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IMC 2012: Sessions

Session 806: Monasteries in Iceland: In Memoriam of Kjell Lundquist

Tuesday 10 July 2012, 16.30-18.00

Organiser:Steinunn Kristjánsdóttir, National Museum of Iceland / Department of Archaeology, University of Iceland, Reykjavík
Moderator/Chair:Inger Larsson, Institutionen för svenska och flerspråkighet, Stockholms Universitet
Paper 806-aMedieval Icelandic Plant-Names in a European Context
(Language: English)
Inger Larsson, Institutionen för svenska och flerspråkighet, Stockholms Universitet
Index terms: Archives and Sources, Language and Literature - Scandinavian
Paper 806-bFlora and Vegetation at Icelandic Medieval Monastic Sites: Cultural and Possible Relict Plants
(Language: English)
Per Arvid Åsen, Agder Natural History Museum & Botanical Garden, Kristiansand
Index terms: Monasticism, Science
Paper 806-cOn the Edges of the Medieval Monastic World: Skriðuklaustur Monastery
(Language: English)
Steinunn Kristjánsdóttir, National Museum of Iceland / Department of Archaeology, University of Iceland, Reykjavík
Index terms: Archaeology - Sites, Monasticism
Abstract

During the summer of 2009, four medievalists travelled around Iceland to visit the sites of the nine monasteries that operated there during the Middle Ages. In the group there was a landscape architect and garden historian, Kjell Lundquist, a linguist and specialist in vernacular plant-names, Inger Larsson, a botanist and specialist in surviving plants on monastic grounds, Per Arvid Åsen, and a medieval archaeologist, Steinunn Kristjánsdóttir. The aim was to search for the exact placing of the monasteries through ruins, landscape and written evidence of plant-names but also to search for surviving monastic plants on their grounds. The survey certainly provided new information about the monasteries in Iceland, not least as this was the first holistic investigation that was made on all of their grounds. In 2010 some additional research was undertaken. Late in 2010 Kjell Lundquist developed cancer and he died September 9th 2011. This session is held in the memory of Kjell by presenting the results of these investigations in Iceland. Other contributions about investigations on monastic gardens are most welcome as this was Kjell's field of speciality.