Nonneseter Abbey, Oslo (''Nonneseter kloster i Oslo''), was a

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

convent A convent is an enclosed community of monks, nuns, friars or religious sisters. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The term is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican ...

located 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 ...

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 ...

, active between the 12th and 16th centuries.

History

Nonneseter Abbey is mentioned for the first time in 1161, but was founded before that, possibly by as much as several decades earlier. It was dedicated to the

Virgin Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

. The community quickly became wealthy under the leadership of influential abbesses from some of the country's highest-born families. The

abbess An abbess (Latin: ''abbatissa'') is the female superior of a community of nuns in an abbey. Description In the Catholic Church (both the Latin Church and Eastern Catholic), Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, Lutheran and Anglican abbeys, the mod ...

es are only partially known from official documents. The abbess Elin Jonsdatter, for example, is mentioned only between 1459 and 1476, when several documents of her financial and business transactions are preserved. Perhaps because the members of the convent were from Norway's elite families, the fate of the convent under 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 ...

was less harsh than that of many other monastic communities. While the convent was formally dissolved during the Reformation, it seems that the nuns were allowed to remain in residence for several decades afterwards, perhaps until the end of the 16th century. The abbey's estates passed into other hands in 1547, from which time the buildings began to decay, and in 1616 the walls of the former abbey church were used as a quarry for building stone for the new town hall.

Site and buildings

The site of the abbey, and any remains, are apparently under the buildings at Schweigaardsgate 55 and Grønlandsleiret 73. There are no visible remains. When Schweigaardsgate was re-developed in 1879, the corner of a building in worked stone was discovered, which was believed to be the south-west corner of the abbey church. Large portions of the rest of the church's remains may well have been destroyed during the construction of Schweigaardsgate 50 in 1887. Various other finds of stonework and skeletons in the area indicate possible sites of other remains.

Literary reference

The abbey is perhaps best known as the place where the novelist

Sigrid Undset Sigrid Undset (; 20 May 1882 – 10 June 1949) was a Danish people, Danish-born Norwegian people, Norwegian novelist. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928 Nobel Prize in Literature, 1928. Born in Den ...

set her character the young

Kristin Lavransdatter ''Kristin Lavransdatter'' is a trilogy of historical novels written by Sigrid Undset. The individual novels are ''Kransen'' (''The Wreath''), first published in 1920, ''Husfrue'' (''The Wife''), published in 1921, and ''Korset'' (''The Cross''), ...

in the first volume, ''Kransen'' (1920), of the eponymous trilogy, during which Kristin was placed there in a form of schooling under the abbess Groa.

Abbesses

The abbesses are not fully known. The known abbesses are mentioned with the dates they are mentioned: * Gro (Groa), mentioned in 1299, 1336. * Gunnhild, 1334. * Elin, 1336, 1347. * Thora, 1351. * Sigrid, 1357, 1360. * Margreta, 1388/1389. * Gudrun Amundsdatter, 1389/1390. * Katarine, 1418-1439. * Eilin Jonsdatter, 1459-1476. * Ingrid Bjørnsdatter, 1485- 1500. * Margrete Nilsdatter, 1510 - 1520. * Karen Eriksdatter, 1530- 1537. * Elen Halvardsdatter, 1544.

References

Other Sources

* Bull, E. (1922): ''Kristianias historie'', vol. 1: ''Oslos historie''. Kristiania. * Fischer, G. (1950): ''Oslo under Eikaberg'', pp. 131–132. Oslo

External links

Norske kloster i middelalderen: Nonneseter kloster i Oslo
{{Coord, 59, 54, 31, N, 10, 46, 05, E, region:NO-07_type:landmark_source:kolossus-nowiki, display=title Buildings and structures in Oslo History of Oslo Christian monasteries established in the 12th century Benedictine nunneries in Norway Christianity in medieval Norway 12th-century establishments in Norway 16th-century disestablishments in Norway Monasteries dissolved under the Norwegian Reformation