Lund Cathedral
When Lund became the archiepiscopal see for the whole of the Nordic region in 1103, work began on a sandstone cathedral modelled on Rhineland churches. The high altar in the crypt was consecrated in 1123 and the main altar in 1145. The apse with its dwarf gallery and the great crypt survive; the west towers were given their present form by Helgo Zettervall in the 19th century.
At this time Lund lay in Denmark, and when the city became the archiepiscopal see for the whole Nordic region in 1103 it needed a church on a par with the great ones on the Continent. The first archbishop, Asker, started the work. The cathedral’s old necrology mentions a master builder named Donatus, and stonemasons from the Rhineland and Lombardy seem to have worked here, which explains the similarities with Speyer and northern Italian churches. The material is sandstone from the area around Höör, carefully cut into ashlar. The crypt was finished first, and its high altar was consecrated in 1123. The main altar was consecrated in 1145 by Archbishop Eskil. The church was both a religious centre and a statement of power for the Nordic Church, which now became independent of the Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen.
The cathedral is a basilica with a transept and a raised choir above a large crypt. The crypt is a hall crypt with vaults on piers and columns, and here stands the famous pillar with the giant Finn, who according to legend built the church and was turned to stone. To the east the church ends in a semicircular apse with a dwarf gallery beneath the roof, one of the purest Romanesque compositions in the Nordic countries. The nave originally had a flat timber ceiling and was vaulted later. The church also contains 14th-century choir stalls and the 15th-century astronomical clock Horologium mirabile Lundense, which was restored in the 1920s and still performs its procession of figures. The apse mosaic of Christ, however, dates from the 1920s and is by the Danish artist Joakim Skovgaard.
After the Reformation in 1536 the archbishopric was abolished, and in 1658 Skåne became Swedish. When Lund University was inaugurated in 1668 the ceremony took place in the cathedral, which also became an instrument in the Swedification of the province. By the 19th century the church was in poor condition. Carl Georg Brunius began a restoration, and from the 1860s Helgo Zettervall led a radical rebuilding: the west front with its towers was demolished and rebuilt in an idealised Romanesque form, and much of the later furnishing was removed. The result has been criticised as more 19th century than medieval, but it shaped Swedish restoration practice. The cathedral is today Sweden’s most important Romanesque building and was a model for many churches in Skåne and Denmark in the 12th and 13th centuries.