He was also fascinated by the building materials that were used in the region and the quality of the masonry: “The men go up to the crater of the nearby volcano and extract the red-hot rocks expelled directly from the mouth of the mountain and pour ice-cold water over them. The burning stones crack open, yielding a molten substance similar to lime-based mortar which, once dry, turns into a white powder that can be stored because it never spoils. When the rocks taken from the crater have cooled they are transported down to the monastery and used as building blocks. They are hard but also very light and therefore ideal for construction work. The effect is one of beauty and solidity.”
I am sure Nicolò the Younger, an accomplished engineer, appreciated this description of materials and building techniques.
The small round farmhouses near the monastery were only about twenty-five feet in diameter. “The builders start with the external walls,” Messer Nicolò explained, “and once they reach the desired height they work their way toward the center, leaving an opening in the middle for light and ventilation. The ground is so warm there is no need to light a fire to heat up the house, so the problem of smoke does not exist.”
According to Messer Nicolò, the fjord in front of the monastery never froze because of the geothermal conditions in the area. The fishermen did not have far to go for their daily catch because the waters teemed with trout and salmon. There was also a great abundance of geese, ducks and swans. The monks exchanged goods with the local farmers; they employed them in construction work, of course, but also for the collection of firewood, the gathering of bird’s eggs and “a thousand other chores” that came up every day in this thriving, industrious community.
The monastery was well known to foreign traders. Merchants from England and the Hanseatic League, taking advantage of the declining presence of the Norwegians, sailed up the fjord and often spent the winter there. It was an opportunity for them to fix their boats, stock up on provisions and sell timber, grains and cloth to the monks in exchange for dried cod and sealskins.
Messer Nicolò’s writing style was factual, informative. I noticed that he never emphasized the exotic element in an attempt to impress readers back home, as later writers of the Renaissance often did, including Nicolò the Younger. Nor did he use a superior tone. He was interested above all in how things worked around him and how they could be turned to advantage. In this he remained the quintessential medieval merchant-traveler, always looking for opportunities even as he made his way on very unfamiliar terrain.
WHEN I first read Messer Nicolò’s account I was not aware of the important role monasteries played in Icelandic society during the Middle Ages. Iceland was Christianized around the year 1000 under pressure from Norway. But in the early days of Christianity, Icelanders continued to worship their pagan deities—Odin, the god of war; Thor, the god of seafarers and farmers; Freyr, the god of fertility. Priests were mostly freelancers employed by local landowners who built and owned the churches. These priests lived with concubines and fathered children. One notorious nun, Gróa, was both the daughter of a bishop and the mother of a monk. Baptism was supposed to take place in the freezing waters of Thingvellir, but Icelanders couldn’t be bothered, preferring to take the sacrament while bathing in the hot springs near their homes.
A bishop was finally appointed in 1055 to the see of Skálholt, and he introduced the tithe and Peter’s Pence. A second bishopric was established in Hólar in 1106. But the bishops were weak and Rome was much too far to enforce tax collection. Thus for a long time the Church of Iceland remained in the hands of local chieftains. It was not until the archbishopric of Trondheim was established in Norway in 1152, with jurisdiction over Iceland, the Faroes and Greenland, that the Church became more structured and autonomous.
By the time Messer Nicolò arrived in Iceland, at the end of the fourteenth century, there were as many as seven monasteries and two nunneries scattered across the country. All of them had been founded by Augustine or Benedictine monks during the twelfth century and had provided stability and continuity to religious life even during periods of great strife. They were prosperous communities and important centers of learning, where the monks copied and translated ancient texts and wrote the great Icelandic sagas—epic narratives set during the years of the first settlements.
But which of these monasteries was the one Messer Nicolò visited?
NICOLÒ THE Younger was less than useful in helping me to identify its location. Believing that Messer Nicolò had sailed from Iceland to Greenland rather than from Shetland to Iceland (because of his earlier confusion between Shetland and Iceland), he placed the monastery in Grolandia, north of Engronelant on his map. To signal the spot, he drew a small volcano in full eruption (even though there were no active volcanoes in Greenland) and a monastery, which he named S. Tomas Zenobium. Brian Smith, and many others after him, thought the word “Zenobium” was a pun by Nicolò the Younger, based on his own family name—the forger’s signature, as it were. But it is more likely that “Zenobium” was simply the Latin word “Cenobium,” meaning “monastery,” spelled in the Venetian manner, with a “z” in lieu of a “c.” And the monastery was probably dedicated to Saint Olaf rather than Saint Thomas—given Nicolò the Younger’s propensity to muddle things it is easy enough to imagine him reading “S.tomas” for “St.olaf” in a faded script.
