Urnes Stave Church ( no, Urnes stavkyrkje) is a 12th-century
stave church
A stave church is a medieval wooden Christian church building once common in north-western Europe. The name derives from the building's structure of post and lintel construction, a type of timber framing where the load-bearing ore-pine posts ar ...
at
Ornes, along the
Lustrafjorden
The Sognefjord or Sognefjorden (, en, Sogn Fjord), nicknamed the King of the Fjords ( no, Fjordenes konge), is the largest and deepest fjord in Norway. Located in Vestland county in Western Norway, it stretches inland from the ocean to the sma ...
in the municipality of
Luster in
Vestland
Vestland is a county in Norway established on 1 January 2020. The county is located in Western Norway and it is centred around the city of Bergen, Norway's second largest city. The administrative centre of the county is the city of Bergen, where t ...
county,
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...
.
The church sits on the eastern side of the fjord, directly across the fjord from the village of
Solvorn and about east of the village of
Hafslo. It is among the oldest stave churches in Norway, with parts of the lumber construction dating from the latter half of the 11th century. The church was built in a
long church basilica plan inspired by medieval Christian churches, with cylindrical columns and semi-circular arches inside. The decoration on
capitals of the columns and outside of the church embodies the visual evidence of the
Viking culture’s transformation, assimilation, and adoption of Christianity. The north portal of the church is defined as the Urnes style, which contains decorations derived from Norwegian mythology dating back to the 12th century.
It has been owned by
Fortidsminneforeningen
Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments ( no, Fortidsminneforeningen) is an organization focused on conservation preservation in Norway.
The Society was founded in 1844. The founders were painters, historians, art historians ...
(Society for the Preservation of Norwegian Ancient Monuments) since 1881. In 1979, the Urnes Stave Church was listed as a
World Heritage Site
A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...
by
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
.
Context
Stave church
A stave church is a medieval wooden Christian church building once common in north-western Europe. The name derives from the building's structure of post and lintel construction, a type of timber framing where the load-bearing ore-pine posts ar ...
es in Norway can be dated back to 10th–11th century. Stave churches are wooden buildings in a three-dimensional cubic structure covered with wall planks; the frame of the overall structure is constructed with timber balks and the wall planks are fitted into the frames where convenient.
The word "Stave" ( no, Stav) means sturdy wood columns that are the corner posts and columns which uphold the overall architectural structure.
The Stave Style can be defined as using the upright wall planks.
The Urnes Stave Church was built around the year 1130 or shortly thereafter, and still stands in its original location; it is believed to be the oldest of its kind. The 1956 excavation revealed that there are two prior churches built on the same site.
The first church was built during the period of transition to Christianity in the palisade style, in which structural members were embedded into the ground. The second one was built in the latter half of the 11th century. Both of them were small structures with the nave-and-chancel design.
In the middle of the 12th century, the second church was torn down; the third church, based on some part of the second one, was vastly different from it. It incorporated a central section of nave which is higher above the rest of the building; the framework contains 16 large staves, and defines nave and surrounding aisles. The roof of the central compartment is higher than the roof of aisles.
This design was immensely popular at the time and served as inspiration for later stave churches.
It provides a link between
Christian architecture
Church architecture refers to the architecture of buildings of churches, convents, seminaries etc. It has evolved over the two thousand years of the Christian religion, partly by innovation and partly by borrowing other architectural styles as ...
and the architecture and art forms of the
Viking Age
The Viking Age () was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. It followed the Migration Period and the Germ ...
with typical animal-ornamentation, the so-called "
Urnes style
Viking art, also known commonly as Norse art, is a term widely accepted for the art of Scandinavian Norsemen and Viking settlements further afield—particularly in the British Isles and Iceland—during the Viking Age of the 8th-11th centurie ...
" of animal-art.
Architecture
Interior
The entirely wooden churches were built on the classic basilica plan. The main inspiration of the plan was the basilica style of cathedrals in European Christian churches, and the inspiration of the framing the roof lined with boards and the roof covered with shingles was a prevalent architectural technique in Scandinavian countries. The cylindrical columns with cubic capitals and semi-circular arches in the church revealed the borrowing from the spatial structures of Romanesque stone architecture.
In the 17th century the nave of the church, which is a raised central room surrounded by an aisle, was extended southwards. Other elements were also added to the church, including a
baptismal font (1640), a wooden
canopy
Canopy may refer to:
Plants
* Canopy (biology), aboveground portion of plant community or crop (including forests)
* Canopy (grape), aboveground portion of grapes
Religion and ceremonies
* Baldachin or canopy of state, typically placed over an ...
above the
altar
An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, churches, and other places of worship. They are used particularly in paga ...
(1665) and a
pulpit (1693–1695). The
altarpiece, which depicts
Christ
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
on the cross with the
Virgin Mary
Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...
and
John the Baptist
John the Baptist or , , or , ;Wetterau, Bruce. ''World history''. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1994. syc, ܝܘܿܚܲܢܵܢ ܡܲܥܡܕ݂ܵܢܵܐ, Yoḥanān Maʿmḏānā; he, יוחנן המטביל, Yohanān HaMatbil; la, Ioannes Bapti ...
, dates from 1699. Windows were added to the church in the 18th century.
Decoration
The decorations on the outside of the Urnes Stave Church, including wood carvings and sculpted decor, serve as visual evidence of the Viking culture’s transformation, assimilation, and adoption of Christianity.
