Norwegian Monasteries as Keepers of New Knowledge from Europe

Centre for Medieval Studies (CMS) and Bergen Museum have the pleasure of inviting you to the public lecture   
 
Norwegian monasteries as keepers of new knowledge from Europe

Lecture by: Åslaug Ommundsen, CMS

From the early 1100s, the large number of churches and monasteries in Bergen in the Middle Ages were visible and audible elements of the urban landscape. Furthermore, the monasteries in particular, were entry points and important administrators of new knowledge from Europe.

Nonneseter

People that lived inside the monastery walls had to renounce family life and personal property. Their daily routines were governed by house rules and canonical hours. In the monastic communities, prayer, contemplation, and literary studies filled the day.

Today, only visible remains of the two monasteries in Bergen are still here. The remains of Nonneseter lie near the railway station in Bergen; this was the largest and richest of the female monasteries in Norway before the Black Death struck. The Franciscans’ abbey functions today as the cathedral of Bergen.

The lecture is one in a lecture series being held in connection with the exhibition Fragments of the Past at The Cultural History Collections of Bergen Museum.

Fragments of the Past is the result of collaboration between the Centre for Medieval Studies, the University of Bergen and Bergen Museum. The project comprises an exhibition, lectures, and a book. It offers titbits from the Centre’s research programme Periphery and Centre in Medieval Europe, and the exhibition shows several, significant objects from the museum’s collections.