Sorø Klosters ældste historie i de skriftlige kilder

The earliest history of Sorø Abbey in the sourcesBy Michael KræmmerAs a rule little is known about the founding and the early years of Danish monasteries. With the abbey of Sorø we are lucky to have some descriptions – neither many nor lengthy, but still a lot more than is usually the case. We have a description of the foundation at the beginning of Sorø klosters gavebog, a list of the abbots from the foundation to the Reformation, and a description of the medieval sepulchres in the abbey’s church. The written evidence partly proves but mostly just suggests the following outline of the construction history of the abbey of Sorø – a Benedictine monastery was planned in the 1140s or a little earlier. We do not know when it was founded, but around 1150the first stone church was consecrated. The abbey was soon reformed and became Cistercian in 1161, on 13th June. The building of a new brick church began and it was probably consecrated and perhaps also finished early in the 1180s. In the first decennium of the 13th century the work with the so-called »Mølledige« began (described later in this book). On 13th May 1247 there was a great fire, and apparently most of the church and the rest of the abbey were destroyed. However, later evidence suggests that the church was not as damaged as the chroniclers wanted us to believe. The rebuilt church was reconsecrated in 1285 and many burials were moved to certain parts of the church from »the old church«, a phrase which must refer to the stone church from the 12th century. A medieval frieze with a coat of arms (»Skjoldefrisen«) may have been painted in connection with the reconsecration, as is normally believed, but this is uncertain. This is as far as we can go with the material from written sources. However, it must be remembered that the conclusions of this article should be confronted with the results of the archaeologists