Please check out: go.nebula.tv/hoog It makes videos like this possible, and it gives you access to really, incredible content like Becoming Human. (Also makes a great Christmas gift). Corrections/nuances: Eastern European wood churches are great and beautiful, but they're not the same as Norway's. I do not mean that all stone buildings are built out of soapstone, but I mean that of the limited stone buildings, some are built out of soapstone, which is atypical.
Recently, there was a problem with the cathedral in Trondheim. They replaced the copper roof, so the popular green that was the result of oxidation was lost. So in order to get the color back faster, they used horse piss to make it green. After looking throughout the country they finally found a stallion that had a extremely regular piss session every day. After importing loads of piss, everybody was happy with the result. And that's why roof on the cathedral is green again.
Oh yes, piss. One of the founding case in European law, that explains that people can use EU law before the national judges, Van Gend en Loos was also because of piss - fermented urine - transported from Germany to the Netherlands. Lol
This channel is going to blow up. I love this streamlined and efficient animation style. It has an easy to understand and charming artistic value to it
I am not Norwegian, but i have studied europe and early Christianity and i have had never known about this. It is wild and so interesting, and awesome at the same time.
As a Norwegian carpenter who has worked on several newer wooden churches as well as one stave church in Rogaland this video is lovely to see. The one stave church I worked at also had a leper wall featuring a seperate room with carved eye holes for lepers to watch through.
@@_yellow Akershus festning, Håkonshallen and the fortress in Trondheim, Halden etc. beg a differ. You can find ruins of stone fortifications all over the country, Slottsfjellet in Tønsberg, is the a good example, and it was indeed burned and razed many times, including by the swedes.
It's actually quite beautiful that the distinctiveness of their churches is reflective of the environment and people who built them. It gives it a greater sense of belonging, and of connection to the communities in which they exist.
There are a few examples of areas with unique chruches. Northern germany for instance has quite distinct brick churches though they are closer to the "typical" chruch than the ones in Norway.
my local wooden church in finland was first build sometime around mid 1400s but it burned down when it got hit by a lightning in year 1700. New wooden church was built in its place few years later and it still stands to this day.
Ylivieska finland had a church from 1786 but someone decided to go ahead and commit arson to it. The church was completely in flames within 10 minutes or so.
When we learned about Stav Churches in school, a truck came and delivered precut wooden logs that we would use to puzzle together a mini church in our big classroom. Was about 5 by 5m and about 2 meters tall. Was quite the experience.
This is cool to see. In college, one of my jobs was to give tours of a replica of the Hopperstad stave church in Norway. The replica was in Moorhead, MN just across the river from Fargo, ND. I used to talk about the dragons on the roof, and the designs at the portal to the guests. It was built in Moorhead because of the significant Norwegian immigrant population in Eastern ND and Northwestern Minnesota. Norwegian foods like lefse and lutefisk are even still very common in this part of the US.
also really cool is the replica longship that Bob Asp made and sailed to Norway from Duluth. I mean, the Hjemkomst Center is named after the ship itself.
all my relations. grandma from the black hills and grandpa on the other family side from Rosseau County. Homesteaded by walking north into Canada, and ran into MORE Norwegians. Manitoba is a suburb of Noway and Iceland.
I actually wrote a term paper on stave churches for my archaeological conservation class, it's very interesting. This is a very good video, and you had some good points I wish I'd considered back then. This is really good.
These churches are really interesting and they remind me of those built in parts of Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine and Romania. They are not the same but very similar, Norwegian churches are generally taller and their religion is slightly different. I grew up in Slovakia where you can find many wooden churches (there are 59 wooden churches in Slovakia). I'd like to see those in Norway one day :)
its because Slavic and northern Germanic was mainly build with the wood because of natural resources like he say in the video and because if you look at medieval Citizen housing you can see that Slavic and Nordic cities was mainly in wooden logs (for example game Kingdom come Deliverance) and western was mainly in Timber Framing and stone (because of Roman empire and Frankish influence).
@@vkdrk he meant stave churches wooden church doesnt mean stavechurch and in poland there is one stavechurch that was transported from norway to poland
I have never watched a video and thought to myself this this is a piece of art. But after watching your video I really truly have to say the amount of effort that went into the visuals plus the great narration gives me the feeling of high art that I'm witnessing! You are not just some TH-camr this is one of the best videos that I've ever seen. MAD RESPECT keep it up!
