Finderup church / Finderup kirke, Nørlyng herred, Viborg amt

Finderup church, 10 km southwest of Viborg
Finderup sogn, Nørlyng herred, Viborg amt.

Interior


Pews from the 1653.


old door lock

Finderup Church is placed 10 km southwest of the Jutland town Viborg, where the Danish kings once were crowned. The white chalked late Romanesque nave and chorus are built in raw field stones with brick built corners. The western extension, the porch and the tower are from 1791. From original details is only the round-arched door, visible from the outside. The choir has a late Gothic vault, while the nave has beamed ceilings.

The altar piece is originally a joinery from the 1600s, in a remake the middle field was removed; upon the backside are remains from an earlier altar piece. The pulpit is placed upon the communion table with access for the priest through the middle field of the altar piece, which was remade again in the 1860s. The paintings from the sidewings are now at the National Museum . The altar candelabres from 1653 has the coat of arms of the vasal Frands Pogwisch and wife. A late Gothic choir arch-crucifix hangs upon the wall. A Romanesqu granite font. The pulpit is from ab. 1616 with rich carvings in the style of the Roskilde-master Brix Snedker. The pews in the upper section of the church are from 1653, at the entrance is a single panel and the year 1611.


Finderup church with the typical Styltetårn, (a tower on stilts)
where the bell is

Names in the Middle Ages and 1600s:
Finderup (* 1277 Finderup); Hellerup (1541 Hillerup, -rop); Fløjgårde (1541 Flogord, 1664 Fløygaard).

Listed prehistorics: 26 hills, one rather large at Hellerup.
Demolished or destroyed: 61 hills, mainly around Finderup and Agerskov.


Landscape at Finderup.

St. Cecilia's Night 22. November 1286 king Erik Glipping was murdered when he after a hunt rested in a barn at Finderup. After the murder his body was brought to Viborg. The barn was burnt down and a penance chapel in red bricks , 25 m long and 9,4 m broad, was built shortly after the killing, probably already in 1287. This chapel stood until the middle of the 1500s where it was demolished by the order of a King's Letter of 23. December 1551.

Upon the place of the chapel have been found a foundation stone and medieval graves and skeletons. The place is west of the present church and close to the old vicarage's placement. Here is raised a memorial granite cross by initiative of Thor Lange. Upon the gable of Falle Skovhus in the forest south west of Finderup is an inscription: ' St Cæcilia Nat 1286 gjæstede Kong Erik Glipping dette hus.' (St. Cecilia's Night 1286 king Erik Glipping visited this house'.)

According to tradition the common understanding is that the ruins by Thor Lange's memorial cross origin from a chapel. A recent opinion is that the present church is the chapel rebuilt and that the ruins origin from the earliest parish church. NB: The last opinion seems logical since there are graves and skeletons in the area natural for a church area and not natural for a penance chapel in memory of a murdered king.

Source: Trap Danmark, Viborg amt, 1962



photo Finderup kirke og landskab 130506: grethe bachmann