Aarhus Cathedral

Aarhus Cathedral began as a Romanesque church around 1200 and was rebuilt in brick Gothic in the late 1400s, ending up roughly ninety metres long, which makes it both the longest and the tallest church in the country. The interior is a long whitewashed hall, bright and surprisingly bare after the Reformation whitewashing, except where restorers uncovered the medieval frescoes: saints, ships and grotesques painted straight onto the vaults. The winged altarpiece carved by Bernt Notke of Lubeck in 1479 is the single best thing in it. Votive ships hang from the ceiling, a reminder that this was a port town first.

History

A Viking town stood at the mouth of the Aarhus River by the 700s, its first city wall has been dated to 934, and six runestones stand in or near the city. The first church, Holy Trinity, was a timber building put up around 900 on the town's pagan burial site, and the first bishop, Reginbrand, is recorded in 948. St Nikolai's was the first cathedral; in 1102 Bishop Ulfketil built a second, of timber, near the present site to house the relics of St Clement, patron of sailors, and it became the centre of the cult of St Niels, a son of King Canute V, who asked on his deathbed in 1180 to be buried at "the little church by the sea". In the decade after 1190 Bishop Peder Vognsen of the powerful Hvide family began the present cathedral around St Clement's church, to draw on the devotion to St Niels, and also founded the cathedral school before the church was finished in 1300. The cathedral, dedicated to St Clemens, is the longest and tallest church in Denmark, 93 m long and 96 m high, and seats around 1200 people (Wikipedia, Aarhus Cathedral).

What's there

• The Notke altarpiece - the carved and painted winged altar of 1479.
• The uncovered frescoes - medieval wall paintings found under Reformation whitewash.
• The votive ships - model ships hung from the vaults by seafaring families.
• The nave - the long whitewashed hall, the longest church interior in Denmark.

When to go

Open daily outside services, with shorter hours in winter. Weekday mornings are close to empty. The interior depends entirely on daylight through clear glass, so a bright day shows the frescoes and a grey one leaves them dim. Check for concerts and weddings, which close it to visitors at short notice.

Practical notes

It is free and central, which also means a steady trickle of people wandering through with coffee. The frescoes are high up and hard to read without binoculars or a zoom lens. If you have already seen Roskilde or Ribe this will feel like more of the same, and half an hour covers it.

Nearby

The Latin Quarter lanes and the cathedral square are outside the door; the open-air town museum is a short bus ride.

Key facts