Þingeyrar after the Dissolution

Abstract

After the Reformation, many monasteries in Scandinavia were provided new purposes or maintained parts of their former functions, serving as everything from hospitals to city halls. In Iceland, however, this did not happen; the monasteries were abandoned, and their functions in society, both ecclesiastical and secular, were, in time, forgotten. This was despite attempts to open schools in some of the former monasteries. While the reasons for the failure of these institutions to transition from being run by ecclesiastical to secular authorities in Iceland remain unknown, the common perception is that these sites remained centers of some influence, power and wealth. This paper will use the monastery site of Þingeyrar, Northern Iceland, as a case study, discussing ceramic data from ongoing excavations there as well as historical data on landholdings to examine the continuity of influence and wealth at monastery sites in Iceland following their dissolution.

1. Introduction

The Reformation in Iceland is commonly considered to have been relatively peaceful, despite the notorious execution of the last Catholic bishop, Jón Arason, and his two sons in 1550 (Þorsteinsson 1978, p. 378). The Reformation is also often seen as the last nail in the coffin of the already faded Golden Age of the Icelandic Settlement and Commonwealth Periods, with a royal decree stating that all objects of wealth in the previously Catholic institutions now belong to the Crown and must be transported to Copenhagen often viewed as the robbery of the remaining wealth of Iceland (e.g., Ísleifsdóttir 2013, p. 310), leading into a popular narrative of 16th, 17th and 18th centuries in Iceland as an “Age of Humiliation” (e.g., Aðils 1919; Gunnarsson 1983). This “Age of Humiliation” (is. niðurlægingaröld) narrative has been called into question in recent years by numerous scholars (e.g., Kristinsson 2018; Róbertsdóttir 2008).

Following the end of the Reformation, many formerly Catholic institutions throughout the Danish–Norwegian Union were transformed into secular institutions, hospitals, schools (some of which remain open to this day, such as Sorø Adacemy in Denmark), and even city halls, with many also passing into private hands and being renovated as palaces (Jakobsen 2021, p. 480; Kristensen 2017, pp. 227–32). While these transitions were successful in many parts of the Danish–Norwegian Union, no such transitions occurred in Iceland despite early plans, as the Crown Authority of the Danish–Norwegian Union assumed ownership of the monasteries and their landholdings, distributing custodianships of these to their own people (Kristjánsdóttir 2021a, pp. 85–86). One such site was Þingeyraklaustur, the monastery at the farmstead Þingeyrar in Húnavatnssýsla, Northwestern Iceland (Figure 1).

2. The Reformation in Iceland

The popular perception of the Reformation in Iceland is that it was a quick process that took place in relative peace, with the only violent incident being the execution of Bishop Jón Arason and his sons in 1550 (Ísleifsdóttir 2013, p. 256). While this makes for a dramatic, narratively satisfying ending to the Reformation, the reality of the situation was more complicated.

The Reformation can be considered to have begun in Iceland in 1537, when King Christian III of the Danish–Norwegian Union made a proclamation concerning the abandonment of Catholic traditions and the embracement of the new, reformed tradition within his realm (Ísleifsdóttir 2013, p. 13). Despite this, the monasteries were still operating in both of Iceland’s two dioceses two years later, when a group of men working for the Crown Authority assaulted the monastery in Viðey, Southwestern Iceland, tore down its structures, desecrated them and abused those living there (DI X, pp. 444–47, 449–59, 479–80; Kristjánsdóttir 2021a, p. 84). This is the only recorded instance of an assault on a monastery by reformers and one of few possible examples of iconoclasm during the Reformation in Iceland (for a more detailed view on the Reformation in Iceland and possible iconoclasm, see Cormack 2017; Hannesdóttir 2021).

In the northern diocese of Iceland, the Bishop of Hólar, Jón Arason, assured the king in 1542 that he would obey whatever the king decreed and that he would do so repeatedly (Stefánsson Hjaltalín 2017, pp. 25–26). There are few sources available on the matters of church order and religion in the Hólar diocese in the 1540s, largely because Jón Arason chose to not engage with the royal decree as much as he could. He was able to do this without reprisal, likely due to an agreement with Bishop Gizur Einarsson of the southern diocese of Skálholt wherein the two agreed not to involve themselves in the affairs of the other’s diocese (Ísleifsdóttir 2013, pp. 219–27). Jón Arason did, however, follow parts of the royal decree. For instance, one part of the 1537 decree was the dissolution of all monasteries in Iceland and the transfer of any valuable items within them to the Crown coffers, and in 1541, the first shipment of gold and silver items was sent to Copenhagen which included objects from monasteries and churches in Jón Arason’s diocese, though there is no indication that the monasteries in his diocese were dissolved at this time as they were in the Skálholt diocese (DI X, pp. 605–7; Kristjánsdóttir 2021a, p. 90).

