Location: Lake Ringsjön, Höör Municipality Map
Found: originally constructed in 1080 as a monastery by the monks from the Benedictine order
Official site
Bosjökloster or Bosjo Abbey is a actually a former monastery that stands on the shores of Lake Ringsjön in the Höör Municipality of Sweden. Bosjökloster Castle was originally constructed in 1080 as a monastery by the monks from the Benedictine order. During Danish Reformation that swept through the region Bosjökloster was disbanded as a religious complex and instead it was turned into a castle for the Danish Royal army. Later in 1560 Danish king Frederick II of Denmark gave Bosjökloster Castle as a present to a noble woman and a widow Thale Ulfstand. Her initials and a date "1569" carving are still visible on the old oak that grows by the entrance of the complex. In 1908 Count Philip Bonde bought the castle and his descendants still own Bosjökloster castle. It is open to the public and houses a restaurant inside. Additionally Bosjökloster Castle serves as a stage for various bands that visit it. You can check the official site for open hours and performances.
Bosjökloster is located on a peninsula between Västra Ringsjön and
Östra Ringsjön, about 6 km south of Höör in the middle of Skåne. Today,
Bosjökloster is connected to the mainland in the north, but in the south
they are separated by a narrow canal. During the Middle Ages, the
southern connection between the two lakes was 700 m wide, and in the
north there was a strait for most of the year. The property was thus
completely surrounded by water. The southern strait was already called
Pramdragh in 1385, which means that there was a ferry here. The first
bridge over Pråmdragarsundet was built in 1866–1870, during the time of
Count Corfitz Beck-Friis.
The Middle Ages
Bosjökloster was one
of three medieval nuns in Skåne. The others were Börringe monastery and
S: ta Maria & S: t Peders monastery in Lund. All nuns belonged to the
Benedictine order. The monastery was built on a large island in
Ringsjön, whose water level before the 19th century was significantly
higher than now.
Through a preserved papal letter, issued by Pope
Lucius III around 1182, the pope takes the monastery under his
protection. The letter states that it could have been founded through a
donation by the great man over Skåne and Halland named Tord Thott "the
bearded" Gaggae, a former Viking chief who was later baptized. Tord
Thott Gaggae was still alive at the time of writing the letter. Tord
donated 31 farms to the monastery, along with half of all fishing in
Ringsjön. The other half would go to the monastery at his death, so that
his soul might rest in peace. It also appears that the convent was
governed by a prioress named Julian, not an abbess. This shows that the
monastery was subordinate to one of the archdiocese's main monasteries,
which had to appoint a prior to monitor its financial transactions. The
first prior was also a monk, Petrus, from the All Saints Monastery in
Lund.
Bosjökloster was a very rich monastery foundation. During
the Middle Ages, the monastery's farm stock was continuously expanded
through donations. In 1525, the entire farm stock amounted to 216 farms
in Skåne. To this possession of goods must be added the one-time fee
that each newly entered nun had to pay. In 1402, for example, the fee
amounted to 20 marks of silver and 1502 to 100 marks of money per
novice. In addition, the monastery was exempt from a number of taxes.
Most of the nuns thus came from the rich Scanian families. There were
several noblewomen in the monastery, from among the families Galen,
Rosensparre and Thott. This was often the solution of the rich families
for daughters whom they did not succeed in marrying off.
Through major renovations in the 19th century, much of the medieval
settlement has disappeared or undergone major changes. The architect and
art historian CG Brunius worked with the church itself in the 1850s,
while Helgo Zettervall in the 1870s changed the eastern and southern
lengths of the castle. The monastery length that once formed the western
side of the monastery had disappeared before but is depicted as a ruin
on a copper engraving from the 1680s.
The monastery church
consists of an apse, a relatively small choir, a very high nave and a
west tower. The apse is special, built of sandstone with vertical
licenses and an exterior, low-lying murnish. It has great similarities
with the apse in the nearby Fulltofta church and can be dated to the
middle of the 12th century. The west tower was added during Brunius'
restoration. Previously, the church bells hung in a free-standing belfry
in the cemetery north of the church. During the rebuilding in the 1850s,
the four small windows that sat at the top on the south side of the nave
also disappeared. Instead, Brunius installed tall windows in both the
southern and northern nave walls.
The nuns have had access to the
monastery church from the second floor in the western length of the
monastery. In 1983, the church's south longhouse wall was examined and a
walled entrance was found high up in the western part of the wall. From
the now-disappeared monastery length, the nuns have thus entered the
church on a wooden balcony to hold their masses. In the western gable
wall, a number of walled-in so-called sound pots were found, which had
the function of amplifying the sound of the nuns' singing. Such sound
pots are usually found in the choir where the chorus was performed. The
placement of the sound pots in the upper part of the western gable wall
supports the theory that this is where the nuns stayed during the mass.