My attempt to track Messer Nicolò was further frustrated by the realization that all the monasteries in Iceland had long gone to ruin. The demise of monastic culture was very swift once the Protestant Reformation reached Iceland in 1531. The monasteries themselves were ransacked; sand and volcanic ash slowly buried the buildings until there was nothing left to see. Yet Messer Nicolò’s clear, evocative words had seized my imagination. And in a strange way, I felt I owed it to him to find the place he had described with such precision—or at least give him my best effort.
To Thikkvabaejarklaustur
IT IS NO LONGER POSSIBLE to travel by ferry from Shetland to Iceland via the Faroes following the route of medieval navigators. Until a few years ago Smyril Line, a Faroese company, operated regular service between Aberdeen and Reykjavik via Orkney, Shetland and the Faroes. But the company has severed the link between Shetland and the Faroes in order to cut costs, and this ancient North Atlantic thoroughfare is now truncated. In order to follow Messer Nicolò on his northbound journey I made my way back to London and took an Iceland Express flight to Reykjavik from Stansted. Two hours later I landed at Keflavik Airport, west of the capital, on a black, volcanic peninsula strewn with jagged rocks of lava.
I had booked a room through the Internet with a family in Reykjavik. Hreinn and Arna lived with their son and daughter in a small two-floor house that was sheathed with corrugated iron, in the Icelandic fashion, and painted scarlet red. It had a name I liked: Áskot, the House of the God. Trees are a rarity in Iceland and I had chosen Áskot among others in part because it was shaded by a grove of tall mountain ash. Two blocks down the road, on the way downtown, was the old Reykjavik cemetery, with its lichen-covered lava tombstones.
The first night I hardly slept. Darkness came and went sometime between two and four a.m. I staggered down to breakfast and found Arna, my landlady, busily spreading out various types of hams and salamis, hard-boiled eggs, fresh bread and strawberry jam.
I showed surprise at her perkiness.
Arna grinned. “In the spring we like to sleep very little.” She was a tall, strong woman with dark eyes and jet black hair with bangs. “We live in darkness half of the year. We want to compensate during the other half, so we stay awake and soak up as much light as we can.”
The little red house was only a five-minute walk from the National Library and University. The reading rooms were filled with light. Students were preparing for their final examinations. I read all I could find on monasteries in English-language books on Iceland—which was not very much. It was puzzling to learn that so little had been done to uncover the remains of such an important part of
Icelandic civilization. At the suggestion of Margrét Hallgrimsdóttir, the director of the National Museum, I walked over to the museum’s Archaeology Department, across the lawn from the National Library, and knocked on the door of Steinunn Kristjánsdóttir, one of very few Icelandic archaeologists with fieldwork experience in unearthing the old monasteries—a few years earlier she had started a project at Skriduklaustur (Skiðuklaustur), in eastern Iceland.
Steinunn seemed intrigued by the story of Messer Nicolò’s voyage to Iceland. The next day I brought her an English translation I had prepared of Messer Nicolò’s description of the monastery. I asked her why so little archaeological work had been done on the sites of old monasteries. “Icelandic scholars can sometimes be very rigid in their way of thinking,” she replied. “It has long been assumed that monasteries were little more than farmhouse extensions. Historians have not wanted to challenge this old theory. But I have come to believe that the monastic model in Iceland was similar to the one which prevailed in much of Europe at the time: here too monasteries were highly developed and largely self-sufficient communities. And they were important centers of culture and learning.”
Steinunn pulled out a map of Iceland with all the known sites of old monasteries. In each case we considered the distance from the sea, whether there was a volcano nearby and if there were or might have been hot springs. By a simple process of exclusion, we soon fixed our attention on Thikkvabaejarklaustur, a twelfth-century Augustine monastery in the region of Alftaver, east of the Mýrdal sand desert on the southern coast of Iceland, not far from an area of hot springs and within sight of an active volcano, Mount Katla.
