ODDER KIRKE - Danmarks Kirker - Nationalmuseet

The churchyard is noteworthy for the remains
of its Medieval enclosing wall which was once
of a considerable height. The present churchyard
portal was constructed late in the 15th
century. The church belongs to a group of rural
buildings of some size and was probably
erected in the 12th century, its original parts
being the chancel with an apse and the nave.
The portals like the facades and the east wall of
the nave as well as the chancel arch are done in
fine ashlar work. Vaulting was constructed in
the church in the period around the year 1500, a
tower was added at the west end of the nave
and a porch built in front of the north door. In
the last decades of the 17th century Jens Rodsteen,
patron of the church and a former admiral
in the Royal Navy, had a sepulchral chapel
built on the south side of the church.
One item of the Early Medieval church furniture
has been in the National Museum since
1821. This is one of the so-called »golden altars«,
which with a corresponding crucifix belongs
to a group which also includes that of the
Lisbjerg altar. As previously described (cf.
summary of Lisbjerg p. 1427) this has been
dealt with in great detail by Poul Nørlund
(Gyldne Altre, Kbh. 1926, re-issued with appendix
in 1968, both with summaries in English).
The altar's decoration consists not only of
a retable with a »vault of heaven« from c. 1150-
75, but also of a frontal from 1225-50, possibly
assembled from the churches of Odder and
Saksild. A crucifix contemporary with the ret-
ODDER KIRKE 2581
SUMMARY
able, which for a time was set up under the
raised »vault of heaven«, is unlikely because of
its size to have been placed there originally. All
the articles mentioned are carved from oak and
faced with embossed and chased sheet copper
plates, decorated with gilding and fired brown
varnish. In accordance with Poul Nørlund it
must be assumed that both the retable and the
crucifix, like the more recent frontal, were produced
in Jutland workshops which might have
been in Århus, the cathedral city.
Among the church's early furniture was a
censer which is now in the National Museum
and the Romanesque baptismal font of granite.
The simple pulpit dating from the period of
about 1600 bears paintings of the Evangelists
executed in 1631 by a painter who presumably
is also responsible for the paintings on the pulpits
in Nølev and Randlev. In 1640 the »golden«
altar was replaced by a »modern« altarpiece
from the workshop of the wood-carver
Peder Jensen Kolding. The above-mentioned
Admiral Jens Rodsteen donated among other
things the sounding-board and stairway to the
pulpit with paintings in 1703. In about 1706 he
had a monument set up in the family's sepulchral
chapel. It includes portrait busts of himself
and his wife, thought to have been made in the
workshop of the distinguished sculptor
Thomas Quellinus. - The crypt beneath the
chapel contains 22 coffins some of which bear
decorations in the form of coats of arms and
allegorical figures.