reduced but stabilizing.
