Børglum Abbey was an important
PremonstratensianThe Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré, also known as the Premonstratensians, the Norbertines, or in Britain and Ireland as the White Canons , are a Catholic religious order of canons regular founded at Prémontré near Laon in 1120 by Saint Norbert, who later became Archbishop of Magdeburg...
abbey of medieval
DenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries; southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and it is bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark borders both the Baltic and the North Sea...
, located in
BørglumBørglum is a Danish village in Hjørring municipality, Region Nordjylland .-History:...
parish, in the commune of
HjørringHjørring is a town and a municipality in Region Nordjylland on the west coast of the island of Vendsyssel-Thy at the top of the Jutland peninsula in northern Denmark. The municipality covers an area of 929,58 km², making it the largest in Vendsyssel, and it has a total population of 67,121...
, approximately five kilometers east of
LøkkenUntil January 1, 2007 Løkken-Vrå was a municipality in North Jutland County on the northwest coast of the island of Vendsyssel-Thy at the top of the Jutland peninsula in northern Denmark. The municipality covered an area of 181 km², and hads a total population of 8,828 . Its last mayor was Knud...
in north central
JutlandJutland , historically also called Cimbria, forms the mainland part of Denmark. It has the North Sea to its west, Kattegat and Skagerrak to its north, the Baltic Sea to its east, and the Danish-German border to its south...
(
Region NordjyllandNorth Denmark Region or North Jutland Region is an administrative region of Denmark established on January 1, 2007 as part of the 2007 Danish Municipal Reform, which replaced the traditional counties with five larger regions. At the same time, smaller municipalities were merged into larger...
).
Børglum Abbey was originally a royal farm which dated back as far as 1000, if not earlier. In 1086 King
Canute IVCanute IV , also known as Canute the Saint and Canute the Holy , was King of Denmark from 1080 until 1086. Canute was an ambitious king who sought the English throne, attempted to strengthen the Danish monarchy, and devoutedly supported the Roman Catholic Church...
fled from his residence at Børglum when the peasants revolted against him. The royal residence was burned to the ground but rebuilt sometime later.
At some point between 1134 and 1139, the royal estate at Børglum was granted to the church to become the new seat of the bishopric of northern Jutland, also known as the bishopric of Vendsyssel, previously established at
VestervigVestervig is a settlement and parish in Denmark, located in Thisted municipality in Region Nordjylland...
.
Børglum Abbey was an important
PremonstratensianThe Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré, also known as the Premonstratensians, the Norbertines, or in Britain and Ireland as the White Canons , are a Catholic religious order of canons regular founded at Prémontré near Laon in 1120 by Saint Norbert, who later became Archbishop of Magdeburg...
abbey of medieval
DenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries; southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and it is bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark borders both the Baltic and the North Sea...
, located in
BørglumBørglum is a Danish village in Hjørring municipality, Region Nordjylland .-History:...
parish, in the commune of
HjørringHjørring is a town and a municipality in Region Nordjylland on the west coast of the island of Vendsyssel-Thy at the top of the Jutland peninsula in northern Denmark. The municipality covers an area of 929,58 km², making it the largest in Vendsyssel, and it has a total population of 67,121...
, approximately five kilometers east of
LøkkenUntil January 1, 2007 Løkken-Vrå was a municipality in North Jutland County on the northwest coast of the island of Vendsyssel-Thy at the top of the Jutland peninsula in northern Denmark. The municipality covered an area of 181 km², and hads a total population of 8,828 . Its last mayor was Knud...
in north central
JutlandJutland , historically also called Cimbria, forms the mainland part of Denmark. It has the North Sea to its west, Kattegat and Skagerrak to its north, the Baltic Sea to its east, and the Danish-German border to its south...
(
Region NordjyllandNorth Denmark Region or North Jutland Region is an administrative region of Denmark established on January 1, 2007 as part of the 2007 Danish Municipal Reform, which replaced the traditional counties with five larger regions. At the same time, smaller municipalities were merged into larger...
).
