Saint Catharine’s

S c t . C a t h a r i n e ’ s C h u r c h and Monastery

This church and monastery are unique buildings. They were founded in 1228 by the Blackfriars, who came from Spain, and had chosen Denmark as one of the first countries outside Spain in which to build a church and monastery. One may well wonder today why they chose such a small town as Ribe for their work. But at the time it had an important harbour, the king resided in Ribe, and it had been the episcopal residence for hundreds of years. The Blackfriars built the church and one wing of the monastery first, but they made the mistake of building in soft ground. Subsidence was a recurrent source of trouble, and it wasn’t until the 15. century that the third and last church was built. Shortly after that they had to leave both church and monastery because at the reformation in 1536, the king handed the church over to the parish, and the monastery became a hospital for the poor, the old and the sick people. The monastery has - until this century played a varied role. As well as a hospital for the old and the sick it was used as a field-hospital for foreign troops, when they were stationed in Ribe. The courtyard was used as a barn for the kings hay, and from 1709 lunatics were housed in the buildings as well as the poor and sick. Furthermore 12 pupils and their teachers from the g r a m m a r s c h o o l in Ribe (the oldest grammarschool in Denmark) had their meals in the hospital every day. They literally had to ”sing

for their supper” by going to church twice a day for services. But the boys spent a good deal of churchtime carving inscriptions in the choirbenches. Amongst them there is even to be found the name of a later bishop of Ribe. Today there are nine small flats for single persons from the dioscese in the monastery. The church has - until an extensive restoration in this century continually suffered from the unsatisfactory making of the foundations. Moreover it was seriously damaged by fire in 1580, and the arches collapsed. The condition of buildings was so poor, and the economic burdens of a restoration so vast, that at one time serious consideration was given to pulling it down, but fortunately this plan was not followed. It was a Danish architect, Harald Lønborg Jensen, who proposed a daring project for the rescue of the churchs. He suggested using jack- screws under the sinking walls to tilt them back in place. This was succes- fully achieved and the foundations heavily underpinned with concrete. As a reminder of the work one can still see a jackscrew in the entrance to the crypt. The big restoration lasted from 1918 till 1932, when the church was reopened and re-consecrated. Since then it has remained secure in its pure and beautifull style as we see it today.