Jelling Church

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Jelling Church from the southeast

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jelling (Danish Jelling Kirke ), a Romanesque stone church built before 1100 in Jelling , Jutland , is one of the oldest stone churches in Denmark . At the same location there was previously a wooden church built by King Harald Blauzahn around 965 . Together with the rune stones from Jelling in the churchyard and two Viking Age burial mounds , it has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site in Denmark since 1994 . The church itself belongs to the parish of Jelling Sognwithin the Danish Folkekirke .

location

The church lies in an east-west orientation between two burial mounds. The chroniclers of the 12th century, Svend Aggesen and Saxo Grammaticus , attribute it to Gorm, whom they refer to as king, and his wife Thyra Danebod . This is also pointed out by Jellingstein 1 in the churchyard that Gorm set up in memory of his wife. On this stone, the name DanmarkaR , Denmark is used for the first time . The second, larger rune stone was set up by Harald Blauzahn for his parents Gorm and Thyra and documents the Christianization of Denmark in the text and with the oldest depiction of Christ in Denmark.

The church between the burial mounds (2015)

During excavations between 2006 and 2013, a large ship settlement and remains of a wooden palisade were found. In the center of the 356 m long ship setting is the 8 m high north hill, the so-called Thyra høj , in which the first archaeological investigations in 1820 found a double burial chamber , except for a small, artfully decorated silver cup with gilded interior . The oak wood of the timbered burial chamber was dendrochronologically dated to 959. A Bronze Age burial mound was reused and enlarged for the Viking Age barrow . Both burial mounds and ship settlement are the largest ever found in Denmark. A little later, the ship's settlement was partially built over by the younger and higher south hill. This hill, called Gorms høj , was not, as was long assumed, the barrow of Gorm, but, as excavations in 1861 and 1941 revealed, a mound made of turf shortly after 964 , which King Harald either used as a monument to his mother or was created as a representative thing place . The palisade was 1440 m long. In the middle of the 12.5 hectare, trapezoidal castle complex was also the north hill. The palisade also encompassed the entire nave, the south hill, the area of ​​the church and cemetery and three large Trelleborg-style houses , the post holes of which were found on the edge of the site. With the help of dendrochronology, the expansion of this facility could be dated to 968. It was most likely the royal court of Harald Blauzahn.

The history and adventure center Kongernes Jelling is in the immediate vicinity .

history

Archaeological excavations in the church under the direction of Knud Krogh in 1978/79 showed that there were three wooden or half-timbered buildings, one after the other, of which the oldest was significantly larger than the later stone church. This oldest building was either a particularly representative stave church or possibly no church at all, but a king's hall from pre-Christian times. The two younger buildings, on the other hand, are clearly seen as predecessors of the stone church. A grave was found in the center of the wooden churches . These first churches mainly served the royal court as a place of worship. The fact that the church was completely rebuilt several times in a relatively short time was probably due to fires.

Choir with the frescoes

The construction of the stone church began in the 11th century. At this point in time the Danish royal court had already been relocated to Roskilde and Jelling had lost its political importance, but as a historical place it was still important for the self-image of the Danish empire, as the mention by Saxo shows. During excavations in the church in 2011/12 it was found that the rectangular, 9.5 × 7.5 m choir is older than the nave . Today's choir was originally the nave, which was followed by a small, retracted choir. The royal tomb, the exact location of which may no longer be known at the time of construction, was outside this first small stone church. Around 1100 the church was extended to the west, whereby the choir was broken off. Such conversions were more common, for example in the somewhat younger St. Mary's Church in Hattstedt . In Jelling it can be related to the fact that the court church had become a parish church for the now larger Christianized population. The former nave was shortened a bit when it was converted into a choir and decorated with frescoes , which are among the oldest in Denmark. Stylistic features indicate an influence by Byzantine art .

The church with the tower and the rune stones between the burial mounds on a depiction by Ole Worm (1643).

