Vä is a former town in
Scania
Scania ( ), also known by its native name of Skåne (), is the southernmost of the historical provinces of Sweden, provinces () of Sweden. Located in the south tip of the geographical region of Götaland, the province is roughly conterminous w ...
, now a village in the
municipality
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality' ...
of
Kristianstad
Kristianstad ( , ) is a Urban areas in Sweden, city and the seat of Kristianstad Municipality, Scania County, Sweden with 41,198 inhabitants in 2023. Since the 1990s, the city has gone from being a garrison town to a developed commercial city, ...
in
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
, ca 5 km southwest of the town of
Kristianstad
Kristianstad ( , ) is a Urban areas in Sweden, city and the seat of Kristianstad Municipality, Scania County, Sweden with 41,198 inhabitants in 2023. Since the 1990s, the city has gone from being a garrison town to a developed commercial city, ...
.
History
The name stems from the old Danish word ''væ'', meaning "cult place" or "holy ground".
Vä Church is one of the oldest stone churches in Sweden, and contains some of the oldest and most monumental
church murals in Sweden.
The first written mentioning of Vä as a town is from the 1250s, but already in the early 13th century, the place is mentioned in the
Danish Census Book, by King
Valdemar. The town was burnt many times. Most notable are the burnings by
Karl Knutsson in 1452,
Svante Sture in 1509, in 1569 by the Swedish duke Charles (later king
Charles IX).
In 1612 the Swedish King
Gustaf II Adolf burned Vä. Vä was the largest settlement within 24 Danish parishes which the young Swedish king burned down.
[Moberg, Vilhelm (1971). ]
History of the Swedish People Vol. 2: From Renaissance to Revolution
'. Transl. Paul Britten Austin, University of Minnesota Press, 2005, . (Swedish original: ''Min Svenska Historia II''. Nordstedt & Söners Förlag, 1971).
The destroyed town was two years later replaced by ''Christianstad'' by the Danish king
Christian IV, which was built in 1614 on the island of ''Allø'', today's Kristianstad. The destroyed Væ lost its privileges as a town and became a substitute for the farmers from nearby villages of ''Næsby'' and ''Nosaby'', who had in their turn had to give up land to build Kristianstad, along with the former town of
Ã…hus.
Today, there are some remains of the former church buildings; in addition to the church, there is also an old wall with pillars and a brick cairn that was the old church of
Saint Gertrude and remains of old streets.
References
Sources
Nordisk FamiljebokSalmonsens konversationslexikon
Populated places in Skåne County
{{Skåne-geo-stub