The church – A blessed repository

The church closest to a levy boathouse served as a storage place for the sail of the levy ship and other equipment that was not safe to store in the boathouse. Churches could have large and airy lofts and were assembly points at central locations. Many preserved medieval churches, such as Kinsarvik Church in Hardanger and Sørbø Church in Bonafjorden, have lofts that were used for storing levy equipment. It was also important to have the same standard procedure everywhere since sails were so important for the kingdom’s defensive capability.

The depiction of the longship fleet on the rune stick from Bergen (opens in a new tab) shows that some ships had wind vanes in the stems. Gilded wind vanes are also known from descriptions in sagas and other sources. They probably served both as decoration and identity markers for the ships. A few such wind vanes are preserved in Norway and Sweden, all associated with churches, where they were mounted on spires. This is obviously where they were placed after ships went out of service. If the levy ships had wind vanes, it was certainly common to store them in churches, together with other levy equipment. It is nevertheless paradoxical that none of the preserved Norwegian wind vanes originates from churches located by the sea. The candlestick from the exhibition illustrated here represents a ship with a wind vane in both stem and stern. It comes from Dale Church in Luster Municipality. Here, the link with the levy is clearer: the “warship district” was originally called Dale, named after the church and the Ting council locality. A similar candlestick stands in the stave church of Urnes, also in Luster. Several stave churches, including Urnes, also have carvings of ships and ship’s stems with wind vanes on their walls. These also emphasize the connection between churches and warships.