Nidaros Cathedral: Trondheim's Medieval Masterpiece in Stone

Trondheim is a fairly small city with a very large church. On the southern edge of the centre, near a bend in the Nidelva river, Nidaros Cathedral rises in grey-green stone, its west front crowded with carved kings, saints and apostles.

It is the northernmost medieval cathedral in the world, and Norwegians often call it their national sanctuary. It is also a building that has burned, stood half in ruins, been argued over and rebuilt, so what you see today is a conversation between the Middle Ages and the twentieth century.

A cathedral built over a saint's grave

The story starts with a death. King Olav Haraldsson was killed at the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030, and within a year he was declared a saint.

His grave in Nidaros, as the medieval town was called, became the focus of a growing cult. Around 1070 his nephew, King Olav Kyrre, began building a stone church on the spot.

That church, known as Kristkirken, was finished around 1090, and St Olav's shrine was placed above its altar. Almost all Norwegian royals of the eleventh and twelfth centuries were buried there.

Nothing of it is visible now. Later builders reused its foundations, which were excavated and measured during the restoration in the late nineteenth century.

In 1152 Nidaros became the seat of an archdiocese, and the church had to grow to match its new rank. Over the following century and a half, it took the shape we recognise today.

Nidaros Cathedral history in five building phases

Rather than one design carried out from start to finish, the cathedral was built in stages, each reflecting the taste of its time. The oldest standing parts are Romanesque, with thick walls and round arches.

The transept dates from about 1140 to 1180, and the chapter house from about 1170 to 1180. The octagon around St Olav's shrine followed between roughly 1183 and 1210, then the long choir between about 1220 and 1240.

The last medieval phase was the nave and the west front. Archbishop Sigurd Eindrideson laid the cornerstone of the west front in 1248, and the building was substantially complete around 1300.

The builders looked west across the North Sea for ideas. The octagon may echo the Corona at Canterbury Cathedral, and the choir appears to have been modelled on the Angel Choir at Lincoln, which gives parts of the building a distinctly English Gothic character.

Fire, ruin and a long restoration

The centuries after that were hard on the building. Fires damaged it in 1328 and again in 1531, and after the second blaze the nave was left without a roof.

It stayed a roofless ruin for close to four hundred years. In 1708 the whole cathedral burned except for its outer walls, and in 1719 a lightning strike set it on fire once more.

By the time restoration began in 1869, the tower was a patchwork of emergency repairs and the vaults of the choir had collapsed. Architect Heinrich Ernst Schirmer led the early work, and Christian Christie carried much of it forward.

A dedicated restoration workshop was founded the same year. It is still active, and its stonemasons keep maintaining the building, because a stone church of this size is never truly finished.

The restoration was officially declared complete in 2001, well over a century after it began.

The west front and its statues

The west front was the hardest part to bring back. It was badly damaged, poorly documented, and nobody knew for certain how the medieval façade had looked.

The oldest known picture, a print from 1661, shows only the lower storeys standing. Written sources from the 1500s, however, described a great stone rose in the gable, gilded and set with a red stone that blazed when the sun hit it.

When Christie's 1903 sketch left out a rose window, it set off a heated public debate. After his death a competition was held, and Parliament eventually approved Olaf Nordhagen's design, rose window included.

Most of the Nidaros Cathedral statues you see today are twentieth-century work. Only five medieval statues survived, and many different sculptors filled the remaining niches between 1905 and 1983, when the restoration of the west front was finished.

Stand back on the square and take in the rows of figures. This kind of screen façade has close relatives on English cathedrals of the same period, such as Wells and Salisbury.

Then look up at the north tower. It holds Norway's largest church bell, installed in 1964 and weighing about 2,400 kilograms.

Inside: the Nidaros Cathedral interior

The light changes as soon as you step inside. The space is tall and dim, coloured by stained glass that was all made during the nineteenth- and twentieth-century rebuilding.

Much of that glass is by Gabriel Kielland, who worked on the windows between 1907 and 1934. Along the nave, windows on the north side show Old Testament scenes against blue, while those on the south side show the New Testament against red.

Pay attention to the stone itself. The builders used grey-green soapstone and set pale columns against it, reversing the dark-on-light contrast that had been introduced at Canterbury.

At the east end, a carved stone screen separates the choir from the octagon. Above its main arch hangs a crucifix by Gustav Vigeland, flanked by figures of the Virgin Mary and St John.

Beyond it, an altar in the octagon marks the place of the medieval high altar, where St Olav's silver reliquary once stood. The shrine was melted down for coin under Christian II, and the saint's remains were buried somewhere beneath the floor, in a spot that is now unknown.

That reliquary was shaped like a small church with dragon heads on its gables, a motif also carved on Norway's stave churches. If you have seen Urnes Stave Church, you will recognise the same fondness for carved beasts.

Music is part of the experience too. The cathedral has a large Steinmeyer organ from 1930 and a Baroque organ built by Joachim Wagner in 1738–40, carefully restored in the 1990s.

Kings, pilgrims and a national sanctuary

For almost a century, Norway's constitution required the king to be crowned in the cathedral at Trondheim. The last coronation here was Haakon VII's in 1906, two years before Parliament abolished the ceremony.

The royal link did not end there. King Olav V was consecrated in the cathedral in 1958, and King Harald and Queen Sonja in 1991, and the crown regalia are now on display in the Archbishop's Palace next door.

Pilgrims still come, many of them on foot along the old Pilgrim's Route. Arriving pilgrims traditionally walk around the cathedral three times before entering, and those who complete the journey can receive a pilgrim certificate.

The busiest time is around 29 July, the anniversary of St Olav's death, when the cathedral marks his feast with services and a festival that draws visitors from across the country.

Visiting the Trondheim cathedral

The cathedral sits at the southern edge of Trondheim's compact centre, an easy walk from the main streets and the river. Entry is by ticket, sold online and at the visitor centre.

Opening hours shift through the year and around services, so check the official calendar before you go. In summer you can pay a little extra to climb the tower for a view over the city rooftops.

Give yourself time outside as well. Walk around the building before you go in: the north transept has a Romanesque portal in the Anglo-Norman style, and the east end shows off the octagon and choir.

Afterwards, it is a short stroll to Gamle Bybro, the Old Town Bridge, with its red portals and views along the river to the old wharf warehouses.

A medieval church shaped by modern hands

Nidaros is not frozen in a single moment. It is a medieval church completed by people who had to study, guess, argue and decide, and you can read those choices in its stone.

That mix of surviving medieval fabric and patient modern craft is what makes a visit worthwhile. Look closely, and you start to see which parts were carved in the 1200s and which were carved within living memory.