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
(1.) Passage to Episcopal Palace. (2.) Transept. (3.) Chapel of S.
Lawrence. (4.) Chapel of S. Brita. (5.5.) Porches. (6.) North-west
Tower, forming Chapel of S. Siegfrid. (7.) South-west Tower, forming
the Bethlehem Chapel. [_Face page 118_
During the eleventh century a stone church replaced Bluetooth's
building of logs. Knut the Holy, King of Denmark (1080-86), gave what
help he could. The fact that this structure was on the same site
as the present cathedral may help to account for the extraordinary
irregularities in setting out the extremely simple ground plan.
The church is almost wholly of brick, heavily buttressed and rather
German in appearance; it must have been still more so originally when
each bay of the aisles had a gable of its own. With its tall western
spires and little central flèche, it reminds one of the Cathedral at
Lübeck, but is a very much finer church. All the original parts were
erected during the thirteenth century, the builders working east to
west, delayed by fires in 1234 and 1284.[54]
A magnificent monument in the quire fitly commemorates the greatest of
all the honoured dead that rest within this simple and most impressive
church. On an altar-tomb of great beauty and well restored is the
canopied effigy of a lovely woman, who died in 1412. No student of
history can tread here unmoved. We are in the presence of the most
far-seeing of all the sovereigns of the North: the noble Margaret of
whom the great _Chronicle of Lübeck_ says, "When men saw the wisdom and
strength that were in this royal lady, wonder and fear filled their
hearts." She was a daughter of Waldemar Atterdag (p. 161), and had
married the King of Norway. "Great marvel it is to think that a lady,
who, when she began to govern for her son found a troubled kingdom, in
which she owned not money or credit enough to secure a meal without
the aid of friends, had made herself so feared and loved in the short
term of three months, that nothing in all the land was any longer
withheld from her."
By the Union of Calmar in 1397, she arranged the eternal federation
of the four Scandinavian realms on principles acceptable to all. One
King should reign, but each land should maintain its proper laws. The
Northlands realised the blessings of her rule, and all that she did was
so good that even her wretchedly unworthy successors took a century and
a quarter to undo her work.
Womanish, perhaps unworthy, yet by no means unprovoked, her mocking
insults to the captured Swedish King, Albert the Elder of Mecklenburg.
This carpet-bagger's German hirelings had been scattered by her troops,
and she dressed him in the garments of a fool with a tail of nineteen
yards in length depending from his cap. Natural but unnecessary return
for his offensive gifts of an apron and a long gown and a whetstone to
sharpen her needles!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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