Zirc was founded about in 1182, when the first members of the Cistercian order from the French Clairvaux settled down in the heart of Bakony hills at the request of King Bela III.. Their church and monastery, to which the contemporary documents refer as the Abbey of Bakony hills, were built in an early Gothic style by the monks, who also dealt with farming beside their spiritual life. The secular population settled down in its surrounding and so the village developed.
The remains of the royal manor-house of Bakony hills, with its belonging church, which was built in the first half of the 11th century, can be found at the south end of the present town. This place is famous for the fact that King Andras I. died here, whose body was transported to Tihany in 1060, and his burial took place at the crypt of the Benediction abbey founded by him. During the Turkish occupation the monastery and the settlement itself got depopulated and perished. The hard work of its refoundation was taken on by the Cistercian monastery of Heinrichau in Prussia. The Cistercians gathered Roman Catholic families from seven different German linguistic areas, who became the inhabitants of Zirc by taking on an eternal serfdom. Between 1712 and 1718, 40 smallholder serf families found their home in the heart of Bakony hills.
As the ancestors of the present German originated population of Zirc they bequeathed a rich inheritance to the following generations with their talent and hard work.
ikonnal bővítheti túráját.