I imagine church builders used a lot of techniques used in shipbuilding. After all, many woodworkers would be familiar with both, especially in a forested maritime nation. It reminds me of a chapel I visited in Pine Valley, UT. The designer learned shipbuilding in Scotland, so the roof was built like an upside-down ship.
Not sure if they used shipbuilding techniques or just general wooden house techniques that were used at that time. In southern Poland there are a lot of wooden churches and that as far away as possible from the sea. But Wikipedia says it’s “horizontal log technique” "The wooden churches of southern Little Poland represent outstanding examples of the different aspects of medieval church-building traditions in Roman Catholic culture. Built using the horizontal log technique, common in eastern and northern Europe since the Middle Ages..."
@@LadyLiveLol It's not exclusive to stave churches or even a language group though. There is a Germanic source and a latin source meaning "large boat" used for the major vault of a church, leading to a number parallels in many languages where one word means both: From Proto-Germanic: *skipą Norwegian: skip Swedish: skepp Danish: skib Dutch: schip High German: Schiff From Latin: Navis Spanish: nave There is also: English: nave Polish: Nawa French: nef but those refer only to the church afaik. There is the obvious similarity between both, at least in Old High German there is a more wide meaning of "hollow body", but more importantly there is a christian connection. Noah's ark, the Barque of Saint Peter, the ship has been a symbol for the church from the beginning. I don't think there's is too much overlap between building a ship and building a roof. These days wood isn't used as often therefore the similarities stand out more but back then it was completely normal. In general a ship as a water vehicle is much more sophisticated and I think the superficial similarities would be very trivial to a wood working master. When it comes to Pine Valley Chapel, it has the most basic house shape that you can imagine, no ship to be seen. Some of language used to describe it's supposed ship-like qualities is straight up bull feces. Ebenezer Bryce learned ship building before he left Scotland at 17 years old and the church has a curved ceiling (not roof!) but the disney like narrative that they made from this sounds like a typical tourist tale.
I live a few meters from one of the stave churches, there is ancient graffiti of fish and dragons and also runes, possibly created by bored kids (or even adults) in the middle ages. If anyone visits a stave church, bring a flashlight, you'll be amazed at what historic traces you can find in the wood! In some cases, these have been highlighted in later times
There is another factor too. The timber used in these churches are of an exceptional quality. The trees grew extremely slowly due to the harsh climate and short grow season. Evergreen trees that grow slowly become incredibly dense and have a high content of resin that works as a natural preservative. In other words, the wood doesen't decay but can remain standing for up to a thousand years. Wooden churches can also be found in Russia, where the trees grew on the Siberian Taiga. These old growth trees also have exceptional quality. You would probably have found structures like these in Northern USA and Canada too, but since the Native Americans didn't have access to iron tools prior to the European contact, they could not develop the same level of craftsmanship. It is likely that wooden churches were built all over Europe, but the ones built in the far north are the only ones that would last for so long.
Your videos are so professionally made that it completely caught me off guard when you ended the segment about soapstone with "it's weird" and then moved on, I laughed out loud. I thought you would elaborate, but moving on was really funny for some reason.
@@kellybraun7048 There is very little limestone in Norway, which where more frequently used further south. Soapstone is also much more resistant to the cold/wet climate than limestone, so it's not actually weird at all...
You can actually find many scavenged bits and pieces of deconstructed/destroyed stave churches in the walls and foundations in some old barns around Norway.
Wow this was a crazy good video!!! The stav-churches here in norway are beatiful, thanks for taking the time to make such a well put together video about them and their history!!
I from a small costal city on the west coast of Norway. And there used to be a stave church here. But It fell in decay (13th century) and eventually got replaced by a more traditional looking church. Many stave churches on the west coast suffered the same fate, as the west coast has way rougher weather then the mountain range protected east. This explains why you'll barely find any Stave churches on the wast Coast, and tons in the east.