Jón Arason’s attempt to resist the Reformation culminated in 1550, two years after the death of Gizur Einarsson. That year, he gathered a force of some 120 to 140 men and rode to the Althing, where he assigned a special court that found the pre-Reformation church laws were still in effect, making Jón the only legal bishop in Iceland. Following this verdict, he designated his son, Björn, as the “procurator” of the southern diocese of Skálholt and reformed the monasteries in Viðey and at Helgafell. When he went to attend the trial of the lögmaður Daði Guðmundsson, one of Ari’s main rivals and an actor on behalf of the king during the last years of the Reformation in Iceland, some forty of Jón Arason’s men ran away in the face of Daði’s “army” (is. her), with Jón’s remaining forces being defeated in battle. Following the battle, Jón Arason and his sons were arrested and subsequently executed without trial at Skálholt in November of that eventful year (DI XI, pp. 803–6; Ísleifsdóttir 2013, pp. 237, 248–56; Þorsteinsson 1978, pp. 370–78). As previously mentioned, this execution marks the end of the Reformation in the minds of most Icelanders today. However, as can be seen quite clearly from the 1537 decree, the Reformation in Iceland was not merely a matter of religion—a conversion to Lutheranism, as the Reformation is commonly framed (Hugason et al. 2017; Guttormsson 2000, pp. 49–62; Þorsteinsson 1978, pp. 370–78)—but also a matter of the reorganization of church affairs in Iceland, both administratively and economically, and more broadly of the administration of the entire island. A large part of this revolved around moving power and wealth, in the forms of both objects and land, from the church to the Crown Authority. When this process was complete is a matter that may be debated, with Vilborg Auður Ísleifsdóttir suggesting that 1565 should be considered the end of the Reformation in Iceland as on that date, the majority of the reorganization decreed in 1537 had been put in place (Ísleifsdóttir 2013, p. 13). For the purposes of this paper, the dates of the Reformation are less important than the date of the dissolution of the monastery at Þingeyrar.

3. Þingeyrar

The Benedictine monastery at Þingeyrar was the longest-lasting monastic institution in Iceland, having been active for over 400 years (Kristjánsdóttir 2021a, p. 94; 2023, pp. 2, 35). The exact date of the establishment of the monastery at Þingeyrar is not known, but it is generally considered to have been in 1133, when the first abbot was assigned there (Kristjánsdóttir 2021a, p. 77; 2023, p. 12). In the course of its history, Þingeyrar was a center of book production in Iceland, judging by the considerable amount of material still in existence as well as inventories detailing the contents of the monastery (Jensson 2021; 2022, pp. 286–88). While the first Crown-appointed custodian of the monastery at Þingeyrar was already appointed in 1545, there is no indication that they ever took up the position or that there was any break in the operation of the monastery, which is not considered to have been dissolved until 1551, along with the monasteries at Munkaþverá and Möðruvellir. That year, a shipment of valuables from these monasteries and the bishop’s seat at Hólar was received in Copenhagen, which was interpreted as signifying the dissolution of these monasteries (Þorkelsson 1911–1921, pp. 377–78; Kristjánsdóttir 2021a, pp. 90–92). The royal decree of 1537 demanded that monks and nuns break their vows, though the aged and sick among them would be allowed to continue to live in the monasteries, and those monks who wished to leave would be provided with money for their travel (is. farareyrir), while nuns would be supported by the Crown for as long as they wished. Despite the dissolution of the Icelandic monasteries, many of the monks and nuns who lived in the monasteries continued to live and work there, though officially as laypeople (Ólason 1915–1925, pp. 159–61, 247; Kristjánsdóttir 2021a, pp. 86–87, 92–93).

As previously noted, the first custodian of the monastery at Þingeyrar was assigned in 1545, but the first custodian known to have taken up the position was the priest Hákon Gíslason, who was assigned in 1554, at the same time as custodians were assigned for the other dissolved monasteries DI XII, pp. 680–84). He only served as custodian for a short time before his death and was replaced in 1559 by his brother, Árni Gíslason (Ólason et al. 1948b, pp. 42–43). Árni Gíslason was the first bailiff (is. sýslumaður) to hold the position of custodian, but many of those who held the position later would be bailiffs or judges (is. lögmaður), cementing the shift of the holdings of the former monastery at Þingeyrar from an ecclesiastical authority to a secular authority.

Following the monasteries’ dissolution, any objects of value in the monasteries were to be shipped to Copenhagen, and it is known that that a great many objects of value were sent there, as previously noted, and a great many gold and silver objects were melted down for their precious metals. It is also known that many objects from the churches and monasteries of pre-Reformation Iceland survived—including manuscripts that were created in the monastery at Þingeyrar and the objects that adorned it, such as the altar tablet that was located in the monastery’s church—and that many of these objects were either adapted to the new Reformed tradition or continued to be used as they had been before (Cormack 2017; Gunnarsdóttir and Kristjánsdóttir 2016, pp. 38–41; Hannesdóttir 2021; Harðardóttir 2017; Jensson 2021; Kristjánsson 2017). The popular view maintains that this removal of valuables from churches and monasteries left Iceland in a state of poverty that characterizes the modern popular perception of the subsequent three hundred years or so. Despite this, the sites that hosted Catholic institutions are also perceived to have remained places of power and influence well after the end of the Reformation, though they then held secular rather than sacred power, with wealth in landholdings rather than precious objects (Guttormsson 2000, pp. 84–88; Þorsteinsson 1978, pp. 378–80).

Herein, this continuity of power and influence will be examined, with a focus on the perceptions of wealth and value at Þingeyrar. Þingeyrar was chosen for this case study as the archaeological investigations undertaken there since 2018 have revealed archaeological material from the 19th century and back to the time of the monastery itself. Additionally, the work that has been carried out in association with the investigations at Þingeyrar, textual, archival, ecological and archaeological (e.g., Hannesdóttir 2021; Jensson 2021, 2022; Kristjánsdóttir 2021a, 2021b; Riddell et al. 2022a, 2022b), provides an ample background of material from which to work. While the most obvious markers of wealth, the moveable wealth of objects of gold and silver, were transported to Denmark, there are other markers of wealth that can be examined. Here, the focus will be on two markers of immovable wealth, livestock and landholdings, that can be tracked and compared over time. This information will be contrasted with a discussion on the ceramic assemblage from the excavations at Þingeyrar and on the title and office of custodian and those who held that title through time.

4. Land Registers and Livestock Inventories

In medieval Iceland, as elsewhere in Europe, wealth lay primarily in land. In the Early Modern Period, this began to change as perceptions of wealth moved from the land to capital accumulation. This was also true in Iceland, though it did not occur in the same ways as in some other areas of Europe, such as Britain and the Netherlands (for more on the growth of capitalism in Iceland see, e.g., Lucas and Hreiðarsdóttir 2012). The land and landholdings of a site of interest in Iceland thus remain good indicators of the wealth accumulated at that site into the 19th century.