Origin
Børglum Abbey was originally a royal farm which dated back as far as 1000, if not earlier. In 1086 King
Canute IVCanute IV , also known as Canute the Saint and Canute the Holy , was King of Denmark from 1080 until 1086. Canute was an ambitious king who sought the English throne, attempted to strengthen the Danish monarchy, and devoutedly supported the Roman Catholic Church...
fled from his residence at Børglum when the peasants revolted against him. The royal residence was burned to the ground but rebuilt sometime later.
At some point between 1134 and 1139, the royal estate at Børglum was granted to the church to become the new seat of the bishopric of northern Jutland, also known as the bishopric of Vendsyssel, previously established at
VestervigVestervig is a settlement and parish in Denmark, located in Thisted municipality in Region Nordjylland...
. Bishop Self (or Sylvester) of Vestervig became the first Bishop of Børglum (Vendsyssel) in 1139, and Børglum remained the seat of the diocese until the
ReformationThe Reformation in Denmark meant the transition from Roman Catholicism to Protestant Lutheranism in the Church of Denmark which was implemented in 1536 at the decision of King Christian III...
.
It is unclear exactly who first established a monastery there, but it seems possible that the
AugustiniansThe Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo , are several Christian monastic orders and congregations of both men and women living according to a guide to religious life known as the Rule of Saint Augustine...
previously settled at Vestervig had moved to Børglum by 1134.
Premonstratensians
In the 1180s the Premonstratensians, or White Canons, were established here, as a daughter house of
Steinfeld AbbeySteinfeld Abbey is a former Premonstratensian monastery, now a Salvatorian convent, with an important basilica, in Steinfeld in Kall, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.- History :...
near
CologneCologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants...
in Germany. Børglum then in its turn became the mother house for all Premonstratensian monasteries in Scandinavia. The abbey quickly became prominent, perhaps with the help of royal patronage, and set up a seminary, where many noble families sent at least one of their sons to study. The Premonstratensians expanded the abbey and its church during the time of Bishop Troel.
Bishopric
Some time before 1220 the Bishop of Vendsyssel made the abbey his episcopal seat. The abbey church became the cathedral of the bishopric of Vendsyssel, or Børglum, and the canons took on the additional role of the
cathedral chapterIn accordance with canon law, a cathedral chapter is a body of clerics formed to advise a bishop and, in the case of a vacancy of the episcopal see in some countries, to govern the diocese in his stead. These councils are made up of canons and dignitaries; their creation is the purview of the pope...
. Besides being the biggest landowner in North Jutland, the bishop was
ex officio part of the State Council which advised the King of Denmark on domestic and international policy. This further enhanced the reputation of Børglum Abbey, making it one of most influential religious houses in Denmark.
The abbey church, later also cathedral, was built as a typical
RomanesqueRomanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe, characterised by semi-circular arches, and evolving into the Gothic style, characterised by pointed arches, beginning in the 12th century...
basilicaThe Latin word basilica , was originally used to describe a Roman public building , usually located in the forum of a Roman town. In Hellenistic cities, public basilicas appeared in the 2nd century BC.Basilicas were also used for religious purposes...
and formed the eastern range of the monastery. It is believed that the builders modelled its construction and decoration on
Viborg CathedralViborg Cathedral, Our Lady Cathedral is the site of one of Denmark's most important historic churches located in the town of Viborg in northern Jutland...
. It was built of
graniteGranite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite has a medium to coarse texture, occasionally with some individual crystals larger than the groundmass forming a rock known as porphyry. Granites can be pink to dark gray or even black, depending on their...
, obtained locally. A flat timber ceiling and the absence of windows would have made it dark, but the massive walls would have prevented the cold winds and storms off the
North SeaThe North Sea is a marginal, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf. The Dover Strait and the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Sea in the north connect it to the Atlantic Ocean. It is more than long and wide, with an area of around...
, just a few miles to the west, from penetrating the building.
Hans Christian Andersen wrote a version of the old folk legend 'The Bishop of Borglum and his Men' which recounts the murder of Bishop of Borglum, Oluf Glob, and several companions by his nephew, Jens Glob, in front of the altar at Hvidebjerg Church on Thy Island in 1206.
