Munkholmen
islet north of Trondheim, Norway
Munkholmen (Norwegian: Monk's islet) is an islet in Trondheim Municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. The 13,000-square-metre (3.2-acre) island sits in the Trondheimsfjord about 1.3 kilometres (0.81 mi) northwest of the island of Brattøra and the mouth of the river Nidelva in the center of the city of Trondheim. The islet has served as a place of execution, a monastery, a fortress, a prison, and a World War II anti-aircraft gun station. Today, Munkholmen is a popular tourist attraction and recreation site.
History
In the years prior to the founding of the city of Trondheim in 997 by King Olav Tryggvason, Munkholmen had been used as an execution site by the Jarls of Lade. The arrival of Olav Tryggvason to Norway in 995 coincided with a revolt against Haakon Sigurdsson, who was killed by Tormod Kark. The severed heads of both Haakon and Kark were placed on stakes on Munkholmen facing out into the fjord to serve as a warning to visitors. The tradition of displaying the severed heads of criminals and political opponents was continued for some time, but the heads were now placed so that they faced the city of Trondheim to deter its citizens from committing crimes.
Nidarholm Abbey
The term Munkholmen was not originally in common usage. Rather, the site was known as the location of the monastery at Nidarholm.
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This entry incorporates text from “Munkholmen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.