For Iceland, relatively good information is available about farmsteads in Iceland in the Early Modern Period, with published land registers from the early 18th century (Magnússon and Vídalín 1980–1990), as well as two from the 17th century, one from 1686 and the other from 1696 (Lárusson 1967). These three registers were compiled as a part of an effort to map the resources available in Iceland in an effort to re-evaluate tax assessments and identify where resources were underutilized and what could be done to improve the lot of Icelanders (Magnússon and Vídalín 1990, pp. VII, 3–10). For Þingeyrar specifically, there exist two further registers (Júlíusson 2014, pp. 46–63), one listing the Þingeyrar monastery’s landholdings in 1525 (DI IX, p. 314) and one from 1552 (Ólason 1923–1932, pp. 451–54). The 1525 register is a part of Sigurðarregister, named for Sigurður Jónsson, who compiled it. Sigurður was the son of Jón Arason and compiled the register late in his life, mostly from work carried out on the occasions of new bishops taking office in the Hólar diocese. The Þingeyraklaustur register was created on the occasion of Jón Arason becoming bishop (DI IX, pp. 293–95). The 1552 register was created on the occasion of Hákon Gíslason taking up the management of Þingeyraklaustur, two years before his appointment as the first custodian of Þingeyrar.

4.1. The Farmstead Þingeyrar

Regarding the value of the land of the Þingeyrar farmstead itself, such church sites were exempt from paying taxes and land rents, as were lands held by the Crown for its own use. For this reason, there is little historical information available on the value of the Þingeyrar land itself, though several inventories of Þingeyrar through the centuries exist which do indicate a rather large scale of activity at the site, with a great number of buildings often maintained as monastery buildings or to have at least kept the broad outlines of the monastery houses, even if the houses themselves were rebuilt. In a 1704 inventory, there was a wood house with a brick chimney at Þingeyrar, known as the “Danish house” to separate it from the “Icelandic house”, a turf-built farmstead common to Iceland (Jensson 2022). While this Danish house does not indicate a continuity of the monastery structures, it does indicate the status of the custodian at the time, Lauritz Gottrup, who had the resources to have such a building constructed, which was a rarity in Iceland in the early 18th century.

The livestock owned by a farmstead provide a means of gaining a sense of the wealth present at the farmstead, information that is noted in the 1525, 1552 and the early 18th century registers. In 1525, there were 253 sheep, 56 cattle and 20 horses, while in the 1552 register, there were 500 sheep, 50 cattle and 28 horses recorded at Þingeyrar (Ólason 1923–1932, p. 454; Kristjánsdóttir 2017, p. 130). The entry for the livestock at Þingeyrar circa 1713 is, however, incomplete, with 31 cattle and 200 sheep noted but further entries for the numbers of horses, lambs and male sheep left blank (Magnússon and Vídalín 1985, p. 249). Examining the livestock at Þingeyrar through time (

Table 1. Livestock at Þingeyrar over time.

Date of Register	Sheep	Cattle	Horses
1525	253	56	20
1552	500	50	28
1713	200	31	-

), it would seem that there was a decrease in the number of cattle held at the site, from around 50 in the 16th century to about 30 in the early 18th century. It is tempting to interpret the number of sheep in 1552 as an anomaly when judging by the numbers from 1525 and 1713, though maintaining that position is difficult with the data in hand. Even with the incomplete data for the early 18th century, it would seem that there was a slight decrease in the livestock present at Þingeyrar over time, which may indicate a decrease in the wealth present at the site over time. Ideally, the number of livestock would be contrasted with the number of inhabitants and the agricultural practice at the site; however, that information is largely unavailable. Only for the early 18th century do we have a reliable idea of the number of inhabitants at Þingeyrar, with the 1703 census recording 39 people living there (Kristjánsdóttir 2023, pp. 183–88; Manntal 1924–1947).

Another way to examine the relative wealth represented by livestock is to compare not one single site over time but several contemporary farmsteads. Unfortunately, there are no easily accessible inventories or registers for many or all farmsteads in the 16th century, and the 1525 and 1552 registers do not include information on livestock on other sites aside from Þingeyrar. The register from the early 18th century, however, does include this information for inhabited farmsteads in Iceland. While the incompleteness of the information about livestock at Þingeyrar does limit the use of the data in comparisons, it should be noted that high-standing sites in Iceland at this time, such as the bishop’s seats at Skálholt and Hólar, tended to not have much in the way of livestock at the farmsteads but rather seem to have relied on their possessions for their needs (Grímsdóttir 2006, pp. 79–134; Júlíusson et al. 2020; Þór 2006, pp. 269–77). At Skálholt, there were noted to be 15 cattle, 150 sheep and 19 horses in 1709 (Magnússon and Vídalín 1981, p. 290), while the entry for Hólar notes that the majority of the livestock belonging to the site were not held there but at its possessions (Magnússon and Vídalín 1986, p. 217). Looking at large farmsteads in Iceland, such as the church site of Reykholt in Borgarfjörður in West Iceland, they tended to possess similar amounts of livestock as Þingeyrar did. Reykholt had 34 cattle, 217 sheep and 23 horses (Magnússon and Vídalín 1982, p. 230). Comparing this inventory to two of the farmsteads closest to Þingeyrar, Leysingjastaðir, which was owned by custodian Lauritz Gottrup, and Hagi, a possession of Þingeyraklaustur, we see that the Þingeyrar farmstead was richer than its neighbors in livestock. At Leysingjastaðir, there was a total of 68 sheep and two cattle, with the number of horses missing, as for Þingeyrar (Magnússon and Vídalín 1985, p. 251), and at Hagi, there were 77 sheep, 4 cattle and 12 horses (Magnússon and Vídalín 1985, p. 252).

