Altarpiece - St. Peter's Church - Malmö, Sweden - Wooden Church Artefacts on Waymarking.com

The Alterpiece

«The altarpiece of the church is one of the largest in the Nordic countries. It is made of oak wood and reaches a height of 15 metres. It was made in 1611 by several local master carpenters: Jacob Kremberg, Statius Otto, Curt Snedker, Öllrich Svarfer and Henrik Könnicke together with Didrik Moll, a court painter in the service of Christian IV of Denmark, and the painter Pieter Hartman, a local resident. The altarpiece consists of four storeys or levels, one above the other. In the lowermost part there is a depiction of the Last Supper in the centre, and on each side wooden sculptures of Moses and John the Baptist, respectively. Above this there is a depiction of the Crucifixion, and above this there is a representation of the ascension. At the very top is the name of God, Yahweh, displayed.»

St. Peter's Church Historical background

«St. Peter's Church is the oldest church in Malmö, as well as the oldest preserved brick building, and originally the only parish church of the city. It is characteristic for the younger medieval cities of Skåne, such as Malmö, to only have one original parish church; nearby Lund, an older settlement, in contrast had a high concentration of churches early on. The explanation is probably that Malmö rose to significance at a time when the land was already subdivided into parishes following the Christianization of Scandinavia in the preceding centuries. Malmö began a rapid expansion thanks to the lucrative trade in herring around 1200 and the city was part of the economic infrastructure around the Hanseatic League and the Skåne Market.[1] By the end of the Middle Ages the city had established itself as the most important commercial city in the province. St. Peter's Church has been described as "the main Gothic monument within church architecture in Skåne" and as a "very good and strongly authentic representative of Baltic Brick Gothic". During the 14th century, St. Peter's Church was the largest town church in Denmark.[

The church played an important role as a spiritual centre during the Reformation, with the Reformer Claus Mortensen [sv] active as a priest in the church. One of only four occurrences of violence due to iconoclasm during the Danish Reformation occurred in St. Peter's Church in 1529, when Claus Mortensen led the destruction of much of the ornamentation in the church, deemed "too Catholic" by the Reformer. Of the more than sixty pre-Reformation altarpieces, only one survived more or less intact. It was also following the Reformation (in 1555) that the interior of the church was whitewashed.»

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