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Kristin Lavransdatter

In fourteenth-century Norway, Kristin, daughter of the landowner Lavrans in the Gudbrandsdal valley, defies her betrothal for a passionate, ruinous love, and lives out a long life of desire, guilt, motherhood and faith that ends amid the Black Death. Undset's Nobel-winning trilogy maps a real medieval Norway: the valley farm of Kristin's childhood, the cathedral city of Nidaros where she seeks absolution, the convent at Oslo, and her husband's estate in Trøndelag.

Lavrans

Jørundgaard (the valley farm)

The Wreath

On her father's prosperous farm in the Gudbrandsdal valley, Kristin grows up loved and devout under the gentle, upright Lavrans. Undset draws the settled world of a medieval Norwegian estate, its seasons, faith and family honour, the ordered life against which Kristin's headstrong passion will break.

The Wreath

inspired by Kristin's childhood home, Jørundgaard in the parish of Sil, is drawn from the real Gudbrandsdal valley around Sel where Undset set it; sited there.

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Kristin

The convent at Oslo

The Wreath

Sent to the convent at Oslo to be schooled and to cool after a scandal, Kristin instead meets the charming, disreputable Erlend Nikulaussøn and falls hopelessly in love. In the medieval town she breaks her betrothal in all but name, setting herself against her father and her faith in a choice she will spend her life answering for.

The Wreath

explicit Kristin is sent to a convent at Oslo, the real medieval town, where she meets Erlend; sited in the city.

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