Gaming Charterhouse (Kartause Gaming) is a former Carthusian monastery founded in 1330 by Albert II, Duke of Austria, who intended it as a dynastic burial place. He himself was buried there after his death in 1358, as was his wife Joanna of Pfirt (d. 1351) and daughter-in-law Elisabeth of Bohemia (d. 1373). The first community, from Mauerbach Charterhouse in Vienna, comprised a double complement, under a prior, of 24 monks rather than the usual 12, and the scale of the buildings from the beginning reflected the monastery's size. Gaming Charterhouse received extremely generous endowments from its founder, including much surrounding land in the valley of the Erlauf, and the town and market of Scheibbs.
The charterhouse was dissolved in 1782 in the reforms of Emperor Joseph II. In 1797 the bodies of the founder, his wife and daughter-in-law were removed to the parish church of Gaming, and in 1825 the monastery and estate, including large areas of forest, passed into private ownership. In 1915 it was bought by the abbot of Melk Abbey.
Today the renovated premises are partly occupied by a hotel and partly by Franciscan University of Steubenville (main campus in Ohio, USA). Since 2004 there has also been a museum, with displays of the history of Gaming Charterhouse and of the Carthusians in general.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.