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
In the grounds of the Burgomaster's House are some remains of the
Kalfskinshuset, which seems to have been built originally in the
early fourteenth century, the land being secured by making a calf's
skin cover a fair area by cutting it into strings, much as was done
with an ox-skin at Carthage. The owner of the ground when making the
arrangement imagined he was only parting with about one square yard.
[81] _Tour in Sweden_, 1838.
[82] The main part is square, and the roughly vaulted roof is supported
on four round arches that rest on square columns, placed close to the
four corners. To the north and south and also to the west there project
very shallow arms the same height as the rest. Over the western one
and resting its corners on two of the large columns, rises a great
square tower, three two-light windows aside in its upper stage. In the
thickness of the walls there are stairs and galleries on three levels,
whence varying views of the interior are gained. A comparatively low
arch in the eastern wall opens to a small chancel, rib-vaulted and
extended by a horseshoe apse. The details throughout are Romanesque of
the plainest and the best, but the inspiration is clearly Byzantine. On
a small scale the same sort of combination is attempted that La Farge
has essayed in the great Cathedral of St. John at New York.
[83] The square nave and four pillars were preserved, but instead of
being close to the corners the columns were so spaced that the nine
compartments of the vaulting should be practically equal squares. The
vaulting ribs or arches, three against each wall, now look into the
roofless nave. Not quite in the centre of the middle one on the east
a round arch opens into the roofless chancel with horseshoe apse. A
two-bay chapel projects on the south, and westward is a huge oblong
tower with stairways in the thickness of its north and southern walls.
[84] There is the same kind of oblong tower and the vaulting of the
square nave rested on four octagonal pillars, which were placed near
the corners of the walls. From a clustered respond in the chancel it is
evident that there was a north chapel.
[85] This is a late Romanesque building whose nave vault rested on
four fairly equally spaced pillars, and the strong wide tower opened
by arches both to nave floor and to the space above the vault. An arch
just pointed, resting on clustered responds, opens to the roofless
chancel which has a square east end; buildings joined it north and
south; that on the latter side was evidently a transeptal chapel.
Another square four-pillared late Romanesque nave was apparently that
of St. Hans (Johans = John), but hardly a thing remains except a large
and lofty chapel of later date with beautifully moulded corbels, in the
north-east corner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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