In the following centuries the church was rebuilt several times. In the 15th century it received a Gothic tower , which was destroyed in the fire in 1679, in which the medieval inventory was also lost, and was not rebuilt, which is why it only barely towers above the nave . A chapel attached to the north of the choir was later demolished. The current armory in front of the south portal replaced an older extension in the 19th century. The vault in the choir, which was drawn in in 1620 , collapsed in 1874. In this context, the frescoes that had been hidden under plaster for centuries were rediscovered. The choir, like the nave, was then given a flat wooden ceiling again . In 1935 the windows, which had been enlarged or walled up in the meantime, were taken back to their small Romanesque shape. The only real Romanesque window is the east window of the choir. During the renovation in 2000, the interior of the church was redesigned by the artist Jørn Larsen. The whole church was given a new, uniform furnishing, with the windows and floor as well as the retained old pieces of equipment being included in an overall concept. This also was Marcussen & Son - Organ rebuilt in 1960 and expanded.

Furnishing

From the medieval equipment only has baptismal font made of granite obtained which is left of the chancel arch. On the right side there is a pulpit from the Renaissance period . In sounding board one's monogram of King Christian V attached.

Apostle figures

The six medieval apostles with Catherine of Alexandria

Six of the figures of the apostles and St. Catherine of Alexandria date from around 1500 and probably belonged to an altar that was described as derelict and which the Jellingen community bought cheaply from the church in Middelfart in 1715 . According to a later description of the altar in Jellingen Church, the three paintings included nine figures of saints painted white , some of which were identified by their attributes , including Simon Peter , James the Elder and St. Catherine, who crowned the structure. Because this altar stood in the way of the redesign of the choir room after the collapse of the choir vault and the finding of the frescoes in 1874 and was also viewed as worthless, the figures were given away and the pictures hung up elsewhere for a short time before they were disposed of. In 1893, the National Museum learned that the altar had been removed from the church and urged its replacement. However, it was only possible to get back six apostles and St. Catherine because the remaining figures had been sold. The seven figures were attached to the organ gallery. In 1980 the woodcarver Henry Bayer added the remaining apostles, which have been attached to the south side in the tower room in front of the organ opposite the old apostles since the renovation in 2000.

Frescoes

The medieval frescoes on the north and east sides of the choir were found under the plaster in 1874, but were so poorly preserved that they could not be preserved with the technology of the time. Magnus Petersen (1827–1917) drew the original frescoes in 1875 and replaced them with copies on the newly plastered wall. He filled in the gaps with scenes that seemed to fit a cycle of the life of Jesus . This cycle begins after the reconstruction of 1875 on the north choir wall with Mary's encounter with Elisabeth. At the point at which the later walled breakthrough had become a no longer existing northern cultivation completely destroyed the frescoes, added Petersen, the Magi , the baby Jesus and his in postpartum pay lying mother her visit. After a window, John the Baptist is shown as a preacher, clearly identifiable by the writing tape with the words VOX CLAMANTIS , "voice of the calling", from Mt 3.2  EU . On the east wall you can see the baptism of Jesus with angels holding Jesus' clothes and a towel and on the other side of the window a scene under arcades, which Petersen understood and designed as Jesus (left) in front of Pontius Pilate enthroned in the middle . In 1926 the painter Johan Thomas Skovgaard added the pictures on the south wall, where no original frescoes have been preserved. They show scenes from the Easter story : the crucifixion , the risen Christ and the meeting of women with the angel at the empty tomb.

However, Poul Nørlund proved in 1942 that Petersen's reconstruction was wrong. Based on Petersen's drawings and in comparison with contemporary images from the Ottonian period, he interpreted the only fragmentary images as a cycle about the life of John the Baptist, who was often the patron saint of Taufkirchen. Accordingly, the encounter scene shows Zacharias with the Archangel Gabriel . Instead of the kings, of whom only the horn was in the hand of the foremost in the original, there was a scene in which the mute Zacharias tried to tell of his encounter with the angel and finally the name of his with an ink horn in his hand Son wrote down. The birth scene therefore did not show the birth of Jesus, but that of John, with Mary present in the background. Like Petersen, Nørlund interpreted the following two images as the sermon of the Baptist and Jesus' baptism. On the other hand, he saw the scene to the right of the central window with the figures under arcades as the wedding at Cana , Jesus' first miracle, with Jesus standing raised in the middle and Mary to the left. In connection with the Jelling project, comparisons were made between the Jelling frescoes and the originally preserved frescoes in the churches of Tamdrup and Ørridslev.

View of the organ in the tower room over the floor made of red granite, which was redesigned in 2000, with recessed lines made of black granite. The silver point on the lower left marks the place where Gorm was buried.

