Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 01.01.1996, Side 38

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ÁRBÓK FORNLEIFAFÉLAGSINS
The next records of the church date from 1685 and 1695. They state that there was a
wooden church, probably still cruciform, although somewhat smaller, with reinforcing
wooden butresses, as can be seen on fig. 5. A wooden sanctuary which may have been a
part of an older church was attached to the structure. The church mentioned in the
documents fiom 1685 and 1695 was severely damaged in a hard winter storm in 1706
and a new, probably smaller wooden church was built from the timbers of the old one.
This new church did not stand for long since in 1735 yet another church was built on
the site. This church which had outer walls of turf stood until the present church was
built in the middle of the 19th century.
Little information concerning the monastic function of Munkaþverá is found in
written sources earlier than the 18th century. In around 1526 several houses can be
identified as part of the monastic complex. This includes a chapter house, an abbots
house, a schoolhouse, a „southern house“ and a small water miU. Between around 1526
and 1721 there are no known written records which mention the monastic houses at
Munkaþverá, but a survey made in 1721 records a house caUed „monastery-house,“ a
chapter house, a storage house and a refectorium or a parlatorium (the Icelandic word
„málstofa" has an ambigious meaning) as part of the former monastic complex. The
„monastery-house“ and the chapter house were destroyed by fire in 1772, by which time
the „málstofa" may have already been torn down. It is worth noting that both the
„monastery-house“ and the chapter house were rebuUt after the fire, the new structures
retaining the names of the older ones. By the year 1800 there is no further mention of
the „monastery-house" but the chapter house was stiU standing in the first decade of the
19th century. The constant maintenance and rebuUding of the monastic buildings after
the Reformation may indicate a certain amount of continuum in the style and place-
ment of these buildings at Munkaþverá. According to the 18th century sources, these
houses were in fact wooden houses with outer waUs of turf.They appear to have stood in
a group, separated from the church and the ordinary farrn buildings on the site. This is
supported by the documents from around 1526.
It is fairly clear that the monastic complex stood on the south side of the church in
the 18th century and had probably done so earlier too. Whether the monastic houses
formed a square enclosing a courtyard, a claustrum, in the style of monasteries elsewhere
in Europe or not, is impossible to teU from the written sources available. The names of
individual monastic houses and the cruciform church indicate that they had the tradi-
tional function of buildings in a typical Benedictine monastery, although the building
design was Icelandic.