Summary Page: Former House
Name: Witow, Ss. Martin and Margaret
Circary at the Time: Polonia
Years of Activity: 1160/79-1819
Map: Click Here (Source: © MapQuest http://www.mapquest.com)
Monasticon Praemonstratense (I, 346)
Approximate modern location: Southwest of Warsaw, southeast of Lodz, on the river Pilica, near Piotrkow Trybunalski, Poland. There is a Kolonia Witow southeast of Piotrkow Trybunalski.
Elm-Number [See below]: 368*
Other Comments:
We are grateful to Dr. Joanna Szczesna of the Catholic University of Lublin, Poland for the following remarks:
"The monastery was founded by Wit of Chotel in 1176. There is a theory, that abbey initially belonged to another branch of Canons Regular and it was affiliated with the Premonstratensian Order at the beginning of the 13th century, after the momentous “Reform Meeting” in Makolno. In about 1190, a “branch convent” for nuns was created in Busko, but up to 1240, it was a double monastery (due to the slaughter of the nuns from Witow at the time of the Tatar invasion). After 1241, only the monks remained in Witow and rebuilt the monastery. It was ceded to the Diocese in 1819."
* This listing (and the numbers, with a few adjustments after 1995) is based on the map contained in Kaspar Elm's Norbert von Xanten: Adliger, Ordensstifter, Kirchenfürst, Wienand Verlag, Köln, 1984, page 328-329.