“This would have to be it,” Steinunn said, pressing her finger on the map. The area was about a four-hour car drive east of Reykjavik. She wished me good luck. “I suspect there is not much to see there anymore,” she cautioned. “The monastery was buried a long time ago. But if you are to make any sense of this story, you must go to Alftaver.”
THIKKVABAEJARKLAUSTUR (YKKVABÆJARKLAUSTUR), I learned back at the library, was founded in 1168 by Bishop Klaengur Thorstensson of Skálholt. But in both a practical and a spiritual sense the founding father was Thorlak Thorhallsson—Saint Thorlacius. Young Thorlak arrived at the monastery in 1170 as a prior after his studies in France and England and six years of residence at Kirkjubaer (Kirkjubær or, more commonly, Kirkjubæjarklaustur), a nearby nunnery (it was not uncommon to have priors in nunneries). It says in Thorlak’s Saga, a hagiographical work written after his death, that “he organized the monks’ life so beautifully that wise men said they had never beheld such good morals.” Nor such good manners: “He forbade monks from wandering or going every which way who had no pressing need to do so, and bade them to be even-tempered, and to keep complete silence when it was obligatory and use good language when speech was allowed … monks went to [his] monastery from other monasteries, both natives and foreigners, to behold and learn good habits there, and each reported that nowhere had they seen the equal of the life which Thorlak had established there.”
After seven years at Thikkvabaejarklaustur, Thorlak became bishop of Skálholt. Most churches in Iceland were still the personal property of the big landowning families; Thorlak worked hard to bring them under ecclesiastical rule. He was a staunch supporter of the Gregorian reform, fought hard against the spread of simony (selling religious favors such as indulgences) and did his best to enforce the vow of celibacy—a daunting task even in his own household. One day the local deacon, one Jón Loftsson, seduced Bishop Thorlak’s sister, Ragnheid, and moved in with her. Not content to have caused the bishop deep displeasure, Loftsson tried to kill him on at least three occasions. Given the atmosphere at home, Bishop Thorlak was lucky to survive until 1193, when he died of natural causes at the age of sixty.
In the decades following the death of Bishop Thorlak, as clan violence tore up the country, the monastery remained a peaceful, industrious enclave. By the middle of the thirteenth century it was one of the most important centers of learning in Iceland. Njál’s Saga is supposed to have been written at Thikkvabaejarklaustur. Possibly the greatest of the sagas and certainly Icelanders’ favorite book, this epic tale takes place at the time of the settlers in southern Iceland, roughly in the same region as the monastery. It tells the story of Beardless Njál, a wise and learned farmer with the gift of foresight, and his close friend Gunnar, a valiant, tragic figure caught in a spiral of vengeful killings.
Some believe Njál’s Saga was written by Abbott Brandur Jónsson, who was at Thikkvabaejarklaustur from 1247 to 1262. But no one really knows who the author was because the monastery’s archives were lost even before the Reformation. Apparently they were stored in the bell tower that rose high above the church. The tower collapsed after a volcanic eruption or an earth tremor. All documents and manuscripts were either destroyed or scattered by powerful winds.
This particular story was recorded by Árni Magnússon, a great Icelandic antiquarian, when he visited the region in the early eighteenth century. It all happened so quickly, he reported, that nothing was salvaged. On that same occasion, the large bell in the tower—the monks called it Augustine’s bell—crashed to the ground and broke into pieces. The fragments were transported to Bessastadir (Bessastaðir), the Danish governor’s residence near present-day Reykjavik. Seven horses were needed to pull the carts carrying the great fragments of the bell.
When Magnússon visited Thikkvabaejarklaustur looking for traces of the lost monastery, local farmers were still using parts of the old buildings. The sea had receded and the ruins were on a rise surrounded by marshes, and fairly inaccessible. But in 1755, Mount Katla (“The Great Kettle”) exploded in a massive eruption and most of what Magnússon had seen was buried under a thick layer of volcanic ash. Winds and natural erosion further erased the remains of the monastery. Eventually the area was slowly repopulated, and in 1873 a small wooden Lutheran church was erected on top of the old cemetery.
