Old Aker Church, part 1 - a medieval frame

 
Last week I visited Old Aker church for the first time. Old Aker church - in Eastern Norwegian and Bokmål "Gamle Aker kirke" - is one of the few surviving remnants of medieval Oslo, and one of very few such remnants situated outside of the centre of the medieval town. The church is located on the top of a hill which overlooks the river plain where the now-diminutive river Aker runs into the fjord, and which now is covered by modern Oslo.   

The current stone church was probably built around 1100, possibly on the site of a wooden predecessor, which is a common pattern in Scandinavia. In that period, several stone structures were being erected in medieval Oslo, predominantly the churches whose foundations have now been excavated, but possibly also the royal manor. The emergence of these stone buildings can be understood as a result of both a greater amassing of resources in the area, as well as a stronger and more independent episcopal power, since Oslo was one of the three oldest mainland Norwegian bishoprics.  

Unfortunately, little is known about the history of the church. Its location outside of the city centre and its costly stone edifice both point to an important building. The district, presumably including the church, was donated to the Benedictine nuns of Oslo by Bishop Helge I in 1186, suggesting that the income generated in this district could go a long way of supporting the community of nuns. Beyond this donation, there remain few sources to its earliest history. The most important source is the church itself, or at least what has survived the nineteenth-century restorations. As it stands today, most of the outer walls of the basilica-shaped building belongs to the medieval building programme, shown by the locally quarried limestone. The base of the medieval tower has also survived, but the current tower is a modern reconstruction whose dimensions are drawn from the surviving tower base. Only one piece of decoration from the medieval period has survived, but that will be a topic for a future blogpost. 

The interior of the church is heavily restored, and it is likely that the medieval building was covered by wall-paintings that since faded or were covered by post-medieval Protestants, which in turn might have caused the nineteenth-century restorers to remove all the remains of plaster to get to the naked stone underneath. The restoration work also resulted in the added series of windows in the upper storey. These alterations to the interior has both added a source of light that was not there in the Middle Ages, and at the same time darkened the room my removing the colours of the interior surfaces, colours which would have radiated the light of candles and what natural light could enter through the first storey windows. 

Old Aker church is a very beautiful and peaceful spot, but also one - perhaps to a greater extent than most restored Scandinavian churches I have visited - where the lines between the original edifice and restoration is blurred to the point where it almost ceases to feel medieval.