In 1183, Hungarian king Béla III [‘beιlə] (1173-1196) founded a monastery in honor of Saint Gotthard in the countryside where the rivers Raba and Lapincs [LΛpint∫] (in German: Raab and Lafnitz) meet and Cistercian monks were settled there from Trois Fontaines, France. Twelve monks arrived in our country lead by an abbot. With the founding the king had the intention to give help to his folk in farming the land, because the Cistercians had highly developed agriculture. Béla III entrusted them too with the task of establishing settlements in this border-land, and bringing them into the circulation of the country. The Cistercians started to build their new monastery-centre in 1184, which is evidenced by the foundations of the monastery and church excavated by archaeologists. The building compl