Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 01.01.2010, Blaðsíða 141

140 ÁRBÓK FORNLEIFAFÉLAGSINS
Summary
A monastery was founded at the farm Skriða in the valley of Fljótsdalur in 1493
and maintained until the Reformation in the 1550s. The monastic church was not
consecrated until 1512, approximately 20 years after the monastery was founded. After
the dissolution of the monastery, the farm became a residence of the local sheriffs. The
church continued to be used by them and their families, while the monastic buildings
were left to disintegrate. Even so the church also deteriorated and was finally rebuilt
around the mid-seventeenth century as an annex for the Valþjófsstaður and Ás parish
churches. The church was finally discontinued in 1793, nearly three centuries after the
founding of the monastery itself.
An excavation on both phases of the church ruin was carried out in 2004-2007.
The monastic church was built of turf and stones, with internal timber structures. It
measured 15 x 5.7m on the inside. It was a basilica, divided into a chancel, a nave and a
narthex with an extension on the north side. The monastic church had two entrances.
One was located at the west end and the other on the north side. The western
entrance was open to the public but the one on the north side was exclusively for the
brethren to enter the church from the monastic building. Both the excavation and
written sources indicate that only the chancel and the nave of the church were rebuilt
during the mid-seventeenth century. The church measured only 4.7 x 9.3m after the
reconstruction. Its side walls were still of turf and stones but the entrance in the north
wall had been closed. Instead it still had two entrances, one at each end.
According to written evidence and to some extent findings from the site,
furnishings and other possessions of the church were not removed from it during the
Reformation. This may have happened first when the church was dissolved in the
late eighteenth century. The most obvious modification made to the church building
during its three hundred year long history of active use took place around the mid-
seventeenth century when it was changed from a basilica to a small chapel. However,
the most significant changes in its history occurred with the switch to Lutheranism
in 1550, without leaving any material alterations to the church building. In fact, this
demonstrates that turning points in ideology do not always leave visible remarks in
material culture.