St. Olav's Abbey, Tønsberg - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

St. Olav's Abbey, Tønsberg was a Premonstratensian

Premonstratensian

The Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré, also known as the Premonstratensians, the Norbertines, or in Britain and Ireland as the White Canons , are a Catholic religious order of canons regular founded at Prémontré near Laon in 1120 by Saint Norbert, who later became Archbishop of Magdeburg...

monastery, located in Tønsberg

Tønsberg

is a city and municipality in Vestfold county, southern Norway, located around north-east of Sandefjord. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Tønsberg....

, Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

History

The Premonstratensian

Premonstratensian

canons founded the monastery, dedicated to Saint Olav, in Tønsberg in the second half of the 12th century, possibly in or shortly before 1191. The church was completed by 1207, as is confirmed by the record of a burial there in that year. This was a very wealthy establishment with considerable influence in the affairs of its time. It was nevertheless unable to resist secularisation in 1532 during the Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

, when King Fredrik I granted it as a fief to Erik Ugerup. The monastic buildings were badly damaged by a fire in 1536, although possibly some may have been repaired to serve as the residence of the owner. The extensive estates later passed into the hands of the earls of Jarlsberg

Jarlsberg

Jarlsberg was a former county which forms part of Vestfold county in Norway. The former counties of Jarlsberg and Larvik were merged in 1821...

Buildings

The church was extremely unusual in that it was round, the only round church in the province and one of the largest in the whole of Scandinavia. There may be some connection between the shape and the cult of Saint Olav, which was centred on his shrine in the octagonal chapel at the east end of Nidaros Cathedral

Nidaros Cathedral

Nidaros Cathedral is a Church of Norway cathedral located in the city of Trondheim in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. It was the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Nidaros from its establishment in 1152 until its abolition in 1537. Since the Reformation, it has been the cathedral of the...

.

The nave had a diameter of about 23 metres. There was a round apse at the east end, with another round chamber - probably the sacristy - opening off it, and portals to the north, west and south.

Archaeological excavations were carried out in 1877, 1929, 1963-67 and 1969-71. Although it seems clear that the conventual buildings were attached in some way to the church, it has not so far been possible to establish their exact layout. The burial ground must have been to the north and east of the church.

Site

The ruins of the round church are still to be seen at Storgaten 17 and 19, with some remains of conventual buildings to the south-east. Some have been incorporated into the structure of the Tønsberg Municipal Library.

Sources and references

Johnsen, O. A., 1929-1934: Tønsbergs historie, pp. 206-232. Oslo
Lunde, 0., 1971: Premonstratenserklosteret i Tønsberg St. Olavs kirke - Nordens største rundkirke. I: Vestfold-Minne, pp. 68-85.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.