Built from old mountain pine and made to last the centuries, Norway’s stave churches are breathtaking examples of durable timber design and construction, as Susan Burke reports.
AS spring blossomed in Western Norway’s Sogn-og-Fjordane district some 800 years ago, woodsmen honed their logging axes before climbing the steep forested slopes behind Borgund village in the Laerdal. The remote community – which had abandoned the Viking gods and converted to Christianity – planned to erect a wooden church on its outskirts over the winter months.
The place of worship was to be built of local timber using the traditional ‘stav’ technique: the vertical arrangement of staves or uprights held in position by horizontal beams. But first, suitable trees had to be found and made fit for purpose while the sap was rising.
The chosen old-growth mountain pines were delimbed and left to stand for one growing season. Resin drawn slowly upwards and oozing from the branch sockets would gradually saturate the timber, creating durable ‘ore-pine’ or malmfuru. Frost hardened in early winter and the trees were felled and hauled to the construction site.
As happened in shipbuilding, curved timbers were highly valued for the strength they would impart to the structure. Although sometimes fashioned from angled joints or natural crooks in the wood, it is known that many such timbers were sourced from the high-cut stumps of big old trees, where the grain sweeps down from the bole into the sizeable root buttresses.
It is thought the selection of the stumps and stems required for the project, as well as the subsequent construction operations, would have been supervised by a team of travelling master craftsmen. Many experts believe the influence of boatbuilding skills is clearly apparent in stave church construction. Viewers who gaze upwards while in the nave may think they see the ribs and timbers of an inverted Viking longship.
The church at Borgund was not the first of its style to be raised. Along the shores of the Sognefjord – which is over 1,300 metres deep in places and 200 kilometres long – several other churches have survived. The main timbers at Kaupanger have been dendrochronologically dated to 1137 AD, though its construction is not thought to have commenced until at least a decade later.
The church at Urnes, further inland on the eastern slopes of the Lustrafjord, has an elaborately carved timber portal dating from 1060 AD, but this is believed to be material recycled from an earlier religious building. As it stands today, it is believed to be the earliest example of the Norwegian stave church, with its construction starting shortly after 1100 AD.
The establishment of a bishopric at Bergen in the mid 12th century stimulated a period of church building which only ended when plague arrived from England and decimated the population in 1349 AD.
Stave churches built during this period were usually modelled on the Romanesque basilica style prevalent in those Latin countries where Catholicism already prevailed. When the poet Rolf Jacobsen wrote “I believe in the dark churches, those that still stand like pitch-fires in the forest … Axes dubbed them and silver bells rang in them. Someone carved them with dreams…”, he was referring to the eye-catching ecclesiastical monuments that are regarded as Norway’s unique contribution to the development of the medieval church.
Estimates suggest that over 1,000 stave churches once stood in Norwegian territory. In the more populated areas, most were soon replaced by buildings of brick or stone. Only a couple of score of the remaining timber-built constructions have survived, mostly in Norway’s Fjordland.
It is generally accepted that these venerable places of worship owe their salvation to the efforts of one man; the painter Johan Christian Dahl. A professor at the Art Academy of Dresden, he made regular visits to his Norwegian homeland, where he initiated the battle to preserve the remaining unique cultural monuments. In 1826, he visited Vang in the Valdres district, and found its stave church had been scheduled for demolition.
Over the next 15 years, Dahl campaigned on behalf of the building, attempting to have it rebuilt first locally, then in various other locations in Norway. The final solution proved to be export. King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia was persuaded to purchase the building.
The exercise of dismantling, numbering and recording through architectural drawings the thousands of components, was to become a blueprint for future restoration. The material was carted across the Fillefjellet Mountain to Laerdalsøyri at the head of the Sognefjord.
On its long voyage down the Sognefjord, some inhabitants of the village of Hopperstad may have seen the vessel Haabet sailing by, en route for Germany. But while Vang’s stave church was eventually re-erected on the slopes of Prussia’s Giant Mountains in 1842, Hopperstad’s traditional church was to remain in a chronically parlous state for almost another four decades. Eventually, the ruin was purchased by the Norwegian Society for the Preservation of Ancient Monuments, which had been founded by Johann Christian Dahl in 1844.
The architect Peter Andreas Blix used Borgund church as a model for the renovation. Dated 1180 and regarded as the best-preserved example of its kind, Borgund church is thought to have withstood the damaging effects of time because its supporting corner staves and timber ground-frame overlie stone foundations.
The floor at Borgund was set into the ground-frame and most of it has survived. When it was decided to protect this area by laying a new floor, architectural fragments retrieved from under the original boards suggested that an earlier church may have occupied the site.
Over the centuries, the main structural timbers of Borgund church have remained sound, but its decoration and external appearance have been subject to changes in religious loyalties. The striking dragon heads, for example, are thought to date from the 18th century. Original vestiges are also to be found in some of the other remaining churches. That said, it is certain the roof shingles are a comparatively modern feature added to protect the boards originally used to form the roof.
Wind-eyes cut high in the nave provided a means of lighting, ventilation and temperature control. It is believed these factors were important in ensuring the survival of the interior timbers.
The biggest change came after the Reformation, when the church was converted to Protestant worship. Fortunately, despite the power struggle that existed between the faiths, the Lutheran authorities adopted a pragmatic approach and chose not to demolish Borgund stave church. There does appear, nevertheless, to have been at least one case of ancient vandalism. Scratched into the wood of the church’s west entrance is the inscription: “Thor wrote these runes in the evening at St. Olav’s Mass.”
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