Looking for Iceland’s Lost Monasteries

REYKJAVÍK, ICELAND—Because of the low population density in Iceland during the Middle Ages, it had been assumed that monks shared parish churches with the people. Last week, British and Icelandic scientists looking for the remains of Þykkvabæjarklaustur in South Iceland found them away from the parish church. Now they are looking for the cloisters at Möðruvellir and MunkaÞverá in North Iceland, and have ruled out possible sites near those parish churches. “I think it is highly unlikely that, when cloisters were established, that churches nearby were used. Because there is so much difference between monastic chapels and parish churches, or home churches. They were the churches of the people, the flock, and not of the cloisters,” archaeologist Steinunn J. Kristjánsdóttir told Iceland Review. It appears that the monks preferred to build their own chapels. To read in-depth about archaeology in Iceland, see "Surviving the Little Ice Age."