Husaby Church
According to tradition, Olof Skötkonung was baptised at the spring beside it. The church’s 12th-century west tower, with three spires, is one of the oldest surviving in Sweden. By tradition the church was for a time an episcopal see, and it shows the heavy walls of the Romanesque on the scale of the Swedish countryside.
In the early Middle Ages Husaby was a royal estate, and the name refers to such an administrative farm. According to tradition Olof Skötkonung was baptised here by the missionary Sigfrid in the early 11th century, and Husaby may have been the first episcopal see of Västergötland before it was moved to Skara. No reliable sources confirm the baptism, but the place was clearly important to both crown and Church. The present stone church was built in the 12th century, and its west tower is counted among the oldest surviving in the country. The builder is unknown. The material came from Kinnekulle, where limestone and sandstone lie in layers and have been quarried since the Middle Ages. Kinnekulle’s stonemasons made the district a centre of Romanesque stone architecture with many small churches.
The most striking feature is the west tower. It is broad and massive, and to all appearances inspired by the westworks of the Continent, where the ruler could have his own place high up overlooking the church interior. The tower is crowned by three spires, a larger one in the middle and two smaller ones at the sides, something unusual in Sweden. The nave and chancel have thick walls with small, high-set round-arched windows, giving a dim interior. The church has since been altered several times, and its furnishings come from different periods. Near the church lies the spring where, according to legend, the baptism took place, and nearby are also the ruins of a medieval bishop’s castle, showing that the diocese long retained interests in the place.
Husaby lost its standing when the episcopal see was established at Skara, but the church continued to serve as a parish church and has therefore been preserved. In the 19th and 20th centuries it was restored several times, and views on how much of the medieval fabric should be revealed have shifted. Today Husaby is one of the most important monuments to the Christianisation of Sweden, and the place has acquired a symbolic role as the cradle of the kingdom, even though most of that image rests on late traditions. Architecturally the church shows how Romanesque forms were adapted to Swedish conditions: the same heavy walls and round arches as in the great cathedrals, but on a smaller scale and in local material. Together with the neighbouring churches on Kinnekulle it forms an unusually rich Romanesque landscape.