Story
The story of Ribe Cathedral
You are standing where Denmark's first Christian church was founded. In 860 the missionary monk Ansgar built a timber church in Ribe, with the permission of the pagan King Horik I. The Danes soon complained about its bells, fearing they might scare away the land spirits. The first stone cathedral was begun by Bishop Thur in 1110 and completed in 1134, using tufa stone imported from Germany, because stone was scarce around Ribe.
A terrible fire in 1176 ravaged the town and the cathedral, but because it was not completely destroyed, it is today Denmark's best preserved Romanesque building. Look at the main doorway, called the cat's head portal after the two lions at the base of its columns. On Christmas Day 1283, just before morning mass, the northwest tower collapsed into the church.
In its place rose the Commoner's Tower, 62 meters tall, which also served as a watch tower; in 1644 cannons on its top actually fired at Swedish ships.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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More highlights in Ribe
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