A Wooden church and Big Man’s Hall at Lisbjerg

Abstract

A Wooden church and Big Man's Hall at Lisbjerg

In recent years it has often been asserted in Denmark that it was powerful families, not parish congregations, that were responsible for early church building. The majestic church at Lisbjerg, close north of Århus (fig. 1) was built in the 12th century of tuffstone, limestone and granite, and in it stood until 1867 the golden altar which is now one of the finest works of Romanesque art in the National Museum in Copenhagen. The golden altar and Romanesque wall paintings suggest that this village church may have had an aristocratic background, but no aristocratic seat was known in Lisbjerg in recent times that could explain why this should be so.

In 1989 Forhistorisk Museum Moesgård excavated just outside the church graveyard to see if there were any traces of a manorial farm from the time when the church was built. The excavation has already been described (Jeppesen and Madsen 1990). In brief, traces were found of a large farmstead with its buildings and a strong palisade fence surrounding the church (fig. 2). However the houses, boundaries and archaeological finds showed that the three phases of the farm dated from the 11 th century and were therefore a century older than the church. In view of its placing in the middle of the farm enclosure it was obvious to suggest that under the existing church lay the remains of an earlier wooden church, providing a chronological link between the farm and the church.

In 1994 there came an opportunity to test this hypothesis when the inside of the nave was to be renovated. An excavation was carried out as a collaboration between the National Museum and Forhistorisk Museum Moesgård, in the course of which almost the whole nave was excavated in several stages (fig. 3-4). Information was obtained about three buildings -the existing stone church, an older wooden church, and a three-phase building belonging to the 11 th century farm. From the early stages of the stone church were found an earthen and a mortar floor, traces of stone-built benches along the outer walls and of side altars on the south and north parts of the chancel wall (fig. 5-6).

Directly under the floor of the stone church were found traces of an older wooden church, seen mostly as an arrangement of six large, mutually similar postholes, three along the northern and three along the southern wall of the stone church (fig.7). In most of the holes the position of the post itself was clearly to be seen. These buried posts carried the roof of the wooden church, and were also part of its wall construction.

It was a remarkable wooden church, for the inner side of its walls had been covered with lime plaster painted mainly in red and yellow (fig.8). On the back of the plaster could be seen impressions of wickerwork, and in some cases of wooden planks (fig.9-10). With the white, painted walls it was clearly the founder's intention to create a church interior recalling those already familiar from contemporary stone churches. The lime plaster was preserved in the form of innumerable small fragments, especially along the course of the wooden church's walls. Fragments were also scattered throughout later deposits including pit fills, but it was striking that not a single piece was present in the stone church's foundation trenches. This means that the building of the stone church began before the wooden church was demolished.

A few of the many graves found during the excavation appear to be from the time of the wooden church (fig.7). This applies especially to two graves in the SE corner of the stone church, which were cut by the stone church's foundations and the side altar.

The width of the wooden church had been ca. six meters, but owing to serious disturbances in both the east and west its length could not be determined, and it was never established whether it had a choir.

Under the wooden church were traces of still older buildings. These were two very deep wall trenches and a row of four unusually large postholes (fig.11-17). A 30-40 cm thick occupation layer between the old ground level and the floor of the stone church appeared to overlie these features. This was clear in the case of wall trenches a and b, but conditions were less clear for posthole row c. The wall trenches and the row of posts ran at an angle to the long axes of both the wooden and the stone church, but parallel with the northern fence of the surrounding enclosure and the long houses associated with it. The agreement in orientation must indicate that these remains of older buildings under the church had belonged to the farmstead.

Wall trench a (fig.12-13) was half a meter wide and at intervals of 2.5 m had postholes with clear traces of shaped posts in them. Between these roof-bearing posts were traces of a double plank wall. Also wall trench b (fig.11) had been a half meter wide, but its eastern part is distinctly wider, apparently because it had been redug. In the well preserved parts of the trench there was 1.5 m between the holes belonging to roof supporting posts. No traces of the wall could be identified, but in the western part of the trench there were traces of some curious, slender and very deep stakes at intervals of 30 cm (fig.15 and 14). Wall c was represented by four large, mutually similar postholes (fig.11). It could be seen from the fills that they had been dug up and removed (fig.16-17). These could not be the interior roof-bearing posts of the buildings indicated by wall trenches a and b, because, as already said, there were roof­bearing posts in the trenches.

Wall lines a, b, and c may be interpreted as belonging to three phases of the same building, which owing to its placing in the middle of the enclosure must have been the main building of the farm. The deep wall trenches and postholes indicate a fine building, and also contained a small amount of pottery of the same Viking type as was found in the farm (fig.18). That there were three phases shows that features a-c, like the farm itself, remained standing for many years.

If we wish to understand how the farm enclosure, the wooden church, and the stone church interrelated, we have to examine the dating evidence. The large fenced enclosure is dated to the 11th century or around 1100 by its building types and small finds. The existing stone church is normally assigned a date of around 1150. The golden altar from Lisbjerg is dated by tree rings to around 1135, and if it was made specifically for the church at Lisbjerg this was probably built during the early decades of the 1100's. The archaeological evidence shows that the wooden church must be placed after the demolition of the farm and before the construction of the stone church. This means that it must be from the end of the 11th century or around 1100. A degree of contemporaneity is possible between the farm and the church, and the church could have been built inside the farm enclosure after the main building had been demolished. However another possibility is that the whole farm was demolished before the wooden church was built, for its orientation diverges, as said, somewhat from that of the farm. Still, the farm and the church were so close together in time that there must be some connection between them.

The farm must have belonged to a big man. The perimeter fence was unusually large and probably deliberately underlined the high status of the site. It has earlier been claimed on cadastral evidence that there had been a big man's farm at the place. Being situated in the main settlement in the large Lisbjerg herred the farm may have had administrative functions. The first evidence of the system of division into herreds is from 1085, but it was probably considerably older. In view of his powerful position it was natural that it should be the big farm's owner that built the first Lisbjerg church. It is thought that cultic cere­monies in heathen times sometimes took place at big men's farms, and there could have been cult continuity at Lisbjerg in the sense that the wooden church was placed directly on top of the old place of ritual, the big man's hall. However it is questionable whether the excavation results should be interpreted in so handfast a manner. If this was the principal motive for the location of the first church, the same should have been observed when many other churches were excavated. When cult at Lisbjerg continued at the same place after the introduction of Christianity, it ought rather to be understood as an expression of continuity of power, extending apparently into the Middle Ages, when the stone church with its golden altar appears to reflect having a big man as founder in the 12th century as well.

The written sources show that in the Middle Ages Lisbjerg belonged to the bishop of Århus. It is therefore possible that the farm at Lisbjerg was originally a royal farm, and was transferred to the see when Svend Estridsen, king of Denmark, in around 1060 made Århus the seat of a bishopric. In 1604 the historian Arild Huitfeld gives the information that Århus was moved from Lisbjerg to its present location in 1102. It is known today that Århus developed where it now is as early as 900, but there may be the grain of truth in Huitfeldt's remarks that it was the episcopal residence that was moved from Lisbjerg to Århus in 1102 when the building of the town's first cathedral was completed. According to this information the wooden church in Lisbjerg could have been erected by either the king or the bishop, and the farm laid down when the bishop moved to Århus. In all events the archaeological observations do not make this question any clearer.

Jens Jeppesen og H. J. Madsen