Kirkjubøur
The village of Kirkjubøur is unique in the Faroes. In no other place are there such imposing monuments of the past, where the visitor can wander in an environment steeped in history and give reign to the imagination. Several archeological investigations have been carried out at Kirkjubøur, but the results are not yet complete. When all this great mass of material has been examined, we will, hopefully, be able to answer many of the complex, but interesting questions that these historic monuments give rise to.
Kirkjubøur is situated at the south-west end of Streymoy, in the middle of the Faroes. The village lies on the coast, just under high cliffs. There is little foreshore. It may be surprising that a bishop's residence should be situated in this particular place. But in the Middle Ages a bishop's residence was in fact a farm, whose economy depended on the products of the soil and grazing. The cultivation of corn was in those days very important and Kirkjubøur was one of the best places in the Faroes for this. It was also a place where a great deal of driftwood and other flotsam came ashore, which was no less important. There were good conditions for the maintenance of a big farm, and therefore the Catholic church took over the farm, which was here from an early age.
It is said in Kirkjubøur that the little island, just off the shore (Kirkjubøhólmur), has been connected to the mainland, but that at one time all the land out to the island was washed away in a storm. It is unlikely that it was all washed away at the same time, but there is no doubt that the landscape has been greatly changed over the centuries and that this has been a broad flat tongue of land, buch wider than it is today. There has been a continual sinking of the land, and the breakers have eroded the cliffs, just as we see in many other places of the Faroes.
Magnus Cathedral
It is commonly believed that it was Erlendur - bishop in Kirkjubøur from 1269 to 1308 - who started the building of the big cathedral, the Gothic cathedral, which would be a credit to the bishopric. This, however, along with so much else to do with Kirkjubøur, cannot be proved with certainty. This magnificent building was perhaps never completed. It is likely that it was built at the end of a prosperous period both for the state and church in Norway - about 1300. After this there were bad times, and that can have affected the church in the Faroes. It is said that the Faroese rebelled against the burden of heavy taxes and work that the building of the church laid on them. If this is true, it indicates the impossible economic conditions for embarking on such an enormous building project in this little country.
The style of the building is from the best period of Gothic architecture. The characteristics of the style point to West Norwegian church building from around 1300 - thus contemporary with Erlendur. Sculpures and various ornamentation that decorate the cathedral are of such a high standard that craftsmen from abroad, with special skills, must have been involved - along with Faroese. Probably this foreign work force came from places where similar buildings were being built at the time. The cathedral at Kirkjubøur has often been likened to the Gothic choir in the cathedral in Stavanger in Norway, which was built after the fire in 1272. The same resemblances in style and ornamentation are also found, for example, in churches from this period in Britain.
The main part of the cathedral is a simple rectangle, 26.5x10.75 m on the outside, in which the choir is in continuation of the nave. The height of the walls is 9 m, which is probably the full height. At the east end of the north side, there is an adjoining building, 9.8x5.6 m, which is often called "The Nun's Cloister". It seems unlikely that the walls in this building are at their full height. It may be that they are the lower part of what was to be a tower in the choir.
In the west end there is a 7 m high and about 2 m wide opening, which has been intended as a portal into the church from the tower which was to be built there. Marks indicating the addition of the tower can be seen in the wall.
The walls, which are 1.6 m thick, are made of basalt. They are double walls in which both the interior and exterior walls are made with the smooth side outwards. Between the layers is a filling of small stones and sand and shells. Bits of stone in various sizes act as wedges and filling between the building stones. Where the original stonework is preserved, these small stones are so close together that no mortar is visible. The mortar used was a mixture of burned animal bones, the shells of mussels or other shell fish and shell sand, this was slaked with water to form slaked lime. For the masonry round windows and portals and other specially worked stone, a softer, more porous stone has been used.
High up on the walls there are corbels for six arches to rest on. The two innermost arches of the choir were to be supported by the capitals on pilasters, the arches in the nave by corbels. On the inside of the southern wall, where there is most ornamentation, the transition from the choir to the nave is clearly seen. The window openings are more ornamented in the choir than in the nave and they are placed half a meter higher. The choir floor must have been intended to be a few steps higher than that in the nave.
It is probable that the arches in the annex on the north side were completed and that this building was roofed. Much still remains of these arches. In the north wall there is a door opening into a room which has a spiral staircase in the wall. The floor in this room is paved with small flat stones - probably as a foundation for the floor that was to be laid later. The place of the altar has been found under the east wall - the only sign at all of an altar in the building. This room probably served as a chapel.
In 1772 there was a great avalanche at Kirkjubøur. It fell on the village, and the north-east corner of the cathedral was crushed in. It is possible that the arches in the side building fell at the same time. It is apparent that the north-east corner has been reconstructed - this was probably done after the avalanche.
Olav's Church
The parish church, most commonly called the Olav's Church, Maria Church, or the Monk Church, is the only medieval church which is still in use in the Faroes. The building, which is constructed of rouch unhewn stone, plastered and white-washed, is noteworthy in that it is very long in relation to the width. Churches of this type, particularly cloister churches, were built in the Nordic countries about 1250-1300. The parish church is situated right at the shorem but this has not always been the case. The land below the church has been much wider, but the sea has washed away much of it and today only the northern part of the churchyard remains. From historical sources we know that in the 15th century the sea was eating into the churchyard. In 1863 the church had to be closed as it was feared that the south wall would fall into the sea, and at the time the construction of a new church was considered. The outcome was that a bulwark was built in front of the foreshore, and in 1874 the church was repaired and greatly altered. But when reconstruction was carried out in 1966-67, the church regained its former appearance, which it has now.
