#munkholmen

Although the islet of Munkholmen owes its name to a monastery that was established there (meaning Monks’ Islet in Norwegian), it was formerly used as a place for executions and where a number of severed heads from the bodies of their owners greeted sailors entering the Trondheim Fjord.

In the time of King Olav Tryggvason, towards the end of the 10th century, it was already known for the executions carried out there by the jarls (which in Scandinavian-occupied England would eventually give rise to the common title of earl, equivalent to lord) of Lade.

Later, the local rulers decided to change the location of the decapitated heads to Trondheim, so that citizens would think twice before engaging in crime. In a society where the Viking custom of plundering distant lands was so ingrained, the drastic way of protecting their homeland is quite a contrast.

By the 12th century Benedictine monks were living in an abbey called Nidarholm. Its foundation is attributed to Canute the Great, king of England, Denmark and Norway in the early 11th century, but it is also dated to around 1100 under the patronage of St Benedict and St Laurence.

During the Middle Ages, the monastery burned three times, and by the time of the advent of the Lutheran Reformation in Scandinavia it was in ruins, until its physical disappearance in the 17th century, when the islet was fortified.