Tautra is an

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

Frosta Municipality Frosta is the smallest List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Trøndelag Counties of Norway, county, Norway. The administrative centre is the village of Alstad, Norway, Alstad (also known as ''Frosta''). Other villages in Frosta includ ...

Trøndelag Trøndelag (; or is a county and coextensive with the Trøndelag region (also known as ''Midt-Norge'' or ''Midt-Noreg,'' "Mid-Norway") in the central part of Norway. It was created in 1687, then named Trondhjem County (); in 1804 the county was ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. It is located in the

Trondheimsfjord The Trondheim Fjord or Trondheimsfjorden (), an inlet of the Norwegian Sea, is Norway's List of Norwegian fjords, third-longest fjord at long. It is located in the west-central part of the country in Trøndelag county, and it stretches from Ørl ...

, just north of the city of

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; ), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros, and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2022, it had a population of 212,660. Trondheim is the third most populous municipality in Norway, and is ...

. The island is connected to the rest of the municipality by a long

causeway A causeway is a track, road or railway on the upper point of an embankment across "a low, or wet place, or piece of water". It can be constructed of earth, masonry, wood, or concrete. One of the earliest known wooden causeways is the Sweet T ...

bridge.

The island is located almost in the middle of the

, in the heartland of what once was the central area of the

Vikings Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...

. There are remains of the

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

Tuterø Abbey, a

Cistercian The Cistercians (), officially the Order of Cistercians (, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint Benedict, as well as the contri ...

monastery, that was established here in 1207 and dissolved during the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the papacy and ...

. The monastery was placed strategically, very close to the

Frostating Frostating () was one of the four ancient popular assemblies or things () of medieval Norway. Historically, it was the site of court and assembly for Trøndelag, Nordmøre, and Hålogaland. The assembly had its seat at Tinghaugen in what is n ...

assembly site—the central law-making institution in this region of Norway. In that context, the Cistercian

monk A monk (; from , ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a man who is a member of a religious order and lives in a monastery. A monk usually lives his life in prayer and contemplation. The concept is ancient and can be seen in many reli ...

s of Tautra monastery became a part of the nation-building in Norway. In 2003,

Queen Sonja Sonja (born Sonja Haraldsen; 4 July 1937) is Queen of Norway as the wife of King Harald V. Sonja and the then Crown Prince Harald had dated for nine years prior to their marriage in 1968. They had kept their relationship a secret due to the ...

laid the

cornerstone A cornerstone (or foundation stone or setting stone) is the first stone set in the construction of a masonry Foundation (engineering), foundation. All other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entir ...

Tautra Abbey Tautra Abbey () was a monastery of Cistercians, Cistercian monks founded in the 13th century on the island of Tautra in the Trondheimsfjord in Norway. The island is part of Frosta Municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. Tautra Abbey was dissolve ...

, a new

Cistercian nunnery Cistercian nuns are female members of the Cistercian Order, a religious order of the Catholic Church. History The Cistercian Order was initially a male order. Cistercian female monasteries began to appear by 1125. The first Cistercian monastery ...

on the island. A large part of the island and its surrounding water is designated as protected under the

Ramsar Convention The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of Ramsar site, Ramsar sites (wetlands). It is also known as the Convention on We ...

due to the rich bird life in the area. Now, there are organized professional guided tours for bird watching as well as about the nature and history on Tautra.

References

External links

Tautra Abbey
{{authority control Ramsar sites in Norway Islands of Trøndelag Frosta

See also

References

External links