Strap-work panels were taken from the previous 11th century Urnes Church and then incorporated into the new structure, keeping elements of
Viking tradition alive. The carved decoration of the North Portal, depicting interlaced animals, in this Urnes-style context is one of the last examples of Viking animal ornamentation.
The interior of the Church is more richly decorated than the exterior. The structure is partly held up by a series of 12th century wooden
columns. At the top of the columns, the
capitals are decorated with carvings of human, animal, and vegetal motifs. Some of these capitals contain simple abstracted figures while some contain the traditional interlacing design of the Viking tradition. The Urnes Stave Church is also home to numerous medieval
liturgical
Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. ''Liturgy'' can also be used to refer specifically to public worship by Christians. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and partic ...
objects for public worship.
North Portal
The portal and other details of the north wall of the present church, as well as the wall planks of the gables, are decorated in classic Urnes-style. They are probably relics from one of the earlier churches.
It has been speculated that the portal may originally have been the main portal, facing west. In mythology and religions, the portal is meant to let people enter into God's house.
In a Christian sense, the portals are the symbolic embodiment in the mortal world of the chaos and struggle with evil in daily life.
Here, the struggle between the serpent with the great beast, as shown in the portal at Urnes, represents the onset of Ragnarok. It is possible that the decoration of the earlier church featured some scenes from
Norse mythology, a likely reason for its premature reconstruction in the 12th century. In this context, the animal may be interpreted as
Níðhöggr eating the roots of
Yggdrasil
Yggdrasil (from Old Norse ), in Norse cosmology, is an immense and central sacred tree. Around it exists all else, including the Nine Worlds.
Yggdrasil is attested in the ''Poetic Edda'' compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional ...
. "The intertwined snakes and dragons represent the end of the world according to the Norse legend of
Ragnarök".
The Urnes style doorway with carved whorls of writhing snakes and vines, in a welter of elongated animals and plants reduced to vines. The most important point of the huge tangle is to present the intertwinedness itself of all living things, animal or vegetable. On the right hand side, about one-third of the way from the bottom a serpent is even emitting a fleur-de-lis from its mouth. The visual characteristic is often referred to by art historians as the Urnes style.
17th century to present
The church is built with a rectangular
nave
The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...
and a narrower
choir
A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which sp ...
. The nave and choir both have raised central spaces. The choir was extended to the east in the 17th century, but this addition was later removed. The drawing by
Johan Christian Dahl depicts this, as well as the deteriorated state of the church at that time. During the 20th century the church underwent a restoration, and the richly decorated wall planks were covered to stop further deterioration.
A large number of medieval constructive elements remain ''in situ'': ground beams (''grunnstokker''), sills (''sviller''), corner posts (''hjørnestolper''), wall planks (''veggtiler'') and aisle wall plates (''stavlægjer''). The construction of the raised central area with staves, strings and cross braces, and the roof itself, also date from medieval times. From the previous church on the site remain, in addition to the portal, two wall planks in the northern wall, the corner post of the choir, the western gable of the nave and the eastern gable of the choir.
The church has not been in ordinary use since 1881, when the parish of Urnes was abolished, and it became a part of
Solvorn parish
A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...
in the
Sogn prosti (
deanery) of the
Diocese of Bjørgvin. It is now only used for special occasions in the parish such as baptisms and weddings.
Interventions to the church building for religious and practical needs have been carried over the centuries. These interventions are still clearly visible; they have provided authentic testimony to social life and religious practices in Norway. Now, Urnes Stave Church is one of the most popular tourist sites in Norway.
Media gallery
Building
File:Urnes stave church, Dahl.jpg, Drawing by Johan Christian Dahl
File:Urnes Stave Church 2.jpg, Front view of the church
File:Stave church Urnes - panorama HDR.jpg, Exterior view of the church site
File:Urnes Stave Church-107982.jpg, view of church and fjord
File:Urnes Stave Church-107972.jpg, view of church and mountain
Carvings
File:La pared original de la Urnes stavkyrkje (I).jpg, Carvings on door jambs and a wall plank of the north wall
File:Urnesportalen.jpg, North door with carved doorjambs
File:Detalle de la Urnes stavkyrkje (V).jpg, Corner column (from one of the earlier churches) on the north wall
File:Detalle de la Urnes stavkyrkje (III).jpg, Lintel of the north door
File:Detalle de la Urnes stavkyrkje (II).jpg, Detail of carving on the left jamb of the north door
File:Detalle de la Urnes stavkyrkje (I).jpg, Detail of carving on left jamb of north door
Interior
File:Urnes pilgrim.jpg, Pilgrim at a capital on top of a stave
File:Urnesmadonnaen1.jpg, Figure of the Madonna
File:Urnes kapitel.jpg, Centaur on the capital of a stave or column
File:Urnes stavkyrkje interioer Wilse.jpeg, Interior view of the church, 1937
Literature
*
References
:''This article is based on a translation of the
corresponding article from the Norwegian Wikipedia, retrieved on 14 April 2005 and updated on 15 October 2005.''
External links
Urnes stave church in Stavkirke.info(in Norwegian)
(in Norwegian)
Fortidsminneforeningens stave church pages(in Norwegian) (there are also English and German pages)
(in Dutch)
{{use dmy dates, date=October 2021
Luster, Norway
Churches in Vestland
Wooden churches in Norway
Stave churches in Norway
World Heritage Sites in Norway
12th-century churches in Norway
Churches completed in 1130
Buildings and structures owned by the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments