The Vestervig Church, was the largest village church of the north during the Middle Ages at more than a hundred kilometers north of Copenhagen. It was founded as an Augustine abbey about 1100.  There was an earlier pilgrimage church built nearby of which only the foundation exist in the lower part of the photo above. It sits in the center of some of Denmark's most fertile farming land on a hill with a commanding view of the sea, fiord, lake, burial mounds, and sand dunes. At one time it had a quadrangle attached for a convent of the order of Augustus. The shaped has changed somewhat with removal of 2 naves and the building of the bell tower in the fifteenth century. After the Reformation the convent was torn down and the land went first to the crown then to the independently operated parish church. The cemetery along side the church has tombs that date from 1217. "During the Roman Catholic period the church had neither pulpit nor pews, but in 1653 the pews which are still in use today were acquired (this date can be seen on the endpiece of the back pew along the centre aisle) and they now stand in their original colours." [Vestervig Church]

To quote from the Vestervig Kirke brochure: 

"A stone inscribed near the entrance is 'Liden Kirstens' tomb, the illegible inscription reads: ' Here rest a sister and a brother; a couple so closely attached that this exalted pair have been laid to rest in the same grave'. This alludes in a few words to a long tragic love story of two who loved each other but were not allowed to married but who were united in death. The concerned are the sister of King Valdemar the Great and her lover prince Buris Henriksen. The king refused to give his consent to the marriage. In fit of rage when Liden Kirsten gave birth to a child the king had her killed and the princes eyes gouged out and "maimed hand and foot" he was chained to the convent porch, from where he each day tell his dying day dragged himself to his loved ones grave, legend has it, for eleven years."[Vestervig Church]

The abbey was dissolved in 1536 during the Reformation to officially become Lutheran.  The Convent of the Vestervig Kirke was torn down and the interior was white washed to cover all the images of saints that had been previously painted on the interior walls. Even the bricks and timbers from the church were quarried to build Aalborghus. The simplicity and self-reliant nature of the protestant faith undoubtedly appealed to these farmers sense of nature and propriety. [Vestervig Church]

North Sea near Vestervig, Denmark
photo Elroy Christenson 2016