Calculating the value of the livestock we do know of at Þingeyrar in the early 18th century via cow values, the common value system in Iceland at the time (Hoff and Ketilsson 1775, pp. 3, 8; Magnússon and Vídalín 1985, pp. 13–30; Lárusson 1967, p. 47), assuming the average value of one cow is one cow value and that six sheep are valued at one cow value, the livestock is of a total value of circa 64.3 cow values (for more on cow valuation and its use in determining standing in early 18th century Iceland, see Jónsson 2021, pp. 63–67). With a complete dataset, the cow valuation of Þingeyrar is likely to have been significantly higher, as horses were valued at least as high as one cow; therefore, assuming that there were 28 horses at Þingeyrar in 1713, as there were in the 16th century, would put Þingeyrar’s cow value at about 92.3. For comparison, Reykholt is calculated to be worth 93.17 cow values and Gilsbakki, a middling farmstead and church site not far from Reykholt, is calculated to be worth 65. Leysingjastaðir and Hagi would be calculated at 33.3 and 28.8, respectively. This puts Þingeyrar on par with many middling-large farmsteads in Iceland, even without a complete data set. However, when contrasted with the number of inhabitants listed in the 1703 census, this perspective changes somewhat. While it is a rather simplistic method, dividing the cow values by the number of inhabitants provides a less-than-flattering assessment of 1.65 cow values per inhabitant for Þingeyrar, while the same number is at 4.66 cow values for Reykholt and 4.64 cow values for Gilsbakki. For Leysingjastaðir, this number is 1.90, and for Hagi, it is 4.81 (

Table 2. Cow values of livestock at the sites mentioned, both total and divided by inhabitants, in reversed alphabetical order.

Farmstead	Total Cow Value	Value Divided by Inhabitants
Þingeyrar	64.3	1.65
Reykholt	93.17	4.66
Leysingjastaðir	33.3	1.90
Hagi	28.8	4.81
Gilsbakki	65	4.65

).

While these numbers are based on quite uncertain data and the calculations are quite simplistic, they do provide a perspective of a farm whose output in simple livestock numbers declines over time and whose livestock worth is on par with middling-large farmsteads elsewhere in Iceland in the early 18th century, although these values of livestock worth are revealed to be quite low when calculated for the number of inhabitants at the sites. The farmstead of Þingeyrar, it can be argued, was a middling-large farmstead with too many inhabitants for its own production which might, in modern times, be considered to be living beyond its means.

4.2. The Landholdings of Þingeyraklaustur

Þingeyrar, however, was not only a farmstead with its value based on its own productivity. The holdings of Þingeyraklaustur were managed from Þingeyrar, with Þingeyraklaustur being the Icelandic name for the monastery at Þingeyrar in which “klaustur” is the Icelandic word for monastery. This context is important as land registers composed after the Reformation note which farmsteads were a part of the “Þingeyraklaustur landholdings” rather than noting the Þingeyrar farmstead as the center of these landholdings. The management of these landholdings through time is thus of interest as a signifier of the resources available to the custodians at Þingeyrar as well as a means of examining the continuity of the monastery landholdings.

It should be noted here that the parcels of land that made up individual farmsteads did not change significantly from the end of the 15th century until the 20th century so that each farmstead, including the Þingeyrar farmstead, represents a largely stable economic unit over time, with the term largely being used since the qualities of the land do change over time and through new practices. Prior to the late 19th century or the 20th century, when practices of draining wetlands and flattening fields become commonplace, these changes were minor, and while another study could be conducted to investigate deeper into the changes in value of each individual farmstead in these registers, the current study will not and assumes relatively stable values of the inhabited farmsteads over time.

In 1525, the monastery at Þingeyrar held a total of 97 farmsteads, including Þingeyrar itself. Of these farmsteads, 34 were uninhabited at the time the register was compiled, resulting in 63 inhabited farmsteads (Júlíusson 2014, pp. 46–63). It should be noted that those uninhabited farmsteads would, in all likelihood, still be utilized for grazing, hay and other resources, even if no one lived there. The registers from 1552, 1686 and 1696 do not include information on uninhabited farmsteads, but the register from the early 18th century does. In this register, the total number of farmsteads belonging to Þingeyraklaustur is 70, including Þingeyrar, with 11 of these farmsteads being abandoned for 59 inhabited farmsteads (

Table 3. Number of inhabited farmsteads belonging to Þingeyraklaustur over time, inclusive of Þingeyrar.

Date of Register	Farmsteads
1525	63
1552	63
1686	66
1696	77
1702–1714	59

).

While the space is not available here to delve into a detailed examination of the individual farmsteads belonging to Þingeyraklaustur over time, it is interesting to note that of 97 farmsteads in the 1525 register, 37 remained in its possession through all five registers. Of these 37, 2 are noted as uninhabited in the 1525 register. These are the farmsteads known as Hóll and Önnur Hrís. These farmstead names are very generic, with the former meaning “hill” and the latter “another/second scrub/brush”, and no farmsteads with the exact same names appear in the other registers. However, the farmsteads Hólar and Hrísar, the plural forms of the words, appear in the four other registers. For this reason, I have assumed that these are the same, but minor changes in farmstead names between the 1525 register and later registers are not uncommon. Even if discounting these two farmsteads, it remains that 35 out of the 63 inhabited farmsteads in 1525 remained a possession of Þingeyraklaustur in the early 18th century.

A further 12 farmsteads are missing from only one or both of the 1552 and 1686 registers, which may indicate that the farmsteads remained a part of the possessions of Þingeyraklaustur but were not inhabited at the time these registers were taken. Including these would result in a total of 49 farmsteads that remained in the possession of Þingeyraklaustur from 1525 and into the early 18th century. Whether we consider the farmsteads in continuous possession of Þingeyraklaustur to be 37 or 49, the continuity of landholding through time is considerable.