The church cows are also far too small to accommodate the nuns of an
entire convent convention.
In the choir, on the north side of the
arch, there is a well-preserved fresco of Saint Apollonia. The painting
was made in the 15th century after the vault was beaten in the chancel.
Apollonia was a virgin who, according to legend, suffered martyrdom in
the 250s, after having all her teeth extracted. She is therefore still
the patron saint of dentists. In the picture in Bosjökloster's church,
she is holding a large pair of pliers in her hand, in which there is a
protruding tooth. Why this saint was given such a prominent place in the
monastery church is not clear. Perhaps the nuns owned a relic of the
saint that was part of the pilgrimages to the church that the pope gave
several times for.
After the Middle Ages
After the Reformation, the monastery was
drawn into the crown in 1536 and given as a grant to Torben Bille, the
recently deposed Catholic archbishop of Lund. However, the nuns had the
opportunity to stay for the rest of their lives. After Torben Bille's
death in 1551, the grant passed to Hans Barnekow. In 1560 the estate was
divided between Mrs. Thale Ulfstand and Sten Rosensparre. In the same
year, the last nuns moved from Bosjökloster to the former St. Peder's
monastery in Lund.
With Thale Ulfstand, the ancient monastery
came into the hands of a powerful woman. In 1552 she had married Povel
Laxmand, who died five years later. The couple had three children,
Povel, Birte and Holger. Thale Ulfstand came to live as a widow at
Bosjökloster for the rest of her life. On Midsummer's Eve 1562, his son
Holger Laxmand drowned in Ringsjön. He is depicted on a tombstone that
today stands in the church tower tower.
In the choir of the
church hangs on the north wall a large painted epitaph over the noble
families Ulfstand and Laxmand. Below the epitaph is a text indicating
the names and years of death of the depicted. Mrs. Thale Ulfstand kneels
in the middle and her year of death has only been marked with a one. She
was the last to die of all depicted and her year of death 1604 was never
painted there. The epitaph must therefore have been made at the end of
the 16th century.
On a magnificent tombstone in the western
longhouse wall is Mrs. Thale depicted with her husband Povel Laxmand,
died 1557, and their son Poul Laxmand, died 1579. On another tombstone
is her daughter Birte Laxmand with her first husband Peter Bille, died
1581, and Birte Laxmand's second husband Corfitz Grubbe, died 1592. Mrs.
Thale and her husband are also depicted on paintings on the doors of the
altar cabinet. This altar cabinet was probably made in the 1510s and was
donated to the church in 1588 by Birte Laxmand.
After Mrs.
Thales' death in 1604, Bosjökloster soon came into the possession of the
Beck family. In 1628 the castle was taken over by Jochum Beck. He was
one of Denmark's richest men and father of Jacob Beck, ancestor of the
Beck-Friis family. After unsuccessful deals with, among other things,
Andrarum's alum farm, he was forced to sell the estate to the powerful
Corfitz Ulfeldt, married to the Danish king Kristian IV's daughter
Leonora Christina. Corfitz Ulfeldt became a Danish traitor during the
war between Sweden and Denmark 1657–1658, when he joined the Swedish
king Karl X Gustav. After Corfitz Ulfeldt also betrayed the Swedish
king, Bosjökloster was taken over by the Swedish crown, and it was not
until 1735 that Ulfeldt's grandson Corfitz Ludvig Beck-Friis succeeded
in regaining the estate. The origin of the Beck-Friis family is the
Danish ancestral family Beck, who owned Bosjökloster's castle and
Gladsax hus, with several Scanian castles. Baron Lave Gustaf Beck-Friis
(1834–1904), was the last Beck-Friis to own Bosjökloster. When Baron
Lave Beck-Friis died, the castle was sold in 1908, after about 280 years
in the possession of the Beck and Beck-Friis family, to Count Philip
Bonde, in the Bonde family. Count Philip Bonde created a model farm on
the farm.
In 1908, the property was thus acquired by Count Philip
Bonde and his wife, Countess Anna Bonde. Their son Carl-Philip Bonde
eventually took over the property. In 1962, he and his wife Ellen
Bosjökloster's castle opened to the public. Their youngest son Thord
Bonde (born 1941) now runs Bosjökloster, together with his family.
During the 1980s, extensive restorations were carried out on all stable
buildings. The castle complex has tens of thousands of visitors annually
from Sweden and other countries.