Tautra Monastery Island

Tautra, a small island in the Trondheimsfjorden, holds the ruins of a Cistercian monastery founded in 1207 as a daughter house of Lyse Abbey near Bergen. The monks chose the fertile island for its isolation and good soil, true to the Cistercian ideal of contemplative life in beautiful, remote surroundings. The abbey grew wealthy and powerful until its abbots played active roles in Norwegian politics. The Reformation shut the monastery down in 1537, and the buildings fell into ruin. In 1844 the newly formed Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments made Tautra its very first property, just two years after the organization was established. The monastery church walls still stand, the most substantial remnant of the complex. In 1999, Cistercian nuns returned and established Tautra Mariakloster on a different part of the island, bringing monastic life back to Tautra for the first time in over 450 years.