It should also be noted that there are eleven farmsteads that are a part of the Þingeyraklaustur possessions in all registers aside from the early 18th century register, which indicated that these eleven farmsteads had been sold to private parties: eight were owned by the custodian of Þingeyraklaustur at the time, Lauritz Gottrup, with the remaining three being in the possession of a widow named Katrín Ellingsdóttir. Unfortunately, it is not known whether the sale of these farmsteads was initiated by the Crown Authority or the custodians. It could then be argued that until the turn of the 18th century, 59 of the 63 inhabited farmsteads in the 1525 register, plus 4 additional farmsteads that were uninhabited in 1525, remained in the possession of Þingeyraklaustur 150 years after the monastery proper was dissolved.

With this in mind, it appears that when the Crown Authority took over the monastery landholdings following the monastery’s dissolution, the former landholdings of the monastery at Þingeyrar were maintained as a single entity until the beginning of the 18th century, when parts of the landholdings began to be sold off.

In addition to these significant landholdings, it is noted in the 1525 register that the monastery at Þingeyrar had considerable use rights regarding the collection of driftwood and the harvesting of beached whales in areas along the east coast of Iceland’s Westfjords and Northeastern Iceland (Þorkelsson 1909–1913, p. 314). Judging by comments in the early-18th-century register, this still held true at that time (Magnússon and Vídalín 1984, pp. 324–25), further cementing the impression of a continuity of influence and status.

5. The Ceramic Assemblage of Þingeyrar

Archaeological investigations have taken place at Þingeyrar since 2014 with breaks, and, as previously noted, have revealed remains from the 19th century and back to the time of the monastery (Jónsson et al. 2023, p. 8). Thus, there is reason to be optimistic that archaeology can help to shed light on the continuity revealed by historical sources with the addition of material culture. The excavations (Figure 2) have revealed a turf structure within the older graveyard at Þingeyrar, located less than a hundred meters from the farmstead’s modern buildings, which was active until the second decade of the 20th century, with graves from the graveyard dating to the 20th century and back to the 16th century, as well as the remains of the monastic church beneath the turf structure (Hannesdóttir and Kristjánsdóttir 2020; Jónsson et al. 2023; Kristjánsdóttir 2018; Kristjánsdóttir and Thorlacius 2022). It is not known what purpose the turf structure had, as no interior spaces have been excavated and too few walls have been revealed to identify its shape. There are, however, no structures known to have been in this area aside from churches. It is then likely that this structure represents the remains of either the church built in 1700 or, more likely, the church which replaced it in 1817 (Kristjánsdóttir 2017, p. 102).

Unfortunately, these remains provide a limited view of the daily lives of the people at Þingeyrar in the past, bereft as they are of domestic context. However, from the excavated graves, three custodians have been identified by markings on or within their coffins, and while its preservation was poor, the oldest grave, that of Jón Þorleifsson, who was the custodian from 1678 until his death in 1683, contained several finds, including a velvet cap with silver thread, which was the height of fashion at the time and, while such things are difficult to judge, likely expensive to import to Iceland from Europe, but such garments were not made in Iceland (Kristjánsdóttir and Thorlacius 2022, pp. 18–20).

Of other post-dissolution material culture at Þingeyrar, the majority of finds uncovered in connection with the turf structure and the probable church. From the area surrounding this structure and from its associated midden, a good amount of pottery sherds have been recovered. Pottery is a good indicator of wealth as all pottery was an import to Iceland since there was no local production until the 20th century (Jónsson 2021, p. 43), and the relative values of different types of pottery are known (e.g., Gaimster 2006, pp. 144–45). Examining the relative frequencies of different types of pottery can then provide an idea of the wealth expended on pottery items and on the goods associated with them, from staple foods to luxuries such as coffee, tea and hot chocolate (Jónsson 2021, p. 188). Pottery, of course, does not necessarily provide a full picture of this kind of consumption, with pottery being supplemented with wooden vessels at the less expensive end of the spectrum and vessels of metal, pewter or silver at the higher end, although these non-ceramic vessels tend to either not end up in the archaeological record or to not survive in it. Pottery is most heavily associated with “colonial goods”, such as coffee, tea and chocolate, that began to appear in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, largely owing to their heat-conductive properties, and through the 18th century, pottery came to dominate over the more expensive metal tableware (for more on this see e.g., Jónsson 2021, pp. 180–89; Leone and Shackel 1987; Lucas 2010; Martin 1989; Yentsch 1990).

Since excavations began at Þingeyrar, a total of 459 pottery sherds have been recovered. These have been analyzed via the minimum number of vessels (Voss and Allen 2010), resulting in an MNV of 97 as of the end of the 2022 excavation season. Of these, 71 of the identified vessels were refined or industrial earthenwares (

Table 4. Division of MNV at Þingeyrar by ware group.

Ware Group	MNV
Unglazed earthenware	2
Lead-glazed earthenware	11
Tin-glazed earthenware	3
Refined earthenware	71
Stoneware	6
Porcelain	4
Sum	97

), which came into production in the 1750s in England; however, many of these vessels display decorative techniques, including metallic luster and cut-sponge techniques, which were not introduced until the 1840s (Gaimster 2006, pp. 99–100; McKendrick 1982, p. 137). All 71 of these vessels were recovered in contexts associated with the turf structure discussed above, which indicates that it was in use in the latter half of the 19th century and possibly into the early 20th; however, a map of Þingeyrar drawn in 1919 does not show a building in this area, indicating that it had been abandoned before that time (Jónsson et al. 2023, pp. 30–31).

