The Most Northern Cathedral

The pride and glory of all Norway is the Trondhjem Cathedral. It is a beautiful specimen of Norman architecture and the finest church in the three Scandinavian Kingdoms. It is built of a soft grey soapstone, quarried near the town, with ornamental details of white marble. Its history, architecturally, is soon told; its ecclesiastical history is the history of Christianity in Norway. Between 1013 and 1030, King Olaf (saint) built a small wooden church on the site where the beautiful chapel of St. Clement now stands, on the north side of the Cathedral; St. Olaf was buried a little to the south of his church. A spring of healing water, later, disclosed the exact site of his grave. Between 1036 and 1047 his son, King Magnus, erected a wooden chapel over the grave of St. Olaf, where the octagon of the Cathedral with its high altar now stands. His successor, Harold, half-brother of St. Olaf, in 1047 built a stone church to "Our Lady," south of the tomb chapel. This group of three churches stood in these positions for more than one hundred years. Then came the great Cathedral age of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The grave of St. Olaf became a Mecca of the Catholic world, and his church was enriched with magnificent gifts. St. Clement's was rebuilt as it is now; the tomb shrine, the greatest glory of the Cathedral, was rebuilt in pointed Gothic, surmounted by a dome 30 feet in diameter with an open belfry above it. This beautiful octagon, with tower and spire, has been joined to the church "Our Lady," which was entirely rebuilt and enlarged. Had the western facade been completed it would have been unequalled by any other cathedral in northern Europe, not only in extent, but in richness of detail. To the right of the choir there is a small chamber covering the well of St. Olaf. The holes in the pavement were made to carry off the water which dripped from the buckets of the faithful who came long distances to this holy, health-giving spring. But the great merit of this most northern cathedral lies in its ornamentation. Nothing can exceed in richness or variety the bossy ornamentation of cornice, frieze and capitals. Everywhere project these quaint and curious bosses, in face and form grotesque or angelic. For many centuries carving in stone and wood was a specialty in Scandinavia; hence came the Runic inscriptions and these quaint figures, seven and eight hundred years old, specimens of a rude art, but of great interest to antiquarians.

A series of conflagrations and the Black Death almost depopulated Trondhjem in 1343; these, added to the ultra zeal of the Reformers, have left the old and mediaeval Cathedral almost in ruins. But it is being beautifully restored, and large portions of it are in use.

The kings of Norway and Sweden are crowned here. King Olaf Tryggveson (995) founded Trondhjem upon the site of the ancient town Nidaros. It continued to be the capital of Norway until the Union with Denmark.