Veszprém – the Ruins of the Dominican Convent Church of St. Catherine

These tall ruins are the remains of the Dominican Convent of St. Catherine and its church, and can be seen on the edge of a small square below the Veszprém castle, near the river Séd and at the foot of Benedek Hill. This Veszprém convent was established for nuns by the Veszprém bishop Bartholomew in 1239. The building was in use as early as 1241. Princess Margaret, the daughter of King Béla IV was raised here between 1246 and 1252. During the later periods of the Middle Ages, the monastery became impoverished and depopulated. The faith and the buildings were revitalized in the 1480s, and the convent was occupied by male monks at this time. During the Turkish conquest, the abandoned building complex started to deteriorate. Of the buildings, only the remains of the church and a small piece of the convent courtyard connected to it, a short section of the cloister, can be observed on the site today. The walls of the polygonal Gothic apse are the tallest. The church built in the middle of the 13th century was originally not as long and had a rectangular apse. The remnants of the main portal from this time are still visible. The high walls that are still standing were built during the extension of the early apse, probably in the 1480s. The disc-shaped stone consoles in the wall are from a bit later than this, around 1490-1500, and they were placed in their present locations at the same time as the brick-ribbed vault was constructed. The nave of this rather long church is separated from the apse by a wall with a doorway. There were altars in the corners on the nave side of the chancel screen. There was a large gallery for the nuns over part of the nave. The traces of two chapels that were subsequently added to the building are visible on the other side of the apse. One of them may be the Virgin Mary Chapel known from the sources. Read less