Koldinghus

Koldinghus today, looking from the north, foreground: castle lake

View from the northwest, 1866

Koldinghus is a Danish royal castle in the town of Kolding in East Jutland , which was built in the middle of the 12th century. It burned down in 1808 and remained unused as a ruin for a long time , but was then rebuilt in the course of many years of restoration. Today Koldinghus is used as a museum for the castle history and a place for changing art exhibitions and artistic activities.

From the park around the castle you have a good view of the city of Kolding and the adjacent castle lake. The castle tower offers a 75 meter high view from an observation platform.

History of the Koldinghus

Koldinghus is the last existing royal Danish castle . In its 700 years of existence it played an important role in the history of Denmark . Integrated into the border defense, it served as a royal residence and as the seat of the local representatives of the Danish central government.

After the great fire in 1808 that destroyed the castle, the ruins became an attraction for artists and poets , who sought and found inspiration for their works here. For more than a century, the ruin was an object of various restoration attempts and was eventually converted into a museum of regional history and a place for cultural activities.

Medieval castle

In the middle of the 13th century, the Kolding Fjord and the rivers Kolding Å (German Kolding-Au) and Kongeå (German Königsau) formed the border between the Kingdom of Denmark and the Duchy of Schleswig . The town of Kolding developed into a trading town on this border, exactly at the point where goods traffic between Denmark and Germany had to cross the river. The move to a trading town took place in 1230, when Kolding received town charter. King Erik Glipping (1259–1286) built the first Koldinghus at this important crossing to defend the southern border of the kingdom, primarily against the Counts of Schauenburg and Holstein , who wanted to gain influence over Denmark as Dukes of Schleswig.

During the Middle Ages, Koldinghus became one of the largest and most important fortresses in Denmark due to its special location. In 1320, the nobility forced the Danish King Christopher II (term of office 1320-1326) to sign a hand-fest that considerably restricted the royal rights vis-à-vis the nobility. This included the demolition of most of the royal castles in Jutland, with the exception of Riberhus and Koldinghus. Both castles were strategically located on the southern border of the kingdom. A short time later the castle fell into the hands of the Counts of Schauenburg and Holstein for various reasons, until Waldemar IV. Atterdag , King of Denmark from 1340 to 1375, took back the pledged castle in 1348.

Meetings were often held at Koldinghus Castle. Among other things, Queen Margaret I (1376–1412) and King Erich von Pommern (1412–1439) negotiated here many times with the Dukes of Schleswig about North Schleswig's attitude towards the Danish Kingdom. Here at Koldinghus, the newly elected King Christian I was also received in Denmark for the first time in 1448 when he arrived from Oldenburg in northern Germany. The regular meetings between King Christian I (1448–1481) and the rural aristocracy of Schleswig-Holstein , after he had been elected Duke of Schleswig in 1460 and Count of Holstein in 1474, also took place here.

Today there are no visible traces of the earliest Koldinghus, but various archaeological research has shown that a stone building stood exactly where the current castle was built.

Denmark's first renaissance castle

In 1536 King Christian III came. on the Danish throne after the count's feud (Danish Grevens Fejde) called civil war (1534–1536). After consolidating his power over the local and foreign enemies, he was able to carry out extensive renovations to Koldinghus together with his wife Dorothea . All medieval fortifications and devices that had been used for defense have been removed. The former fortress was converted into a comfortable castle for the king and his family in the western part of the kingdom and intended for the future as a widow's seat for the queen. Koldinghus thus became the first purely royal residential palace in Denmark.

In the years around 1550, the moat that surrounded the Koldinghus was filled in and the southern wing of the castle was built. The west wing with the round archway as an entrance was also added. The former sniper walkway on the roof of the west wing was raised and converted into a ballroom. The oldest picture of Koldinghus dates from 1587 and shows that King Christian III. and Queen Dorothea had also added a turret with a spire to the castle. The walls of the castle were plastered and whitewashed, and green slate was used for the roofs.

King Christian III and Queen Dorothea introduced the Reformation to Denmark. The south-west corner of Koldinghus has been converted into the first royal Lutheran church. The chapel had two floors. It was damaged by fire in 1581 and a few years later King Christian IV replaced it with a new palace chapel next to the Great Tower.

King Christian III died on New Year's Day 1559 on Koldinghus. The castle then became the widow's seat of Queen Dorothea for the next twelve years. Because King Frederick II (1559–1588) did not marry during his mother's lifetime, she claimed the role of first lady in the kingdom for herself as the king's mother . Koldinghus therefore remained a center of power in Denmark. After Queen Dorothea's death in 1571, the castle fell to her eldest son, King Frederick II, who used the building for the administration and development of a large area of royal lands between the cities of Kolding and Skanderborg . As a residential palace, he built the magnificent Kronborg Castle at the entrance to the Øresund .