That the assemblage is dominated by refined earthenwares is typical of 19th-century Icelandic ceramic assemblages, but this type of pottery was quickly adapted throughout Europe in the latter half of the 18th century and in the 19th century in which they began to supplement and eventually replace older ware types (Gaimster 2006, pp. 99–100; Lucas 2010; McKendrick 1982, p. 137).

As previously noted, the majority of identified vessels are types of tableware, or 88, with only 6 kitchenwares (

Table 5. Division of MNV at Þingeyrar by vessel group.

Vessel Group	MNV
Tableware	88
Kitchenware	6
Storage/Utility vessel	2
Flowerpot	1
Sum	97

), one of which is dated to be older than the 19th century. Of the five remaining kitchenwares, one is a white-fired colander with green glaze, and the other four are redware cooking pots. Only one of the 19th-century cooking pots had a surviving rim that could be measured to identify the diameter of the vessel, revealing that it was a rather small pot with a rim diameter circa 70 mm. This makes it likely that the pot was used to prepare hot drinks, coffee or tea. While such a small pot could have served to prepare meals for one or two people, hot meals were uncommon in Iceland before the 20th century, with most meals consisting of dairy, smoked meat or meat and various other animal products preserved in lactic acid and served cold (Gísladóttir 1999, pp. 1–21; Jónsson 1998).

It is notable that the ceramic assemblage from Þingeyrar is largely in line what is seen at middling-high-standing 19th century sites in Iceland (Edwald Maxwell 2021; Lucas 2010), with its emphasis on decorated dining- and teawares, indicating a reasonable degree of wealth at the inhabitant’s disposal to spend on pottery and the associated luxuries and decencies, such as coffee and tea.

There are only six vessels in the present ceramic assemblage that can be positively dated to before the 19th century, though a few more could be dated to the 17th or 18th centuries based on pottery technique. These vessels, however, tend to have ambiguous find contexts, being either recovered in disturbed layers or grave fills. This lack of pre-19th-century material should not be surprising given what is known of the purpose of the excavated areas before the 20th century, as the sites of a graveyard and a church.

The six vessels that can be dated to before the 19th century all date broadly to the 17th and 18th centuries. They are a redware cooking pot with a rim diameter circa 90 mm, a white-fired lead-glazed vessel, a slipped redware plate or dish, two faience plates or dishes and a porcelain saucer. Only two of these six are not tablewares, the cooking pot and the white-fired vessel, which is likely to have been some sort of storage vessel, though too few sherds of it remain to discern the vessel’s form. Given the cooking pot’s small size, its likely use was rather for the preparation of coffee or another hot drink rather than for meal preparation. This, coupled with the remaining vessels all being tablewares, either dining- or teawares, gives the impression of a middling- to high-standing assemblage, which is in line with the evidence from the 19th century. Further, this gives the impression of a divided household, with the investigated areas being areas of consumption rather than preparation, with its emphasis on tablewares. Where the preparation of the food and drink consumed at the investigated site took place is not known but is likely to have been in the farmstead’s kitchen. While the slipped vessel is of a relatively cheap type, the faience vessels are of a higher value, and porcelain is relatively rare before the 19th century except at sites with the highest standing (Jónsson 2021, pp. 130–31). Given the small number of vessels that can be dated to before the 19th century, great care should be taken not to attempt to draw too many conclusions from the assemblage, but it does appear to have the character of a middling-high-standing site in the 17th and 18th centuries with porcelain and faience vessels.

At this stage of the archaeological investigations at Þingeyrar, it is difficult to ascertain much about life at the site from the ceramic assemblage. The majority of recovered ceramics date to the latter half of the 19th century, with only a handful of vessels dating to earlier periods. The overall impression, however, is of an assemblage of middling or high standing, with its emphasis on tablewares over other pottery types and its emphasis on relatively, expensive ware types such as faience and porcelain. That this impression holds from the 17th century to the 19th is indicative of a stable, high level of expenditure on pottery over time which, in turn, implies the availability of wealth at the site to invest in pottery.

6. The Custodians of Þingeyraklaustur

In the previous sections, the position of custodian has been mentioned, and a few of the people who held that position have been named, though without going into detail about the people and the position. While expounding upon every person who held the position is outside the scope of the current study, focusing on a few of them, as well as discussing the position of custodian and the duties and opportunities bound up in it, will serve well to highlight how Þingeyrar and the position associated with the dissolved monastery was perceived through time.

After the dissolution of the monasteries in Iceland, custodians were assigned by royal decree to handle the landholdings that passed to the Crown with the dissolution. In Icelandic, these custodians were known as klausturhaldari, and they had use of heimaklaustrið, “the home monastery”, which was the farmstead from which the monastery took its name (Magnússon and Vídalín 1985, p. 248). In the current case, this is Þingeyrar, which is noted to also be known as Þingeyraklaustur in the early 18th century land register. The main duties of the custodians of Þingeyraklaustur appear to remain largely unchanged through time, comprising the maintenance of its landholdings and the farmstead at Þingeyrar. In the royal letter assigning the first custodian in 1545, some other duties mentioned are the annual payment of an amount of butter and the keeping of the monks still residing in the monastery structures (Ólason 1915–1925, p. 378). By the early 18th century, there were no more monks, and there is no mention of annual payments; instead, the custodian was obligated to keep a priest and deacons at Þingeyrar and provide them with housing, food and annual salaries. In exchange for these duties, the custodians of Þingeyraklaustur had use of its landholdings to cover the expenses of their custodial duties, while keeping any excess for their own use (Magnússon and Vídalín 1985, pp. 248–50). It is not known to what extent the Crown Authority was involved in the management of the monasteries’ landholdings, but it was likely minimal, if the example of the selection of most of the custodians discussed here is anything to go by. Most of them took up the custodianship before being granted the position by royal letter, but the position appears to have been auctioned (is. boðin upp) in most cases (e.g., Espólín 1825, p. 119; 1830, p. 133). This indicates that the custodians were, ultimately, selected by officials and from the moneyed elite, which were groups with a large overlap.

