Heves megyei aprónyomtatványok 19/N
History of the church of FELDEBRÖ Church and monastery were founded in the first third of the 11 th century presumably by members of the mighty Aba clan, landowners of the neighbourhood. One of the first monuments of Christianity in Hungary surviving, it was built as a sepulchral church. In its centre, in a vaulted room opening from the undercroft richly decorated with wall paintings, a person revered as a saint, whose identity is today unknown, was buried; the grave was under the cure of the inhabitants of a nearby small monastery. The sides of the church of a quadratic ground-plan were extended by a semicircular choir each. In its centre four sturdy pillars encircling to the peep-windows, supported a cupola or a massive tower. The central quadrate was encircled from three sides by aisles separated by a row of clustered columns. On the eastern side the bulk of the vault of the crypt broke the symmetry of the five-aisled central church. As early as in the Arpadian peroid the church was converted into a three-aisled building by means of separating the northern and aisles, walling up the spaces between the clustered columns. The entrances of the undercroft opening originally from the northern and southern aisles were thus excluded from the body of the church, therefore a new entrance must have been opened on the south side. In the two comers of the western end of the church two towers were built with walls including also the clustered columns. It was probably in this time when the sepulchral church became the parish church of the village. The building was restored several times during the Middle Ages. The southern Gothic door was made in the 15 th century. In the same time the church and the churchyard belonging to it were surrounded by a stone wall built on the inner border of the moat of huge dimensions defending them previously. The church suffered severe damages during the Turkish occupation of the country and was subsequently patched up; it was rebuilt in Baroque style about the middle of the 14