Thordur the Elf
I HAD RENTED A CAR to drive out to the grounds of the monastery. When I went downstairs for breakfast, however, I found my landlady, Arna, in full gear and ready to go. “I am coming with you,” she announced. “We can take my car if you pay for the gas.” I was glad to have the company of a native speaker.
The fog was low when we left the city; a light rain was falling. We drove across the black lava fields of Mosfellsheidi (Mosfellheiði) and into the mountains, and the clouds lifted just enough to reveal the snow dappled peaks of Heidin Ha (Heiðin Há). The temperature was surprisingly mild. Although southern Iceland lies just below the Arctic Circle, the climate is relatively temperate thanks to the warming effect of the North Atlantic currents. Even in winter the temperatures seldom drop much below freezing. As we drove by a ski station, Arna said there had been so little snow during the winter that the runs had been closed before the end of the season.
The road ran down the mountains toward Hveragerdi (Hveragerði; “Hot Spring Gardens”), a small town at the epicenter of very intense geothermal activity. We passed by several rows of industrial greenhouses lit up by giant lamps. “They are heated by underground gases and hot sulfurous water,” Arna said. “Vegetables and flowers grow all year round.”
Some greenhouses were filled with ripe tomatoes, eggplants, peppers and even bananas; others with roses and lilies. I mentioned the monks’ winterized gardens to Arna and told her about Messer Nicolò’s fascination with their ability to bake bread without having to light a fire. She nodded back, showing little surprise.
Before leaving Hveragerdi we stopped for gas. Arna went into the general store and came back with a sliced loaf of rich, dark, sweet-tasting bread baked locally in ovens heated just like they were six centuries earlier at Thikkvabaejarklaustur. “Pottbraud,” she said, handing me a slice. “No need to light a fire.”
We drove across the black plain of Selfoss and through the towns of Hella and Hvolsvöllur. On both sides of the road, razor-edged blocks of lava were strewn haphazardly on the
flats, mixed with spherical boulders and perfect cones. The effect was of a dark, metaphysical landscape. Mount Hekla, Iceland’s fiercest volcano, loomed to our left. It was famous all over Europe for its destructive force even in the Middle Ages. I had seen a small drawing of it on one of the first maps of Iceland, and this intimidating Latin caption: “Perpetuis damnata ira et nivibus horrendo boatu lapides evomit”—“Cursed with eternal ire and snow, Hekla vomits rocks with a hideous sound.”
We passed quietly by the sleeping beast.
“ON YOUR way to Thikkvabaejarklaustur you should stop in Skógar to talk to Thordur Tomasson,” Steinunn had said to me in Reykjavik. “No one knows the history of the southern region like he does.”
Skógar is a small community around Skógafoss, the great waterfall where the melted ice of the Mýrdal Glacier comes crashing down at sea level. They say Thrasi, the first settler in Skógar, hid his treasure behind the sheet of water. One day a young farmer managed to get hold of the iron ring that served as a handle and tried to yank the chest out from behind the waterfall. The handle came off and the chest remained where it was—people say it is still there and that on sunny days one can see the gold shimmer in the spray. The iron ring, on the other hand, is on display at the small folk museum in Skógar that Thordur Tomasson founded thirty years ago.
Thordur was standing at the door of the museum as if he had been waiting for me. He looked like an Icelandic elf: a short man, with a crinkly face and tufts of white hair sprouting from his ears and nose. He was close to ninety, I later learned, but a boyish twinkle lit up his eyes. His generous warmth was magnetic. I felt an urge to hug him—only to realize that he had already wrapped himself around my waist and was holding me very firmly in an awkward embrace.
Thordur told me that he first started poking around the site of Thikkvabaejarklaustur as a young archaeologist in the early 1950s. The monastery had long been buried under layers of ash and debris, but in those days parts of the original buildings were still visible. They could be reached by a raised dirt road that crossed the surrounding marshes. Even though there was very little to see, Thordur was impressed by the way the building stones had been cut. “They were a testimony to the extraordinary craftsmanship of the old masons who lived in the area.”
Irresistible North Page 10
