No Society is an Island: Skriđuklaustur Monastery and the Fringes of Monasticism

The prevailing view has long been that the monastic houses operating in medieval Iceland functioned somewhat differently than their counterparts elsewhere in Europe. The results of an archaeological investigation of the ruins of the Augustinian monastery of Skriđuklaustur in East Iceland (1493–1554) show how the objectives of monasticism appeared in the buildings and artefacts uncovered. The investigation reveals how social systems can cross borders without necessitating fundamental change apart from that triggered by the constant process of hybridization. No less importantly, the results from the Skriđuklaustur monastic site demonstrate that cloistral institutions, wherever they operated, should by no means be observed as a passive element of monasticism. Rather, they should be approached as interactive participants in developments across regions and time.