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The Pécsvárad Abbey was a Benedictine monastery established at Pécsvárad in the Kingdom of Hungary in the first decades of the 11th century. Its patrons were the Virgin Mary and Saint Benedict of Nursia.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Pécs was established in 1009 with jurisdiction in the southern parts of Transdanubia within the Kingdom of Hungary. According to György Györffy, Pécsvárad was the center of a royal domain. The ruins of a two-storey chapel were unearthed at the monastery, but its dating is controversial: it may have been built between 997 and 1038, but an earlier or a later date neither can be excluded.
A diploma of the foundation of the Pécsvárad Abbey – which was forged in the name of King Saint Stephen I of Hungary around 1220 – states that Astrik, one of Bishop Saint Adalbert of Prague's disciplines, was the monastery's first abbot. A fragment of a Byzantine Madonna, dated to the turn of the 11th and 12th centuries, was discovered in the apse of the monastery. The fresco on the walls of the apse was made in the 12th century.
References:House of the Blackheads (Melngalvju nams) is a building situated in the old town of Riga. The original building was erected during the first third of the 14th century for the Brotherhood of Blackheads, a guild for unmarried German merchants in Riga. Major works were done in the years 1580 and 1886, adding most of the ornaments.
The structure was bombed to a ruin by the Germans June 28, 1941 and the remains demolished by the Soviets in 1948. The current reconstruction was erected from 1995 to 1999. Today the House of Blackheads serves as a museum and sometimes concert hall.