King Christian IV on Koldinghus

As a child and young man, King Christian IV spent long periods of time at Koldinghus between 1583 and 1593 with a modest number of servants. Among these staff was a head of house who familiarized the prince with basic upbringing. After his coronation in 1596, Christian IV began his extensive construction work with the renovation of Koldinghus. The castle did not meet the requirements of a comfortable royal residence, but was suitable for official representative tasks. King Friedrich II had chosen the entrance to Øresund as the location of Kronborg Castle. It was here that many seafarers first encountered the land under the control of the Danish king. King Christian IV restored Koldinghus to welcome visitors from the south.

Koldinghus, tower

The restoration was necessary because of a fire that broke out in a kitchen in the north wing in 1597. While the wing was being rebuilt, King Christian IV took the opportunity to add a large tower, a feature of Koldinghus that still exists today. He also had a new and larger chapel built. Above the new chapel, a new, large knight's hall was set up along the entire length of the upper floor of the west wing. With a total length of 57 meters, this large hall was the second largest hall in Denmark after Kronborg Castle. In this way the king created a representative framework in which to conduct the affairs of state, receive princes and grant fiefs. The Duke of Gottorf was enfeoffed in the ballroom in 1616.

Hercules fighters, 1890

The ballroom was redesigned in the 17th century and divided into several smaller rooms. The only thing that reminds you of the time of King Christian IV is the stone fireplace on the north wall.

Above the chapel and the ballroom, the king had a large tower built, on the top of which four huge statues of ancient heroes or giants were placed. Each of these giants had a coat of arms of the most important countries of the king: Hannibal the coat of arms of Denmark, Scipio that of Norway, Hercules the coat of arms of Sweden and Hector the coat of arms of the Duchy of Schleswig . Of these figures, only Hercules remained with the Swedish coat of arms, the three crowns, which were a symbol for the Scandinavian Union in the time of Christian IV and emphasized the king's claim to rule over all of Scandinavia .

Christian IV had all the stair towers in the castle courtyard renewed and the new tower decoration with sandstone gates attached. He also initiated the renovation of the fountain in the middle of the castle courtyard with a sculpture depicting happiness, placed in a sandstone basin in the shape of a scallop . The fountain was lost after the castle fire in 1808.

King Friedrich IV at Koldinghus - a baroque palace

The Danish kings of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance constantly toured their country in its full extent. With the introduction of absolute monarchy by the Royal Law in 1660, they moved into permanent residence in Copenhagen and North Zealand and only traveled to Jutland on a few occasions. After the wars against Germany and Sweden in the 1600s and the resulting devastation, Koldinghus remained as the only royal castle in Jutland.

In 1711 King Frederick IV spent many months in his residence at Koldinghus. A bad outbreak of the plague in Copenhagen had displaced all those who could afford to leave the Danish capital. At a masked ball, the King met Anna Sophie Reventlow , the very young daughter of the Danish Chancellor (Danish: state minister), and fell in love with her. A year later he kidnapped her from Clausholm Castle and entered into a morganatic marriage with her . When the Queen died in 1721, King Frederick IV and Anna Sophie married a second time and Anna Sophie became Queen of Denmark.

A large part of the reign of King Frederick IV was determined by the Northern War (1709–1720) between Denmark and Sweden. In 1720, the year of the peace treaty, he began to implement plans to redesign Koldinghus. The castle was the result of generations of building activities at the time. The medieval middle wing and the Renaissance wing did not have the same division of the storey levels, which of course was also reflected in the facades . Now Koldinghus has been transformed into a baroque castle, which complied with the harmony of baroque architecture and its rules. Most of the Renaissance pediments and mansards have been removed. The various storeys were leveled and new windows were installed in horizontal bands and evenly spaced along the entire facade. The only thing that wasn't changed was the shape of the distorted rectangle on the floor plan .

In connection with the renovation of Koldinghus, the great hall disappeared. There was no longer any need for such a large room in the palace for representative occasions, since official state affairs were only conducted in the capital. At that time Koldinghus was just a royal family castle in the country. King Friedrich IV. Had further expansion plans, but they were not implemented.

Fire and ruin

Koldinghus as a ruin, 1890

At the beginning of the 19th century Denmark tried to stay out of the great confrontations that shook Europe in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars . However, in 1807 the English attacked Copenhagen and captured the Danish fleet. The Danish government entered into an alliance with France, whose emperor Napoleon I sent 30,000 troops to Denmark, most of whom were Spanish. These soldiers came under the command of Marshal Jean Baptiste Bernadotte , who later became King of Sweden as Charles XIV. The aim was on the one hand to keep Denmark in the alliance and on the other hand to take part in a campaign against Sweden in order to regain the lost territories of Skåne , Halland and Blekinge for Denmark . The campaign was unsuccessful and the Spanish soldiers got no further than Jutland and the island of Funen . As a result of a coup in August, they sailed back to Spain in English ships to take part in battles against the French occupation of Spain.

