The Churches of Gotland and Visby: the Middle Ages in Stone

Gotland has more than ninety medieval churches, built in limestone and sandstone from the 12th to the 14th century, and most of them stand almost unchanged. That makes the island one of the densest medieval landscapes in Europe. The churches were built by wealthy farmers, who paid for a church in almost every parish, and building came to an end in the 14th century when trade went to Visby and the Hanseatic League, the Black Death arrived and the Danes conquered the island in 1361. In Visby an almost 3.5-kilometre-long ring wall still stands around the town, and St Mary's, consecrated in 1225, is the only one of the town's medieval churches still in use.

Facts

The Island of Trade

Gotland lay in the middle of the Baltic and in the Viking Age and early Middle Ages became a hub for trade between Russia, the Baltic lands and Western Europe. Gotlandic farmers sailed to Novgorod to trade themselves, and the hoards of treasure on the island are more numerous than anywhere else in the Nordic countries. Christianity gained a foothold in the 11th century, and the island was divided into parishes in which the farmers themselves paid for their churches.

The first churches were often of timber, but in the 12th century people began to build in stone. Limestone was everywhere in the bedrock, and in southern Gotland there was sandstone that could be sculpted. The island's stonemasons therefore had plenty of material, and Gotlandic baptismal fonts were exported to the mainland and around the Baltic. The churches of Gotland have a page of their own among the events, and the word Gotland church is in the glossary.

The Churches: Built in Stages and Then Preserved

A Gotland church has the same basic plan as other Swedish parish churches, with west tower, nave and chancel, as the drawing in the basics shows. But most were not built all at once. A Romanesque tower could remain standing while the nave and chancel were demolished and rebuilt larger and in Gothic style, and so many churches are a mixture of periods. In several churches a large new chancel or tower stands beside a smaller and older nave that never got replaced.

That is the secret of their preservation. In the 14th century Gotland's golden age came to an end. The Hanseatic League and the German merchants in Visby took over trade, and in 1288 a civil war was fought between the town and the countryside. The Black Death came around 1350, and in 1361 the island was conquered by the Danish king Valdemar Atterdag. The money vanished and building was broken off halfway. Gotland was Danish until 1645 and for a long time poor, and so the churches were never modernised. What on the mainland was rebuilt in the 18th and 19th centuries was left standing here.

The Masters and What They Left

The stone masters are anonymous, but scholars have given them names after their works. The masters Hegvald and Majestatis carved baptismal fonts in the 12th century, and the master known as Egypticus made portals and sculptures in the 14th century, among them at Stånga. The portals, often on the south side, are the richest parts of the churches, with colonnettes, capitals and figures that can be read like a picture book.

The interiors were filled with lime paintings, crucifixes and stained glass. In churches such as Dalhem and Lye medieval glass survives, something rare in the Nordic countries. Anyone who wants to read a church step by step, from windows to vaults, will find the method in the guide to dating a medieval church.

Visby: the Ring Wall and St Mary's

In the 12th and 13th centuries Visby became one of the Baltic's most important trading towns. German merchants settled there alongside Gotlandic ones, and the town became a key to the trade that later gathered in the Hanseatic League. The relationship with the countryside became tense, and the ring wall was extended in the late 13th century into a strong defence, aimed as much at the townspeople's own countrymen as at foreign enemies. The wall is built of the island's limestone and has tall towers that stand on the ground, smaller towers that rest on the wall itself and gates such as Norderport, Österport and Söderport. The oldest tower, the Powder Tower by the harbour, is older than the rest of the wall.

Inside the town the merchants built houses of stone with stepped gables and large warehouses, and there were many churches and monasteries. Most of them stand today as ruins. The church of the German merchants, St Mary's, began to be built in the late 12th century and was consecrated in 1225. It was first a Romanesque basilica and later became a hall church, in which the aisles have about the same height. The Romanesque west portal and the richly decorated Gothic south portal show the two styles side by side. After a fire in 1744 the towers were given their black Baroque caps, and when the Diocese of Visby was formed in 1572 the church became a cathedral.

What to Look For on Gotland

Walk round a country church and look for the joins between the building phases: a tower that is wider or narrower than the nave, a chancel that is taller than it, masonry that changes character. Study the portals, often on the south side, and see whether the arch is round or pointed. Go in and look for medieval baptismal fonts, lime paintings and window glass. Compare with a parish church on the mainland, such as Husaby Church in Västergötland, where the same plan has been more heavily rebuilt.

In Visby: walk along the outside of the ring wall and count the towers, go in through one of the gates and find the stone houses with stepped gables and the church ruins. The Swedish Middle Ages as a whole are under the Swedish Middle Ages, the spaces of a church in the guide to the parts of a church, the styles in the guide to Romanesque and Gothic architecture and more Swedish buildings in the guide to famous buildings in Sweden.

How to recognise a Gotland church

Exercise

Why do so many medieval churches on Gotland still stand almost untouched?