SKT. NIKOLAJ KIRKE - Danmarks Kirker - Nationalmuseet

with paintings (nos. 2, 4, 5), and among other
things stand out with their rare allegorical subjects.
Four others (nos. 6, 7, 8, 9) very unusually
consist of small black stone tablets with an ingeniously
etched calligraphic inscription, signed
on three of them by Villads Pedersen Trellund in
Ribe, 1616. Here as elsewhere in the church, one
gets a sense of the same rich cultural life as flourished
in Renaissance Ribe.
From the second half of the 1600s four carved
sepulchral tablets in an exuberant ‘auricular’ (Ohrmuschel)
style can be mentioned, three of them
a scribed to the Middelfart woodcarver Hans
Bang (no. 11, tablet remains no. 2, and tablet
no. 1 in the Roed and Riis Chapel). Otherwise
the sepulchral tablets from this time were usually
in stone, the most prestigious in varicoloured
marble. The monuments to the bishops Ancher
and Mathias Anchersen should be singled out in
this group; their sepulchral tablets from 1729 and
1770 (nos. 12-13) can be attributed to the best
sculptors in Copenhagen. The former may be the
work of Christian Conrad Gercken; the latter is
certainly by Johannes Wiedewelt.
No fewer than 91 tombstones are known from
the church, 37 of these preserved, and ten that
are only fragments. The remaining 44 are known
partly from transcripts and drawings, partly
from brief mentions in the sources. Of the oldest
tombstones, which go back to the 15th-16th
century, many are aristocratic, including the only
figured stone (no. 2), laid c. 1540 over Hans Johansen
Lindenov of Fovslet, and unique in showing,
under the feet of the deceased, a representation
of a cadaver (a transi). Another aristocratic
figured stone, laid c. 1574 over Morten Svendsen
of ‘Refdal’, has now vanished (†no. 2).
The 17th-century tombstones, mainly those
of burghers, reflect the Renaissance fondness
for cartouche framing and portal structures. A
couple of stones have a special form best known
from North Schleswig/South Jutland and from
the churches in Ribe: an angel inside a portal
holding out a shield-like ‘badge’ or an inscribed
tablet in cartouche (nos. 6, 16 - cf. also no. 15).
Other stones were probably produced locally,
such as a series with characteristic small angels in
ENGLISH SUMMARY
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the corners, blowing slender trumpets (nos. 12,
15, 16, 17, fragments no. 6 and 7). The tombstones
of clerics are especially recognizable with
their copious inscriptions over the whole width
of the stone (nos. 18, 19, 24).
After the mid-17th century there was a gradual
breakdown of the architectural structure of the
tombstones. Instead decoration took over, first in
the form of auricular ornaments (most clearly in
no. 23) and from c. 1700 in the form of High
Baroque acanthus leaves. Especially popular was
a form with an inscription in large laurel wreaths
surrounded by religious figures and scenes (nos.
20, 22, 25, 27). Among the few stones from the
eighteenth century there are a couple of offshoots
of this tradition (nos. 33, 34).
Like the tombstones, the sepulchral tablets and
a number of military tomb banners refer to burials
in the floor. Some of these could be burials ‘in
earth’, others in low brick chambers, so-called
closed burials, which could be opened through a
hatch or by lifting the tombstone when a new
coffin was to be deposited. An ordinance on
burials from 1601 states that in this area there had
been ‘much impropriety’. This was among other
reasons because in the best places the deceased
were dug up before complete decomposition so
that others could take over the tombs.
The chancel was clearly the burial place for the
clerics, although others could also buy a place
there, for example Mayor Jep Hansen Bøgvad,
who in 1632 paid 50 Dl. for a (closed) burial
in the chancel. The North Chapel, or the ‘New
Church’, belonged to the Castle, which could
grant free burial there. This was typically granted
to the castle officers, who were not rarely of foreign
origin. Thus in 1614 Ulrik Hovri, who had
been born in Switzerland, was granted free burial
there on the orders of the Royal Cupbearer (cf.
also tombstone no. 21). In the ‘New Church’ a
number of Swedish officers were also buried in
1644, but against payment.
Besides the closed burials there were also a
number of ‘open burials’ or sepulchral chapels
with the coffins standing freely on the floor.
The church has preserved two such chapels, the
Been feldt Chapel and the Roed and Riis Chapel,