Vreta Abbey

The monastery Vreta lay in the present Swedish municipality of Linköping, west of Lake Roxen. Besides the completely intact medieval monastery church Vreta with Hagioskop, a so-called leprosy column, today only a building and restored residual walls.

The monastery was established in 1100 by Inge I. and his wife Helena, on the advice of the Pope and was the first monastery in Sweden. Initially, it was an institution for nuns of the Benedictine order, but in 1162 there was a conversion to the convent for nuns of the Cistercian Order. Here, the monastery also received royal estates and residence of Charles VII, the residence at that time was a simple wooden house, which wanted to replace it with a larger structure, the nuns. This new building had to be restarted due to several fires. The papal legate William of Modena visited the monastery in the middle of the 13th century and allowed the nuns indulgences. This enabled the construction to be completed in 1289 and inaugurated in the presence of King Magnus I.. Through rich gifts from many benefactors to the monastery developed excellent. IngeGerd, a sister of Charles VII, was the first abbess of the monastery, leading this successfully for over 40 years.

1533 the monastery of King Gustav Vasa was rented. He also achieved a conversion of the associated church to the Protestant faith, which led to the slow decline of the monastery. The last abbess died in 1538 and the last nuns left in 1562 to set up.

The monastery ruins were excavated 1916-1926 and larger sections are now north of the monastery church, restored 1914-1917, visible. Found objects, including an extraordinary water pipe made ​​of wood are on display in the adjacent museum.

The only building left completely preserved next to the church is the old granary. The cells in the Cistercian monastery were slightly larger than cells in other monasteries. The nuns had in this Order permission to night other clothes to wear than during the day and therefore the cells had to provide space for changing clothes. Most stones from the former dining hall were used for the development of a tower of the Cathedral of Linköping.