Many was destroyed because of the size. I know the stave church where my fathers family are from outside Sogndal was destroyed in the last part of 19 century. Just to give room for a bigger new church
Harpiks is what we call that black "paint" in danish. We still use it today, albiet not on houses as people who enjoy wooden houses tend to like colour. Its mainly used on boats and if you want some of the wood in your garden that'll be in the ground to last long
Man I've been to Norway a couple of times and the Stavkirke are absolutely amazing. I've been to a tiny city where one of the oldest are. The wooden details are beautiful and the smell is so goooooood. I also saw one being 'painted' with the tar for upkeep. That didn't smell so good lol, but was super amazing to see. Ahhhh good memories. Also: this video with animations is so much calmer than shitty (or even beautiful) stock videos. Had to get used to it for a second, but it's absolutely fantastic and much much nicer to watch. And as an architect, having been to Norway only when I was younger, it's amazing to finally understand the architecture and construction of these churches, as back then I was looking at very different things! Thanks for the effort!!
It’s a little hectic right now, but I enjoy the sheer abundance and creativity of your animations. I suspect in the longer term you’ll reduce the number of cuts between different style (block, hex, smooth and real), but in the meantime I’m enjoying the simple ‘fun’ you/we’re having with the visual storytelling.
I think he is trying to appeal the current generation of fast edits and quick cuts while keeping quality. Tho I do agree that it is a shame we don't get to see some of the great visualizations for more than 5 seconds
I studied geology in a town nearby the Urnes Stave church, and what was interesting there, was that the church is built in a landslide prone area. You can see lots of large boulders that have come down from the mountain side above, but none of them have hit the church during the almost 1000 years that have passed since it was built. They knew exactly where to place the church so that it was out of the way for rockfalls and landslides.
Great video 😍😍 I’m proud of our churches, especially the stave churches💕 I live in a small community, population just below 1600. We have in total 6 wooden churches, and two of them are stave churches, beautiful 😍
This channel is absolute gold. Channels like this will be the death of regular TV shows, quality of videos on TH-cam are amazing right now. This channel will have millions of subscribers and views per video if it continues with this quality.
Very cool video! It's very interesting point about the viking boat craftsmanship being used in the church construction - Church architecture often makes an explicit point of including that, as theologians saw the Church as the New Testament version of the Ark - each church building being a place one could go to for salvation from the flood of the world. It's not surprising that norse pagan imagery is used. In many cultures which were evangelized by the Church after the fall of the Roman empire, like in Ireland, or even in the old Aztec and Incan empires - those doing the evangelisation usually wouldn't try to completely destroy their cultural heritage, but Christianize or baptize it - placing it at the worship of Christ, rather than for its own sake.
Exactly. Even in the 'heart' of Christendom in Italy you can find churches and cathedrals which are adored with the depictions of different mythical beings not present in the bible like harpies, centaurs etc. I even saw an entire zodiac carved into the floor in some Sicilian church. In this case they were probably however done for artistic purposes rather than preserving old traditions as I doubt they were popular that late into history, but the point is people definitely didn't shy from depictions like that back in the day
The same thing happened in Sami areas many hundreds of years later. The drum was used in pre-Christian religious rituals. There are preserved drums that have images of Christ and church buildings next to the old Sami gods. Whether it is an expression that the Sámi had room for another god, or whether it was a deliberate way of carrying out the Christianization from the missionaries, is more uncertain. I believe more in the first than the latter.
The nave is literally called The Ship in all three Scandinavian languages. Danish churches takes it a step further and include a large model ship suspended from the ceiling.
I pretty much watched this due to my fascination for survival games that allow for building/crafting and your simple but great animation. The Norwegian (or old European style) construction looked so amazingly crafted that you can't help but be drawn to it. Same goes for those sophisticated Japanese old shrine and buildings.
I am from Norway and i find it amazing that such videos about our history is made by non norwegiens which just shows me that a lot of people know and like the history of my country.
I think this might bee the most comprihensive video on stave churches i have ever seen. Being norwegian i knew most of this from before but this video puts everything i knew about them and then some and everything is crammed in at under 12 minuts. Most other videoes spends 12 munuts just explaining the staves or the tar ( and other details) Greate Job on this video
This video style is amazing. I love the hexagon style animations and can only imagine how much time it must have taken to create something this detailed D:
The trusses inverting to the shape of a viking ship's hull is probably a remnant of the tradition of vikings flipping their ships to use as the roof of a temporary lodge or hall; the same designs were used for hundreds of years in the creation of permanent halls and other large structures. Just as southern European churches converted the basilica into the basic structure of the church, northerners appear to have adopted their lodges towards the same purpose.
