Kirkjubøur church stalls
The pews of Kirkjubøur ( Faroese : Kirkjubøstólarnir ) from the early 15th century, is considered the greatest national art treasure of the Faroe Islands .
Namely, a total of 18 frame panels made of pine wood are meant, which show valuable carvings by eleven of the twelve apostles and three other biblical figures. Also, St. Brendan , Bishop Erlendur and King Olav the Holy immortalized. The carving of the 12th apostle is believed to have been lost, and two of the eleven apostles have not yet been identified.
By carbon studies the stalls cheeks could be dated to 1405-10. One of the pillars shows the coats of arms of Erik von Pomerania and his wife Philippa . They married in 1406.
The cheeks were part of St. Olav's Church in Kirkjubøur (built around 1250), which was then the seat of the Diocese of Faroe Islands . It is unclear whether the pillars were not originally intended for Magnus Cathedral , but it was never completed. The carvings were first mentioned in 1817 by the Danish explorer Hans Christian Lyngbye .
In 1874 the church was renovated and there were new stalls. The old cheeks were considered "worthless" and ended up in a warehouse. The clergyman VU Hammershaimb and the bailiff Hannes Finsen recognized the value of the cheekbones and made sure that they were saved. They offered them in a letter to Copenhagen as "ancient relics" and were brought to Copenhagen in the winter of 1874/75 on the mail ship Diana , where they landed at the Royal Museum of Nordic Antiquities, now the Danish National Museum . The purchase price was 200 crowns . Only once, in 1986, were the cheeks shown in the Faroe Islands.
In June 2002 the cheeks were finally returned from Denmark to the Faroe Islands. For Ólavsøka of the same year, the permanent exhibition opened in the basement of the History Museum of the Faroe Islands in Hoyvík on July 27th .
Together with the church stalls, 200 more treasures came back to the Faroe Islands, which complement the exhibition of the stalls on the ground floor of the museum. These are:
- a confessional, the so-called "bishop's throne"
- a choir desk consisting of two ornate side panels
- two cheeks of chairs with carved ornaments, which are obviously of a different origin
- Passion Crosses.
gallery
The Faroe Islands postal administration has issued three series of stamps with pictures of the pews. They were published in 1980, 1984 and 2001. They were engraved by Czesław Słania based on the photos in Krogh's book.
One of the "Seven Faroese Wonders"
For Ólavsøka 2007, Faroese television Sjónvarp Føroya organized a nationwide competition on the “Seven Faroese Wonders”, in which viewers could make any suggestions about special buildings and other objects. A ranking of the eight winners (due to a tie in one case) has not been announced, but the pews are one of them. The others are the Magnus Cathedral , the Christianskirkjan in Klaksvík, the House of the North , Tinganes , the Norðoyatunnilin , the first flag of the Faroe Islands in the Church of Fámjin and the seat of the Imperial Ombudsman in the Faroe Islands (the last two with a tie).
literature
- Don Brandt: Postage stamps tell the story of the Faroe Islands . Self-published, Reykjavík, 1996, ISBN 9979-91944-2 , (Volume I) (Chapter 8, pp. 115 ff.).
- Don Brandt: More stories and stamps from the Faroe Islands . Postverk Føroya, Tórshavn 2006, (volumes I + II).
- Knud J. Krogh: Kirkjubøur Benches and the Cathedral. Light on the Medieval Faroese episcopal Center . Emil Thomsen, Tórshavn 1988, (135 pages).
Web links
- Church stalls - The third series of stalls in the Olavskirche in Kirkjubøur (With a detailed history in German)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Don Brandt I, p. 119
- ↑ Don Brandt I, p. 118
- ↑ Don Brandt I, p. 120
- ↑ Steen Ulrik Johannesen: Turen går til Færøerne . Copenhagen: Politikens Forlag, 2005 (p. 39)
- ↑ Don Brandt I, p. 117
- ↑ Don Brandt II. P. 199
- ↑ portal.fo : Føroyingar hava valt síni undurverk ( Memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (“The Faroese have chosen their marvels”), July 28, 2007