Jelling Church, Jelling, Denmark - SpottingHistory.com

The current Jelling church was built of limestone around the year 1100. Archaeologists have found traces of three earlier wooden churches on the site. The first wooden church built on the site of the present edifice was the largest of its kind anywhere in Scandinavia. Archaeological evidence suggests that it was built in the later 10th century, during the period around 960 when Harald Bluetooth introduced Christianity into Denmark, as he proclaims on the larger of the two runic stones.

The part of the church burned down in 1679 and it was restored with a new porch. The pulpit dates from the 1650s. Mural paintings were in bad shape until Julius Magnus Petersen replaced them with copies in 1875. Jelling church is part of the UNESCO World Heritage site with Jelling mounds and runestones.

References:

Wikipedia

User Reviews

Keizer Soze (3 years ago)
Local church, graveyard and symbolic place with a beautiful history, that starts in the Middleages. Two enormous, ancient stones engraved by the first Dutch kings. Very nice attracion with a splendid sight on surrounding houses, and a former historic village. Around the place there are fortifications partly reconstructed for tourists to imagine the size of the historic location.

Flemming Lorenzen (3 years ago)
Nice....

Krister (4 years ago)
The graet vikingking Gorm the old is probably the on laying under the floor here.

Dani Rojo Gama (5 years ago)
Located next to the stone that represents the adoption of Christianity as the main religion of the Vikings

Bödvar Tomasson (9 years ago)
The rune-stones are a must see for all interested in viking history, marking the birth certificate of Denmark and of great historic value for all the Scandinavian countries.

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Lednice Castle

The first historical record of Lednice locality dates from 1222. At that time there stood a Gothic fort with courtyard, which was lent by Czech King Václav I to Austrian nobleman Sigfried Sirotek in 1249.

At the end of the 13th century the Liechtensteins, originally from Styria, became holders of all of Lednice and of nearby Mikulov. They gradually acquired land on both sides of the Moravian-Austrian border. Members of the family most often found fame in military service, during the Renaissance they expanded their estates through economic activity. From the middle of the 15th century members of the family occupied the highest offices in the land. However, the family’s position in Moravia really changed under the brothers Karel, Maximilian, and Gundakar of Liechtenstein. Through marriage Karel and Maximilian acquired the great wealth of the old Moravian dynasty of the Černohorskýs of Boskovice. At that time the brothers, like their father and grandfather, were Lutheran, but they soon converted to Catholicism, thus preparing the ground for their rise in politics. Particularly Karel, who served at the court of Emperor Rudolf II, became hetman of Moravia in 1608, and was later raised to princely status by King Matyas II and awarded the Duchy of Opava.

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In the 16th century it was probably Hartmann II of Liechtenstein who had the old medieval water castle torn down and replaced with a Renaissance chateau. At the end of the 17th century the chateau was torn down and a Baroque palace was built, with an extensive formal garden, and a massive riding hall designed by Johann Bernard Fischer von Erlach that still stands in almost unaltered form.

In the mid-18th century the chateau was again renovated, and in 1815 its front tracts that had been part of the Baroque chateau were removed.

The chateau as it looks today dates from 1846-1858, when Prince Alois II decided that Vienna was not suitable for entertaining in the summer, and had Lednice rebuilt into a summer palace in the spirit of English Gothic. The hall on the ground floor would serve to entertain the European aristocracy at sumptuous banquets, and was furnished with carved wood ceilings, wooden panelling, and select furniture, surpassing anything of its kind in Europe.

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