Qualla: Munkeby Abbey

Munkeby Abbey: Introduction

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Antikvar Klüwer, 1813, Public domain. For centuries, the farmers around Okkenhaug in Trondelag knew that their chapel had once belonged to monks. Historians dismissed the claim -- until 1906, when a letter dated 1475 from Pope Sixtus IV turned up in the Vatican archives, requesting that the monastery at Munkeby be restored as a functioning house. The name had been telling the truth all along: Munkeby, in Norwegian, means Place of the Monks. What the archives confirmed was the existence of the most northerly Cistercian foundation ever established, a monastery planted at 63 degrees north latitude sometime between 1150 and 1180, where white-robed monks lived, prayed, and farmed in a landscape of long winters and brief, luminous summers.

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Image: Antikvar Klüwer, 1813 | Public domain

Munkeby Abbey: Brothers at the Edge of the World

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Keuk, CC BY-SA 2.0 de. The Cistercians were not timid builders. From their mother house at Citeaux in Burgundy, they spread across medieval Europe with a discipline that prized manual labor, simplicity, and remote locations. Munkeby fit the pattern perfectly -- isolated, challenging, and far from the d...

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Image: Keuk | CC BY-SA 2.0 de

Munkeby Abbey: Absorbed and Forgotten

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kjetil Bjørnsrud, CC BY 2.5. In 1207, a new Cistercian house was founded on the island of Tautra in the Trondheimsfjord. At some point during the 13th century, Munkeby's community and assets were transferred to Tautra, and the abbey was reduced to a grange -- a monastic farm, still owned by the order but no ...

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Image: Kjetil Bjørnsrud | CC BY 2.5

Munkeby Abbey: Ruins Reclaimed

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kjetil Bjørnsrud, CC BY 2.5. The Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments acquired the site in 1967, but no full archaeological excavation has ever been carried out. Partial digs, including test excavations in 2000, have failed to locate significant remains of the monastic buildings, thoug...

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Image: Kjetil Bjørnsrud | CC BY 2.5

Munkeby Abbey: The Monks Return

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kjetil Bjørnsrud, CC BY 2.5. In 2007, the Trappist Abbey of Citeaux in France -- the spiritual descendant of the very order that founded Munkeby -- decided to establish a new monastery near the medieval ruins. Four monks took up residence in 2009 at Munkeby Mariakloster, built about 1.5 kilometers from the o...

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Image: Kjetil Bjørnsrud | CC BY 2.5