As already noted, the first custodian of the monastery at Þingeyrar was assigned in 1545, a man named Sveinn Finnbogason (Ólason 1915–1925, p. 378). Little is known about him other than his assignment to custodian, an assignment which he appears never to have taken up, perhaps understandably as the monastery was still in operation at this time. Bishop Jón Arason assigned his son, Björn, to manage the monastery in 1550, but as discussed above, both men were executed that same year (Ólason 1915–1925, pp. 753–54). It is rather likely that Helgi Höskuldsson, the last abbot of the monastery at Þingeyrar, remained in charge during the times these men were assigned to the monastery, but Helgi had been abbot since 1516 and remained at Þingeyrar until at least 1551 (Ólason 1915–1925, pp. 753–54; Jónsson 1922, p. 83).

The first custodian known to have taken up the position was the priest Hákon Gíslason, assigned in 1554 at the same time as custodians were assigned to the other dissolved monasteries, though he appears to have taken up the position earlier as the account of the dissolved monastery’s possessions in 1552 is said to have represented its possessions on the occasion that he “took up” (is. medtok) Þingeyraklaustur (Ólason 1923–1932, pp. 451–54, 680–84). Hákon only served as custodian for a short time before his death in 1555. His brother, Árni Gíslason, appears to have taken up the custodianship in 1558 and was granted it by the new king Frederick II in 1559 (Espólín 1825, p. 119; Ólason et al. 1948b, pp. 42–43) Details of the management of Þingeyraklaustur in the time between the brothers are uncertain but appear to have fallen to one Captain (is. höfuðsmaður) Knútur Steinsson who is said to have, at one point, managed all the monasteries in the wake of a smallpox epidemic in 1554–5 (Espólín 1825, pp. 108–9, 119). Árni Gíslason was the first bailiff (is. sýslumaður) to hold the position of custodian, but many of those who held the position later would be bailiffs or “lawmen” (is. lögmaður), cementing the shift of the holdings of the former monastery at Þingeyrar from an ecclesiastical authority to a secular authority.

Although their exact duties change slightly over time, bailiffs acted as both executive and judicial authorities within their bailiwick (is. sýsla). They were in charge of administrative matters, tax collections and assessments, and acting as judges in the local courts (Hreinsson 2005, p. 228). Lögmenn were higher officials, with only two lögmenn in Iceland after the 13th century: one in charge of the south and east quarters of Iceland and the other in charge of the north and west quarters. Lögmenn, directly translated as “lawmen”, managed the various thing in their quarters and at Althing, as well as overseeing legal courts, acting as judges and elucidating laws as needed (Laxness and Árnason 2015, pp. 343–45).

From the time Hákon Gíslason was appointed custodian, a total of 17 custodians are known, including Hákon. Only three of these were not Icelandic. The first of these was Henrik Gerkens, a barber from Hamburg who served as custodian between 1570 and 1576 (Ólason et al. 1948a, pp. 347–48). The latter two are the Danes Lauritz Gottrup, who served as custodian from 1684 until his dying day in 1721, when his wife, Catarina, took over from him until her death in 1731 (Espólín 1830, pp. 58–59, 113; Hannesson and Kristjánsdóttir 2009; Sigurðsson et al. 1856, pp. 141–44). After her death, their son, Jóhann Gottrup, took over Þingeyraklaustur, but he was born, raised and lived all his life in Iceland (Espólín 1830, p. 117; Jónsson 1899, pp. 42–43).

That this custodianship was a sought-after position can be seen in the case of Bjarni Halldórsson, who was custodian from 1738 until 1773 (Jónsson 1777, p. 18). Bjarni Halldórsson engaged in several court cases against Jóhann Gottrup, who held both positions of bailiff and custodian before him. It appears that Bjarni Halldórsson took advantage of Jóhann Gottrup’s excessive spending habits and accumulation of debt to push him out of these positions and take them for himself, first the position of bailiff in 1728 and, ten years later, the position of custodian, taking up the position in 1737, following an auction and after receiving a royal letter for the position in 1738 (Espólín 1830, pp. 95–97, 133).

The last custodian of Þingeyraklaustur was, as touched upon in the previous section, Björn Olsen, who held the position from 1807 to 1811, when he bought the farmstead Þingeyrar, at which point the position was dissolved without ceremony. He had new buildings constructed at Þingeyrar and lived there until his death in 1850 (Ólason et al. 1948b, pp. 241–42).

7. Discussion

Following the dissolution of the monastery at Þingeyrar, the monastery and all its possessions passed into the hands of the Crown Authority of the Danish–Norwegian Union. Claiming that this movement from ecclesiastical power to secular power had no impact on the monastery site would be untrue as the fundamental nature of the site changed with the dissolution of the monastery. No longer were books being produced there, nor did monks live there, though the monastery church continued to be used until it was torn down around 1610 and a new, smaller church was raised in its stead (Kristjánsdóttir 2017, pp. 100–1; 2021a, p. 89), and one of the duties of the custodians of the monastery possessions was to pay the wages and to keep a priest on site for services. However, it is quite clear that despite this fundamental change, there was a continuity of wealth at the site. The influence and status afforded to the custodians was primarily based on wealth, with their access to the monastery landholding’s resources, or secular office, which was, in most cases, acquired before assignment to the custodianship. While Þingeyrar remained a site of influence and status, those were of fundamentally different natures than before the dissolution and largely based on wealth and the custodian’s rights over the resources and production and thus the lives of the people living on the farmsteads the custodian oversaw.

