Solberga Abbey, Cistercian abbey ruins near Söderport, Visby, Sweden
Solberga Abbey is a Cistercian nunnery founded in 1246 outside Visby's walls, near Korsbetningen. Excavations in the 20th century found the church foundation in the form of a Greek cross, modelled on Vreta Abbey's choir. The site today shows scattered stone foundations and earthwork traces of the convent buildings.
Solberga Abbey was probably a daughter house of Vreta Abbey; on 12 August 1246 Bishop Laurentius of Linköping wrote that the first Cistercian nuns had been sent to Gotland. The abbey was damaged in the fighting between the Teutonic Knights and the Kalmar Union in 1398–1404. In 1404 the abbess and twelve nuns asked the Teutonic Grand Master for help and were given St. Jacob's chapel in Visby, exchanging their ruined buildings, which were then quarried for the town hall and Visborg Castle.
The excavations conducted between 1903 and 1928 revealed mass graves from the 1361 battle, providing insights into medieval warfare and burial practices.
The ruins are accessible by walking eastward from Söderport through the surrounding neighborhood. The path is straightforward and passes through residential areas before reaching the archaeological site.
The cross still standing at Korsbetningen was raised over those killed in the 1361 Battle of Visby, buried in mass graves on the abbey's land just north of the convent area. Twentieth-century excavations found both the graves and the remains of the abbey church, whose foundation had the form of a Greek cross.
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