This work formed the basis of Undset receiving the 1928 Nobel Prize in Literature, which was awarded to her "principally for her powerful descriptions of Northern life during the Middle Ages".

After an attempted rape raises questions about her reputation, she is sent to Nonneseter Abbey, Oslo, a Benedictine nunnery, which proves to be a turning point in her life.

Despite being betrothed to a neighboring landowner's son, Simon Darre, Kristin falls in love with Erlend Nikulaussøn, from the estate of Husaby in Trøndelag.

Out of shame, she keeps this a secret from everyone, including Erlend, and is wed with her hair loose and wearing the family bridal crown — privileges reserved for virgin brides.

This section of the trilogy is named for the golden wreath Kristin wears as a young girl, which is reserved for virgins of noble family.

It symbolizes her innocent life before she meets Erlend; after he seduces her, she is no longer entitled to wear it, but does so out of fear of her sin coming to light.

After confessing to her parish priest, Kristin undertakes a pilgrimage to St. Olav's shrine in Trondheim to do penance and give thanks for her son's birth.

During these years, her parents die and her remaining sister Ramborg is married to Simon Darre, although he secretly still loves Kristin.

During this time, in part to spite Kristin's coldness towards him, he has a one-night affair with another woman, who finds letters on him related to the plot and turns him in to the authorities.

After a fierce argument on this subject in which she compares him unfavorably with her father, who had preserved his estate and inheritance even as more and more farmers around him were taking on debts and losing their land to the crown, Erlend leaves the manor and settles at Haugen, the former home of his aunt Aashild and the place where she was murdered by her husband.

Erlend immediately sets out for Jorundgård, but upon his return to the farm he is slain in a confrontation with the locals and dies, without a confession to the priest, in Kristin's arms after asserting her innocence.

The unfortunate life of Olav, the main character of "The Master of Hestviken", stands in stark contrast to the happiness and good fortune of the young couple, though Kristin's parents eventually lose all their sons in infancy, and suffer many other misfortunes and sorrows.

Undset also wrote a few historical figures into the novel: Kristin Lavransdatter was notable and to some extent controversial in its time for its explicit characterization of sex in general and female sexuality in particular; and its treatment of morally ambiguous situations.

Archer and Scott's translation has been widely criticized as clouding Undset's prose, rendering it unnecessarily formal and clumsy.

Bruce Bawer, writing in The New York Times, described the translation as "execrable" and "crammed with hoary medievalisms",[2] while a review from the National Book Critics Circle characterized the language as "relentlessly faux".

The staunch realism of Kristin Lavransdatter stands in contrast to the romanticized presentations of the Middle Ages popularized by Pre-Raphaelites and Arthurian myth.