Royal tomb

In 1978, during excavations in the church, near the choir arch and thus in the middle of the earlier wooden church, a wooden burial chamber with dimensions of a little more than 3 m in length, approx. 2 m in width and approx. 1 m in height was discovered. The remains of a 35 to 50-year-old man who was around 175 cm tall were found there. The precious grave goods included hundreds of thin gold threads, probably remnants of a garment decorated with gold, and a very high quality strap fitting with animal heads, which, like the silver cup in the burial mound, is assigned to the Jelling style and possibly by the same artist. DNA from the bones could not be obtained because they had been boiled, which speaks for a reburial not long after the actual burial.

It is believed that the person buried was Gorm, whom his Christian-converted son had transferred from the burial mound to the center of his new church. A piece of wood found in the north hill, dated around 965, which was used to raise a capstone of the grave in the hill, also speaks in favor of this reburial. According to this, Harald had his father Gorm transferred from the pagan barrow to the Christian church only a few years after his death and shortly after his baptism. On the one hand, he presented himself as the rightful king of Denmark and Norway in succession to Gorm and, on the other hand, demonstrated his role as a Christian ruler by God's grace , as the rune stone expresses in writing.

After the renovation of the church in 2000, the human remains were buried again under the floor of the church and marked with a tile as the grave of Gorm. When the new granite floor was laid a little later, this tile was covered. Since then, a piece of silver embedded in the pattern on the floor has marked the royal tomb.

See also

Web links

Commons : Jelling Kirke  - Collection of Images
Wikisource: De gamle Kalkmalerier i vore Kirker  - Sources and full texts (Danish)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Klaus Ebbesen: Jelling. Histories of Gorm den Gamle, Thyre Danebod and Harald Blåtand . Gyldendal, 2018, p. 20 .
  2. ^ Klaus Ebbesen: Jelling. Histories of Gorm den Gamle, Thyre Danebod and Harald Blåtand . Gyldendal, 2018, p. 13-15 and 51-53 .
  3. ^ Klaus Ebbesen: Jelling. Histories of Gorm den Gamle, Thyre Danebod and Harald Blåtand . S. 54 .
  4. ^ Thomas Meier: Magdeburg between Aachen and Jelling: Representation architecture as a semiotic system . In: Joachim Henning (Ed.), Europe in the 10th Century, Archeology of a New Age. International conference in preparation for the exhibition "Otto the Great, Magdeburg and Europe" , Mainz am Rhein 2002, pp. 311–322; P. 319.
  5. ↑ Jelling - two king burial mounds, a thousand-year-old church, two rune stones and a Viking castle (German-language site with some maps).
  6. ^ The monument area .
  7. ^ Klaus Ebbesen: Jelling. Histories of Gorm den Gamle, Thyre Danebod and Harald Blåtand . Gyldendal, 2018, p. 19 .
  8. ↑ Jelling project .
  9. ↑ Jelling History and Adventure Center , Danish National Museum (English, Danish).
  10. ↑ a b Kongegraven i Jelling Kirke .
  11. ↑ a b Mads Kähler Holst, Kasper Holdgaard Andersen: Bygningsspor og graven under Jelling Kirke at danmarkshistorien.dk (Aarhus Universitet).
  12. ↑ Thomas Bertelsen: Jelling Kirke - en af ​​Danmarks ældste stenkirker (2017) at danmarkshistorien.dk.
  13. ↑ a b c d e Jelling Kirke .
  14. ↑ a b group of apostles
  15. ↑ Udsmykning
  16. ↑ Kalkmalerierne
  17. ^ Poul Nørlund / Egmont Lind: Danmarks romanske Kalkmalerier . 1942.
  18. ↑ Thomas Bertelsen: Frådstenskirker i Østjylland .
  19. ↑ a b Adam Bak: Nordhøjen i Jelling, approx. 959 at danmarkshistorien.dk.
  20. ^ Thomas Meier: Magdeburg between Aachen and Jelling: Representation architecture as a semiotic system . In: Joachim Henning (Ed.), Europe in the 10th Century, Archeology of a New Age. International conference in preparation for the exhibition "Otto the Great, Magdeburg and Europe" , Mainz am Rhein 2002, pp. 311–322; P. 320.

Coordinates: 55 ° 45 ′ 24.2 "  N , 9 ° 25 ′ 11"  E