Capitals of the Northlands: Tales of Ten CitiesHannah, Ian C.
History
Capitals of the Northlands: Tales of Ten Cities
Hannah, Ian C.
Capitals (Cities); Russia -- Description and travel; Scandinavia -- Description and travel
[54] The quire has but a single bay with a round apse, there are
transepts, there is a nave of seven bays. At the west end this is
flanked by towers and an aisle girdles the structure from one tower
and back to the other, running all round the apse--for the transepts,
which no longer project, are reduced very largely to sections of the
aisles. In the sacristy may be seen remains of the arch between the
south transept and the eastern chapel which extended it before it was
cut back.
The interior is very striking from the unusual and pleasing combination
of white and red. Bricks are exposed where are shafts and at the
edges of the arches; white plaster covers walls and vaults. Many of
the arches are round, but pointed ones are always used for the plain
quadripartite vaulting. The windows are all single, some in groups
of three, but they are numerous and wide enough to make the building
extremely light. The blindstorey (triforium) is open to the church by
arches about the same size as those that communicate with the aisles.
Round the apse these two tiers of arches rest on shafts of granite,
elsewhere stone is very sparingly used for capitals and a few other
details. The blindstorey, itself vaulted above the vaulting of the
aisles, forms a passage the whole way round the church, a groined
gallery on two pillars carrying it from tower to tower, and wooden
balconies across the transepts. (These look like sixteenth century
work; can they have been erected when the transepts were cut back,
perhaps at the Reformation?) By means of a simple archway over a road
the blindstorey also communicates with the old Bishop's Palace to the
eastward. The clearstorey has no passage along its windows, but round
the apse there is an extra arcade between it and the blindstorey, which
greatly improves the effect.
The quire and apse with the central space and one bay of the nave are
higher in floor-level than the rest of the church, and underneath is a
crypt whose vaulting rests on a row of square columns, and whose small
windows open to the aisles.
Some of the fittings are extremely beautiful Renaissance work,
especially the reredos with folding wings. This, it is said, a Dutch
skipper was trying to smuggle through the Sound; on being detected he
placed on it a ludicrously low value, hoping that the duty might thus
be extremely light. Unfortunately, however, the Danish authorities
preferred to purchase the work at the figure that its too clever owner
had named. The worrying resourcefulness of customs house officials is
no new thing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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