The Former Converses’ Refectory

The Cistercian order was brought to Kołbacz in the late 12th century. In the years 1210-1347, due to the monks such buildings as a monastery, a church, farm buildings, and fortifications were erected.

To the western side of the church, there is a wing adjacent, known as Dom Konwersów [the Converses’ House]. Converses were friars without holy orders, whose principal task was not a prayer but physical labour. They were used for hard works, and usually have no right to fully participate in the order’s life.

Dom Konwersów was erected in the 13th century and then rebuilt in the 17th and the 8th century. It is a low building with small windows in the walls. The lower part of the house consists of a stone wall; the entire building was built of red brick.

The foundations of the building most likely housed rooms used for storing comestibles. In the upper part of the building the converses’ refectory was located.

In the 1970s, the house was restored. The local agricultural Testing Plant, which was involved in the modernization of the house, added a storey and an extension, intending to turn the entire building into a restaurant. In the building, an old baking stove has been preserved. What is interesting is an “eternally wet wall” in one of the rooms. There is a legend known in Kołbacz, which explains the phenomenon of a “weeping wall”.

According to the legend, once upon a time an orphaned boy lived in Dąbie located a few kilometres away. The boy was taken in by a miller and was used for the hardest works in a mill. But when the boy fell in requited love with a daughter of the estate’s owner, he was beaten by him and thrown out of the farm. Unhappily in love, the boy went to the Cistercian order in Kołbacz. A few years later, the young man came back to Dąbie along with friars, but his meeting with his beloved one ended just like the first time. The boy was beaten up once again. After the incident, he returned to the monastery and locked himself in his cell, without the will to live on. He was allegedly absorbed by the wall which is still wet from his tears.

Nowadays, the building belongs to the University of Agriculture in Cracow, which leases it for catering purposes. Next to the built, we can find a boulder with a plaque that commemorates “the 40th anniversary of the return of West Pomerania to the motherland”. Dom Konwersów has been entered into the provincial register of historic monuments, along with the Gothic barn and the prison tower in 1955.