Halsnøy Abbey (''Halsnøy kloster'') was a house of
Augustinian Canons located on the island of
Halsnøy on the
Hardangerfjord at
Kvinnherad in
Vestland
Vestland is a Counties of Norway, county in Norway. The county is located in Western Norway, and its administrative centre is Bergen, where the executive and political leadership is based. The County governor (Norway), County Governor is based in ...
,
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...
.
History
Halsnøy Abbey was one of the richest monasteries in medieval era Norway. The monastery is believed to have been founded in 1163 or 1164 by
jarl Erling Skakke (1115–1179) as an inducement to Archbishop
Øystein to crown Erling's seven-year-old son,
Magnus Erlingsson, who reigned as King of Norway from 1161 to 1184.
The new foundation attracted many generous endowments and soon became one of the wealthiest in Norway.
The buildings were severely damaged in a fire about a hundred years later, and were rebuilt in
Gothic style about 1300.
The monastery was dissolved in 1536 during the
Reformation
The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...
and its lands and assets were confiscated by the Crown. For over 200 years it was administered as state property, but in 1758 the estate was bought by the chamberlain Andreas Juel, in whose family it remained until 1956. Lt. Andreas Juel, a descendant of the purchaser, demolished the remaining monastic buildings in about 1840 and built a new house from the stone in 1841.
In 1956 the site was bought by
Sunnhordland Museum which has conserved the building remains. Previously known as ''Sunnhordland Folkemuseum'',
Sunnhordland Museum operates from administration offices at
Stord and serves as the historic-cultural museum for all eight municipalities in the region of
Sunnhordland.
Archaeological studies were conducted on site by architect
Gerhard Fischer during 1938-1939 and by Hans-Emil Lidén between 1961-1963. Parts of the west wing with the abbey are preserved as ruins. Halsnøy is very unusual among Norwegian monastic sites in that what principally survives is not the principal monastic buildings (church, chapter house, etc.), but the smaller ancillary buildings. These survive at only two other pre-Reformation monastic sites in the country:
Selje Abbey
Selja Abbey (''Selja kloster'') was a Order of St. Benedict, Benedictine monastery located on the island of Selja, Selje, Selja in the municipality of Stad, Norway, Stad, Vestland, Norway. The island of Selja, which has been formerly known as Se ...
(''Selje kloster'') in the district of
Nordfjord and
Hovedøya Abbey (''Hovedøya kloster'') in
Oslo
Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...
.
Notes
Other Sources
Halsnøy klosterNorges klostre i middelalderen
Halsnøy klosterSunnhordland Museum
Related reading
* Lidén, Hans-Emil; Ellen Marie Magerøy (1990)
''Norges Kircher'' (Oslo: Gyldendal)
External links
Sunnhordland Museum website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Halsnoy Abbey
Kvinnherad
Buildings and structures in Vestland
Christian monasteries established in the 1160s
Augustinian monasteries in Norway
1163 establishments in Europe
1536 disestablishments in Norway
12th-century establishments in Norway
Monasteries dissolved under the Norwegian Reformation