First, listen to the story and then click on the AR symbol in the image above.

The image shows a tap handle or so-called beer tap found here in Varnhem during one of the excavations conducted over the years. It is an object that probably originates from the monks, who were known for their skill in brewing beer.

The story in text:

Close to the church in Varnhem lie the remains of a Cistercian monastery.

In 1150 the monks arrive, led by Abbot Henrik. They come from the monastery in Alvastra, Östergötland, and have received Varnhem estate as a gift from a certain woman named Sigrid. The Cistercians now begin to construct a monastery and abbey.

However, the monks are soon involved in a conflict with the Queen of King Erik IX (the Holy), Queen Kristina, who wants to take possession of Varnhem. According to a Danish source:

Influenced by the Queen the people of that region immediately began to harass the monks to the degree that the women shamelessly walked into the monastery area to empty their intestines. Indeed when the brothers walked in procession through the monastery on Palm Sunday it even happened that a priest in the neighbourhood dispatched some lewd and indecent women in amongst the monks. The women had left their cloaks in his house and were wearing only chemises.

In the monastery, the women begin to perform crude dances – a shock for the chaste monks of the monastery!

/mediaeval dansmusik och kvinnotjut/

The Cistercian monks flee from Varnhem to Denmark and do not return for 10 years. But in time, the monastery grows and forms close ties to the House of Erik.

If you look out over the monastery ruins it looks perhaps like a jumble of walls and vaults. In the Middle Ages there were a number of different rooms grouped around an inner courtyard. If you look off to the right you can see two narrow vaults between two walls. This was the dining room of the lay brothers – the lay refectory (“cellarium” är visst ett förråd - PF). The arches you can see, however, are reconstructions. In the 18th century the monastery ruins were more or less overgrown. It was not until the 20th century they were cleared and restored. The other rooms included the chapterhouse – which was an important meeting room, dormitories and the kitchen. There was also a dungeon for monks who broke the monastery rules. See if you can find it when you walk around.

The Plague in the mid-14th century weakened Varnhem, as it did the whole of Västergötland, but what became the final downfall of the monastery was the decision in 1527 that monasteries and Church land should be confiscated by the Crown. King Gustav Vasa’s Lutheran Reformation wiped out the culture of the Catholic monks in Sweden.

Do not forget to walk to Kata Farm up on the hill, the farm that was here even earlier.