Aalborg Greyfriars' Abbey

Facts

Levelled to the ground

By Johnny Grandjean Gøgsig Jakobsen, Postdoc, Ph.D. Nordisk Forskningsinstitut, KU (13 stories)

The abbey in Aalborg was the home of Franciscan monks (also called greyfriars") during the Middle Ages. It was established in about 1240-50. The Franciscans were an order of mendicant friars who were not permitted to own worldly goods and eked out a living from begging. In the 1530s, around the Reformation, the abbey functioned as a hospital for a short while. It was then demolished. The foundations from the monastery's north-eastern corner, which are still visible today, now belong to the Greyfriars Museum attached to Aalborg Historical Museum. "

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The greyfriars kicked out of Aalborg

Story written by Johnny Grandjean Gøgsig Jakobsen

Time / Periode 1250 1530

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After being a feature of Aalborg for almost 300 years, the grey-robed Franciscan monks were unceremoniously kicked out. While the Reformation was raging, the King's vassal at Aalborghus, Axel Gøye, allowed the abbey to be harassed and plundered. The friars felt forced to leave town in 1530 after considerable trouble and countless insults", as they put it. The abbey in Aalborg was not alone. Throughout the kingdom, Franciscans, Dominicans and Carmelite monks shared the same fate from 1528-36. While other monastic orders were treated with more kindness, the King and the Protestant party wanted the mendicant friars out at once. They were seen as stalwarts of Catholicism. So the deserted abbeys were quickly demolished or put to other uses, such as hospitals or town halls. The greyfriars' abbey in Aalborg was probably levelled as early as in 1540. "