Andst church/ Andst kirke, Andst herred, Ribe amt

Andst church, wikipedia.

Andst church is a parish church situated about seven km west of Kolding. The church lies high upon a hill in the middle of the village Store Andst. It is an ashlar building from the last decades of the 1100s, but about 1140 the church was still a wooden church. In the late Middle Ages was added a porch. Andst was through centuries a permanent  station for travellers between Kolding and Ribe. In 1588 king Frederik II made this travel and took a rest in the vicarage. He ordered his vasal at Koldinghus, Caspar Markdanner to equip Andst church with a tower, since the church was situated at the beaten track  - and in 1592 the tower was built with the special onion spire. It was once a stilt tower with openings in the ground floor, but they were bricked up in the 1600s or 1700s. On the northside of the tower are still seen traces from the brickwork.

Andst parish is mentioned for the first time in 1280, when Erik Nielsen deeded estates in Andst herred to the bishop of Ribe as a compensation for the church taxes he had kept for himself. The parish priests in Andst are mentioned since 1471, the vicarage of Andst was placed in Gamst village, where the priest lived already in 1471. The Danish Crown had during the Middle Ages large estates in the parish.

Altarpiece, wikipedia

Many details in the early building section point to Ribe cathedral as a  role model.  According to the Bishop-Chronicle it seems that Andst church was built almost contemporary to Ribe cathedral, which was a model for the village churches in Ribe bishopric. Several of the Jutland granite churches have got their pillar portals under the influence from the cathedral in Ribe. The apse is special by its unusually strong curve which forms more than half  a circle. The nave has kept its small Romanesque windows in the northside.  The very pretty south portal with four pillars has a thympanum with a relief of Christ between Peter and Paul. A similar thympanum is seen  in Skanderup and Vamdrup church. (Jutland)  In the northside of the choir is s priest-door.

Stone in porch wall, wikipedia

In the outer wall of the porch is a Romanesque gravestone which is divided in two fields. In the upper field stand a man and a woman in tender embrace and in the lower field is a cow. The interpretation is not clear, but it is clear that the stone mason must be the same who made the south portal. The portraits are considered to be a married couple who were founders of the church, and the cow was the only possession left of their fortune, when the church building had finished. 














The ceiling of choir and nave is a flat cassette-ceiling decorated with grape clusters. It was set up in 1605 and later renewed into its original look. Romanesque frescoes from the beginning of the church building were found in 1977,  but their condition was bad and they  were washed over.
The inside walls are whitewashed, the floor has small black and yellow tiles, which replaced a brick floor in the 1880s. Main restoration in 1926. The tower had been a fuel room, but was connected to the nave. Restoration in 1977-78.

Altar foto 2003: gb

Interior:
The bricked and whitewashed  communion table stands freely in the middle of the apse curve. In the table was in 1844 found a leaden reliquary, containing the piece of a bone and some silk. It is now at the National Museum. The three-winged altarpiece is an exciting work, made ab. 1510. It consists of a mid-cupboard with a lively carved display of biblical figures and with two hinged wings with figures of the apostles. Behind the altar stood a blood-stained and leather upholstered chair where a person was either killed or died from fear.

Interior, foto wikipedia.

The Romanesque baptismal font is a socalled arcade font with 10 fields with each a figure. One of the figures is an ostrich, most probably the earliest Danish display of this bird. The richly carved pulpit from 1602 with Latin text pays tribute to  the towerbuilder and benefactor, the king's vasal at Koldinghus Caspar Markdanner. The text was written by the parish priest Jon Jensen Kolding who in 1591 wrote the first known topography of the Danish kingdom.

granite font, wikipedia

                                                       



                                                         
                                                         

                                                            












Various artifacts in the church:
Silver: Chalice 1714 given by Levetzow of Bygholm, dish from 1925, a set: chalice, dish, wafer box given by parish priest Jens Andersen Heug, ab. 1708, a spoon 1897, a wafer box, 1897;  altar candelabres given by Jon Jensen Kolding 1589 (silver?).

Altar jar ( probably baptismal) in pewter 1862; baptismal dish, brass, 1550, given to the church in 1775, baptismal jar, brass, 1891; a porcelain dish, Royal Copenhagen 1926; crucifix with biscuit figure of Christ, behind altar;

Other:
Money tablet for collecting money for Helsingør hospital ab. 1600. An ironbound moneyblock, two brass money boxes, ironbound medieval door wing, , a portrait of parish priest A Richter + 1712, priest lists on a tablet, the pulpit repainted 1602 and with coat of armors and initials of Caspar Markdanner and parish priest Jon Jensen Kolding upon the contemporary sounding board; panels along the walls of the nave, to the west a gallery

Andst church, Google Earth

The  church yard is surrounded by granite boulder dikes and beech hedges. Among the granite boulders are several Romanesque ashlars which originate from the west gable. The main entrance of the church yard is a port with two lattice gates. Outside the dike are large chestnut trees to the south and west. Inside the eastern dike are oaks and around the church Swedish whitebeam. An unreadable gravestone in the church yard is said to be for a workman who fell down from the church roof.









Source, Danmarks kirker, Nationalmuseet.