Church Building 267 



ilia vast majority, and stone ones rare exceptions. We 

 have no wooden structures which go back quite as early 

 as the date at which we are now arrived. But there 

 are one or two wooden churches which belong to a time 

 very little later — the latter half of the twelfth century. 

 These are the churches called stavekirker, of which we 

 have specimens still standing at Hitterdal, on the 

 Hitterdalselv, not far from Kongsbeg, the terminus 

 of the western railway from Christiania. Another of 

 these stave-churches is at Borgund, near Laerdal, on the 

 Sogne Fjord. This is the one most frequently visited 

 by travellers. These churches give us a picture of the 

 religious structures which, from the time of Olaf Kyrri, 

 began to be raised pretty frequently over Norway. St. 

 Olaf in his day built churches for the principal divisions 

 of the country, and the patronage of these churches lay 

 with the crown. Not seldom some great chief, when 

 he changed his faith, built a church for his own benefit, 

 and the benefit of his household : this was a sort of 

 private chapel. The chief, before his conversion, had 

 been in most cases a priest as well as a leader, and had 

 had a temple of his own, and been wont to assist at the 

 sacrifices. When he went over, it was natural tliat he 

 should wish to preserve as much as possible of his old 

 status by making himself the patron of a church. 

 Then there were other churches built by districts for 

 their own use; in this case the patronage lay neither 

 with the king nor with any great chief, but rather with 

 the local Thing. 



It marks the inauguration of something like true me- 

 disevalisin in Norway — the nearest approach to it which 

 the country ever knew — that in some cases, notably in 