Some of the Spanish soldiers were quartered in the old Koldinghus Castle, which for the past few decades had only served as the administrative center. On March 29, 1808, while Marshal Bernadotte was headquartered at the castle, the fire broke out in the chimney of the guard room hearth. Before anyone realized how dangerous the situation was, the fire had spread to such an extent that it couldn't be extinguished with the resources available at the time. They tried to save as much of the furnishings as possible. There was no loss of life. On the second day of the devastating fire, part of the large tower collapsed and fell into the adjacent castle chapel. All that remained of Koldinghus was a charred ruin.

In the spring of 1808 Denmark was again at war. Copenhagen was shelled and the country's economy was in dire shape. In 1813 the Danish state was declared bankrupt . As part of the peace negotiations in 1814, Norway had to be ceded to Sweden. In this situation no one seriously thought of rebuilding Koldinghus. There was no need for a castle as the prefect of the Kolding district had left a few years earlier. Only the local population used Koldinghus as a quarry .

Around 1830 it was also the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen who defended the preservation and protection of the castle ruins, so that the idea of rebuilding the castle in 1863 took shape. In 1849 the ruins became the property of the Danish state. The reconstruction plans were delayed by the German-Danish war in 1864, but at least some donations could be collected to rebuild the ruins. The ruin gained more importance because of its picturesque sight than as a historical monument.

When the Museet på Koldinghus (Eng. Museum auf Koldinghus) was founded in 1890, serious reconstruction began. A series of rooms in the north wing made the humble start, and the entire north wing received a new roof after a few years. The west wing was built during the First World War . Recycled material from the old building of the National Library in Copenhagen, which was converted into the Danish National Archives, was partly used. The library in Koldinghus is the result of this restoration.

In the early 1930s, there were fears that the Great Tower would collapse, but a fund was set up to rebuild the tower. Construction work was largely interrupted during the Second World War and a period of economic depression.

restoration

Interior after the restoration

Overview map: Koldinghus on the left, stables on the right

The last construction program began in 1970. The restoration was carried out under the direction of the architects Inger and Johannes Exner , who wanted to preserve the ruins as a historical monument. The ruin is enclosed and surrounded by new architecture. The restoration work was awarded the Europa Nostra Prize in 1993.

Koldinghus stables

Koldinghus, stables, 2008

The stables (Danish: Staldgård) are in front of Koldinghus Castle and housed the horses of the ruling king and the castle's servants.

The stables were built at the same time as Koldinghus and were both part of the castle, which was built in 1268 on the border between Jutland and Schleswig. The castle stood at the current location of Koldinghus, while the stables were in a lower position bordering the moat to the east and south. The area to the north, where the Schlosssee is today, was a large swamp area at that time, which effectively prevented attacks from the north. Nothing is known about the buildings between the moat and the swamp.

It is certain that these buildings formed the stables from the middle of the 16th century . At that time, these buildings were made of wood, which were gradually replaced by brick structures during the 16th century and are still there today. In the reign of King Christian IV, solid towers were built on the two corners to the east. These were removed later, but parts of the thick tower walls between the offices can still be seen today.

After the Swedish wars from 1657 to 1660, Koldinghus and the stables were structurally reinforced. In the years 1717–1718 King Friedrich IV equipped the stables so that they could be used by the cavalry . Before him, King Christian V had already divided the royal possessions into cavalry districts , whose task it was to look after the riders in the event of war. King Friedrich IV expanded this system and increased its effectiveness. So the Marstall became the base of the first Koldinghus cavalry district.

During the wars with England from 1808 to 1814, the large buildings of the stables were used as a warehouse for military equipment and materials. Fortunately, the great fire on Koldinghus in 1808 did not spread to the stables.

From 1819 to 1842 the stables served as quarters for two squadrons of Schleswig-Holstein's Uhlan Regiment No. 15 , who kept their horses here. From 1845 to 1962 the buildings were used as a stud farm for the army. Later, the premises were used for various purposes, including a. also as a school building for the many small private schools in the city of Kolding.

In 1907, the military took over the use of the stables again, which were equipped as a remonte depot, in which the breeding and training of horses for service in the army took place. This use lasted until 1923. Since then no horses have been kept in the building. The iron rings to which the horses were tied can still be seen in the old stables, and in some areas the paved floors still exist.

After the horses disappeared, the military began using the stables as a depot in 1926. During the last two years of World War II, the headquarters of the Gestapo Jutland and North Schleswig was stationed here. In one of the Gestapo cellars, in which members of the Danish resistance movement were locked up, one can still see traces of names and incised symbols of imprisoned prisoners. The cell is now a protected historical site and part of the Koldinghus Museum. Today the buildings of the stables house offices and training rooms for the “Danish Home Guard” ( Hjemmeværnet ), offices of the city of Kolding, archives, depots and work rooms of the Koldinghus Museum.