The parish church in Kirkjubøur is a little cathedral. Investigations have revealed that it has had a choir which was as big as the nave. There has probably been a dividing wall in the middle of the church between the choir and the nave, and the choir has been panelled. The bishop, priests from the other islands, and other church men have sat in the choir and the fine furniture, e.g. the beautifully wrought stalls (Kirkjubøstólar), at present in the exhibition in Brekkutún, Hoyvík, may well have stood in this choir in Catholic times. After the Reformation when the church was converted to a parish church, the sides of these beautifully carved stalls and others were used as pew ends in the body of the church, where all the congregation now sat. In 1874 these medieval church treasures were removed from the church, as it was decided that they had to become museum pieces. Most were sent to the National Museum in Copenhagen, some were retained in the Faroes and placed in the Faroese Museum of Antiquities, when it was established in 1898. All the remaining treasures were brought to the National History Museum in the Faroes in the 1990's.
At the time of the reconstruction in the 1960's, archeological investigations were carried out. A bishop's grave was found inside the choir; a copy of the bishop's crosier is on display in the church. At the western end there has been a smaller building on the north side, perhaps a porch, where, according to a 17th century source, there was a Catholic altar. Under the church there are remains that could well belong to an older church, e.g. paving and three layers of medieval flooring. Five coins were found in these layers, the oldet minted in 1223-35 was in the lowest layer, and is English. The others, which are Norwegian, are of considerably later date - after 1447. An old graveyard goes in under the west part of the church. The graves are considered to be from the Middle Ages. So it is not inconceivable that there has been another church in close proximity to this one. Within the present churchyard, directly west from the church, there are remains of a large building, perhaps of a dwelling house, which has stood sloping towards the sea, so that most of it has been washed away. The building appears to have the curved long walls that are characteristic of buildings from Viking and early medieval times in this country.
The Bishop's Palace
This house has been the home of the farmers in Kirkjubøur for centuries and still is. The timbered rooms and, what is known in Faroese as the "roykstova" (royk=smoke, stova=room), the living room in which the fire was, stand on a wide stone basement, which is completely different in shape from the house. It is clear that this basement was not made for this house - it is part of the old bishop's palace, which no longer exists. Archaeological investigations in the 1950's revealed so many relics from the bishop's palace that it was possible to get a picture of what it was like. The main part of the palace was two parallel buildings with a beautiful 16 m broad paved courtyard between them. The courtyard was enclosed by stone walls on the north and south, and a brook ran close past the west building.
The east building, which nowadays is the basement of the farmer's house, has undoubtedly been the ground floor of the house in which the bishop lived. The building is about 11 metres wide, and 25 metres of the length are preserved. The walls, which are 1.65 m thich, are constructed in the same way as those of the church. They are so thick that the upper storey may well also have been built on stone. There are small window openings in the east and south walls. The portals, which open on to the courtyard, have been restored at a later date. At some time in the Middle Ages the east building has been severely damaged by an avalanche. It may have been after this that the bishop had two more rooms added to the east wall and between them a staircase. Here, there was an entrance facing the new cathedral.
The west building was 45 m long and 7 m wide on the outside. In the part that has been investigated 4 rooms are revealed, 3 of them with doors out to the courtyard. It is possible that a storey built of wood has stood on the meter-thick walls.
The timbered rooms and the "roykstova", which are part of the more modern farm house, are log buildings and not stave-built, as was the custom in the Faroes. It is difficult to say when this house was built on top of the basement of the bishop's palace, and how old it is, other than that it is medieval. It may have been brought here from some other place. In Kirkjubøur it is said that these log buildings came ready-made from Norway. They have been reconditioned later, but the "roykstova", which is in the farm house, is more or less in its original form. Because the "roykstova" does not exactly fit the basement walls there are supports set in under the joists. One of them is an octogonal pillar with a beautiful capital carved in Gothic style.
The existing timbered rooms are only part of a much larger timber building, which was at one time 15 m long and 8.5 m wide. The part which is missing - it was demolished at some time in the last century - was a big hall - 10.5x5 m and open up to the rafters. The foundation can still be seen to the north of the existing timbered rooms, which have formed the entrance hall, from which there was a passage into the main hall. This sort of construction was built in big farms in Norway about the year 1300.
Á líkhúsi
A hundred meters east of the cathedral, just above the foreshore, are the remains of a smaller building. The place is in Faroese called "Á Líkhúsi" (The place for the dead. Lík=corpse). Investigations have shown that this was a church and graveyard. Most of this building has been washed away by the sea. Only the lowest layer of stones in the north wall, 13 m long and 1 m thick, is still standing. On the north side of the north wall there are traces of an annex from which there is a doorway into the nave of the church.
From the church there is a stone-paved path a little way above the old wall, and this goes right down into the sea. There must therefore have been great changes in the land since the church was built. But no one knows when this was. This is said to be the oldest church in Kirkjubøur, but this is not proved at all.