The majority of the farmsteads that were inhabited when the 1525 register was compiled continued to form a part of the Þingeyraklaustur possessions until the end of the 17th century, and the wealth expended on livestock at Þingeyrar alone in the early 18th century indicate a well-to-do, though not necessarily wealthy, farmstead, despite the incomplete data. Although the archaeology is less definitive, there is a clear indication of wealth being expended on dining- and teawares in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, even after the farmstead had come into private possession.

One remarkable aspect of the continuity under scrutiny here is the persistence of the memory of the monastery. As already touched upon, the farmsteads are always noted as being possessions of Þingeyraklaustur, the monastery at Þingeyrar, and not of Þingeyrar the farmstead. The Icelandic texts tend to treat Þingeyraklaustur and its possessions as a grouping, a portfolio, to use a modern term, that persists through time, allowing the custodians to extract resources for their own use. This is in contrast to the situation in Denmark, for instance, where monastery landholdings were subsumed into established secular domains (dk. len) following their dissolution in the 16th century (Kristensen 2017, pp. 228–29). This grouping only begins to be significantly altered in the 18th century as farmsteads that previously formed parts of the Þingeyraklaustur landholdings were sold to private people.

Considering the position of custodian, one might argue that a title such as klausturhaldari could easily become traditional and divorced from whatever original meaning it held. In conjunction with the idea that Þingeyrar is also properly named Þingeyraklaustur, the interpretation might be drawn that this idea of the memory of the monastery is an overreach, and the references are to a place name and the traditionality of the title. With no monastic traditions in Lutheranism, it would be easy to argue that the idea of a monastery had no meaning to the locals.

This argument loses some of its power, however, when we consider some 18th-century evidence. In early-18th-century land registers there are references to monasteries, heimaklaustrið, and the phrasing of “the king’s monasteries” (Magnússon and Vídalín 1985, p. 248), as well as the authors’ comments that ruins at a site known as Trumbsaler, within the land of Þingeyrar, suspected to have been the ruins of the monastery by local tradition, are both too few and too small to be equal to a monastery (Magnússon and Vídalín 1985, pp. 250–51). These comments indicate an awareness of the monastery as an entity separate from the placename, as well as some awareness of the two main authors, Árni Magnússon and Páll Vídalin, both highly educated and well-traveled men, of what a monastery should be, even though the original location of the monastery had been forgotten by this time. Another interesting piece of evidence is the epitaph of Bjarni Halldórsson, the custodian of Þingeyraklaustur from 1738 to 1773. In the summer of 2022, his remains were excavated at Þingeyrar, and on his coffin were two copper alloy shields, one of which contained his epitaph, comprising of a brief resume of his life, written in Latin. There, Bjarni Halldórsson is said to have been, among other things, custodian of “[COEN]OBIUM THINGEYR-/[ENSE E]T EIUS LATIFUNDIA” (Jensson 2023). Of interest here is that the phrase used is not “Þingeyraklaustur” but “coenobium Þingeyrense”, the monastery at Þingeyrar. Even 200 years after the dissolution, some memory, knowledge and reverence for a monastery at Þingeyrar remains. Whether this memory forms a part of a similar renegotiation of the understanding of the Reformation and in particular the dissolution of the monasteries, as was taking place in England in the 18th century, is uncertain (Lyon 2022, pp. 245–46). Delving properly into this question would require a broader approach toward the memory of the Reformation in Iceland and the Danish–Norwegian Union which has, so far, not taken place and is outside the scope of this work.

Whether this kind of continuity of influence and wealth can be observed at other monastery sites is uncertain at time of writing, though the historical sources referenced throughout this article also make mention of the other monasteries in Iceland in much the same way as to Þingeyraklaustur. Though those references were not examined in detail, and studies similar to the one presented here have not been undertaken for other monastery sites in Iceland, they do seem to indicate that the situations for the nine monasteries that were dissolved as a result of the Reformation were similar to the one at Þingeyrar. That is to say, the monastery landholdings passed into the possession of the Crown Authority and were overseen by custodians, a sought-after position at all times. It might be assumed that with such similar situations, the continuity of landholdings might be similar as well. but that is a position that cannot be maintained without further investigations into the land registers and monastery inventories.

The current study presented several questions to ask of further work in this field. Did this continuity revolve primarily around the landholdings, or were there other factors from before the Reformation that echoed into the 18th century (Lyon 2022, pp. 125–90)? What topographical effect did the dissolution have, considering that some of the monastic structures likely stood until at least 1619 (Hannesdóttir and Kristjánsdóttir 2020, p. 6)? Such studies have been carried out elsewhere in Europe and could provide a good theoretical basis for such work in Iceland (e.g., Clark 2021; Lyon 2022, pp. 125–90; Procter 2018). Could further archaeological investigations on 17th- and 18th-century remains corroborate and enforce the impression gained through examining the historical record? Did this dissolution directly affect the lives of the people living at the farmsteads held by the monastery, and in what ways? Was this continuity the same across all the sites of all the monasteries that were dissolved during the Reformation, or is there a difference between individual monasteries? Further, given the different ways that the Reformation progressed in the two Icelandic dioceses, is there a difference between the continuities of monastery sites between them?

With the ongoing work on monastery sites in Iceland and on monasteries that belonged to both the north and the south dioceses of Iceland, some of these questions will be answered in the next few years. What is certain, however, is that the legacy of the Benedictine monastery at Þingeyrar goes beyond the economic, though that legacy on its own is quite significant, and was maintained well for over a century and a half after the Reformation. Although we cannot say from the sources discussed herein whether there was an awareness of the cultural significance of the monastery at Þingeyrar as a center of book production, it seems clear that the societal significance of the monastery at Þingeyrar did not diminish through time, though its meaning did change as it ceased to be an ecclesiastical center of power and became a secular one.