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Aspa is the collective name of both the farm and the group of interrelated Norwegian families of noble origins in Møre og Romsdal, a fylke (county) in southwestern Norway. Several members of this group played significant roles in the political and ecclesiastical history of Norway in the Middle Ages. The group's name comes from its origin, the two farms on the island of Aspøya in the present municipality of Tingvoll, also in Møre og Romsdal – Aspa and Boksaspa.
The Family
Most of the family can be divided into three main branches:
The first certain members of the clan were Aslak Jonsson (died before 1463) and his wife, Lady Gro. The title of "Lady" suggests that she was previously married to a knight.
Aslak was mentioned in 1443, when he willed his estate, including one-half of the Aspa farm to his daughter Jorann, who was married to Trond Toraldsson. They were the parents of the 25th Archbishop of Nidaros, Olav Trondsson (d. 1474). His brother Ivar Trondsson of Aspa (mentioned 1453–1489) inherited the farm from his mother. It is possible that he married to a woman from the Teiste family, the clan that might have produced Hans Bjørnsson Teiste, the 29th Bishop of Bergen.
Olav and Ivar donated, in 1473, a large part of their lands, consisting a number of farms in Nordmøre, to the Nidaros Cathedral for a period of 30 years but a hundred years and several lawsuits would pass before the donation was returned to the Aspa family. On 11 September 1578 in Trondheim, the Herredag declared Ivar's grandson, Auden Tostensson of Aspa, the rightful heir to all the original Aspa properties of the Cathedral.
Auden's daughter's son Auden Ågesson settled at Molde, as the owner of several farms, including Reknes. In other branches of the clan, the surname Trygge occurred later but its origins are uncertain.
There is a prevailing theory among the Norwegian genealogists that Jorunn, the mother of the 28th and last Catholic Archbishop of Nidaros, Olav Engelbrektsson, might be from the Aslak Jonsson branch of the Aspa family as the daughter of Ivar Trondsson from Frei in Nordmøre, and the niece of Olav Trondsson, the 26th Archbishop. But, throughout the lives of Jorunn and her son, the records were more concerned with the church, the politics and the wars than with the families. So there may not be enough evidence to prove that Jorunn was the niece of Olav Trondsson and the mother of Olav Engelbrektsson as well as the sister of the 26th Archbishop of Nidaros Gaute Ivarsson, and the grandmother of Torbjørn Olavssøn Bratt, the first Lutheran "superintendent" of Trondheim. Engelbrektsson did help with the education and careers of Torbjørn and his brother, Jens Olavssøn Bratt, but their biographies at Norsk Biografisk Leksikon do not name him as their uncle and Jorunn as their grandmother.