There are several exchanges of letters between the Bishop of Vendsyssel and several popes regarding the white woollen habit that was the required dress for Premonstratensian canons. In May 1403,
Pope Boniface IXPope Boniface IX , born Piero Tomacelli, was the second Roman Pope of the Western Schism from November 2, 1389 – until October 1, 1404...
gave dispensation to the canons at Børglum to alter their white habits to black, brown or any other dark color, due to the abbey's "being a place near the sea with frequent floods and the resulting mud." In 1422 the canons were permitted to wear undergarments for warmth and to add a
cowlThe cowl is a hood worn by members of religious orders. It also refers to a long, hooded cloak, with wide sleeves, worn by some Catholic and Orthodox monks when participating in the liturgy. Developed in the Middle Ages, they became the formal garment for those in monastic life...
to their attire.
One of the annual events for which Børglum was famous was the market on or near St. Bodil's day, June 17th. Bodil's sacred spring which was a religious site back in
VikingA Viking is one of the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the late eighth to the early eleventh century. These Norsemen used their famed longships to travel as far east as Constantinople and the Volga River in Russia, and as far...
times was believed to have healing power.
In 1500 a fire destroyed much of the old abbey church and a new church was begun, but in the later
Gothic styleGothic architecture is a style of architecture which flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
with high arched ceilings. Work was slow, but by 1520 the choir and
naveIn Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...
had been rebuilt and work had begun on the
transeptFull descriptions of the elements of a Gothic floorplan are found at the entry Cathedral diagram.
For the periodical go to The Transept....
s to join the two together. The
ReformationThe Protestant Reformation was a Christian reform movement in Europe which is generally deemed to have begun with Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 although a number of precursors such as Jan Hus predate that event...
in the 1520s and 1530's brought the reconstruction to a halt.
The last Bishop of Vendsyssel (and abbot of Børglum) was Stygge Krumpen (Rosencrantz), who was unable to halt the advance of the Lutheran reforms. In 1536 he was arrested and imprisoned but after several years in confinement was eventually released when he accepted Lutheranism and agreed to marry. He was given the former nunnery of
Asmild AbbeyAsmild Abbey was a house of Augustinian nuns with a close connection to the Augustinian canons at Viborg Cathedral in north central Jutland, Denmark.- History :...
, near Viborg, as an estate, on the condition that he make provision for the care of the nuns who after its dissolution in 1536 had no other place to go.
After dissolution
Børglum Abbey was dissolved when Denmark became officially Lutheran on 30 October 1536. Its assets reverted to the crown and it became a royal property once again. The abbey church continued in use as the cathedral church for northern Jutland until 1554, when the Lutheran bishop moved the episcopal seat to the
Budolfi ChurchSt Budolfi Church is the cathedral church for the Lutheran Diocese of Aalborg in north Jutland, Denmark.- History :Aalborg was already a town in the mid 10th century, with a fine position on the east-west Lim Fjord that served as a trade route between the North Sea and the Baltic until the 12th...
in
AalborgAalborg , sometimes written as Ålborg, is a city in Denmark. Its population, as of 2009, is 122,461, making it the fourth largest in the country after Copenhagen, Aarhus, and Odense. The earliest settlements date back to around 700 AD. Its location by the Limfjord made it an important harbour...
. The vast Børglum Abbey estate was broken up and sold off or given to noble families. The abbey's main building became a large
manor houseA manor house or fortified manor-house is a country house, which has historically formed the administrative centre of a manor , the lowest unit of territorial organization in the feudal system...
and the outbuildings were either demolished or converted to farm use.
Without constant attention the buildings began to deteriorate; the church especially fell into total disrepair. A local nobleman, Godslev Budde, received permission from
Frederik IIFrederick II , King of Denmark-Norway and duke of Schleswig from 1559 until his death. He was the son of King Christian III of Denmark and Norway and Dorothea of Saxe-Lauenburg....
to demolish the incomplete transepts and enclose the church in the original basilica form.
Present day
As a manor house, the former abbey buildings at Børglum have survived to modern times. In 1958 the structures were given national historic status and protection. The remains of the abbey buildings now accommodate a museum showing the history of the site
http://www.boerglumkloster.dk.
The church continues to serve as the local parish church.
Sources