That claim about the trusses is not something found in the litterature about stave churches so take that with a grain of salt 🙂 (It would be really inconvinient to build with such materials when lumber and an axe is available)
@@rolfnilsen6385 I mean, trusses are pretty much the same as the skeletal structure of a boat, just of a uniform size rather than varying to provide curvature. It may not be mentioned in the literature, but structurally the pieces are effectively the same.
@@ShiftySqvirrel The loads are very different, and so is the wood choosen for the job, and the way it is joined together. The common denominator is that it is wood. Not very much more.
There was a moment in Brazilian history where soap stone was heavily used, mostly during the 1700's. Buts its really cool to know that Norwegians were also doing it all the way through
Super high quality video! Interesting that the most effective tar recipe has been lost and can not be recreated, comes with a lot of thoughts about the skills of old craftsmen.
This was a great documentary on something I was really wanting to know more about. Thanks for sharing and nice job. My one bit of feedback, maybe it would have been too expensive, would be that it would be nice to have more footage of the churches in question.
Interesting fact: in Poland we have one Norwegian church- St. Vang, which was deconstructed, transported to Poland and build back again. Warm greetings from Poland to all Norwegians. ❤️
Johan Christian Clausen Dahl, a painter from Bergen who became Norway's first professor of art history, was a central figure in the creation of what is now called Fortidsminneforeningen (The Historical Preservation Society), which played a huge part in the process of preserving Stave churches. He wrote a highly influential article on the uniqueness and origin of the stave churches, and their "wildly fantastic shapes", which helped save the last remaining churches. He also introduced the history of these unique buildings to a broader audience of European art historians. Dahl ended up purchasing Vang church at an auction and was able to convince the King of Prussia to move the church to Berlin. It was taken down piece by piece and transported south by horse, sled, and ship. A year later, the king demanded that the church be rebuilt in Lower Silesia in Poland, in what is today the town Karpacz.
If anyone from central or eastern Europe want to see wooden churches i highly recommend either southern Poland with it's UNESCO buildings or The swidnica peace Church, beautiful and breathtaking
The comments on Norse pagan influences are especially fascinating. Syncretism (the practice of adopting elements of the existing belief system into a new one to make it more easily acceptable to local people) was a fundamental element of the spread of Christianity, from Christmas trees to the concept of God as a big bearded man, you can see the impact of pagan beliefs on Christian traditions and aesthetics all over the continent and beyond. I've always found it interesting how so much of medieval Scandinavian folklore bases itself around the distinction between Christian and non-Christian creatures, where magical beings like trolls and elves were often contrasted with humans through their refusal to adhere to Christian beliefs. I think this is probably a unique product of the slow and late expansion of Christianity into the region, especially the more remote and geographically difficult parts of the country.
You're right. Although it is important to note that many traditions we have today in christianity do not share links with pagan tradition. An important example of this is the christmas tree, which is a 19th century tradition and does not have any links to any pagan tradition, even though this is often suggested.
@@jellees The Christmas tree is a gentile tradition though, in the north it may be associated with yule, but for instance, us Catalans have the tió de nadal, which also goes back to our gentile days. Trunks have been associated to winter solstice celebrations since before christianity existed. Also, at least in Catholic Europe (with the exception of Castile and Portugal), the presence of myths and gallo-roman ideas was present all the way into the 1600s, some books from the 1300s in Catalonia even reference the influence of Mars and other deities on the people.
Super nice animations and visuals, good job! Lots of new information I wasn't aware of aswell. We have some wooden churches here in Estonia too, but many of them have been lost in wars which I guess Norway hasn't had that much. Stone lasted longer so I guess that's why the switch was made.
These animations look great! You should look into changing the 'subsurface radius' settings in your shaders, as I noticed they all use the Blender default which is actually tuned for flesh. This doesn't affect the surface color in the same way changing 'subsurface color' does as they just affect how far each color is scattered through the object.
In Portugal, churches are made with black granite with fine christal. Smaller churches are stone painted white or covered with ceramics and tiles, mostly blue.
This coment section is not it, wow. Sorry but why are so many slavs here indulging in whataboutism? Yes, we know y’all have wood churches too, that’s not what makes the Norwegian stave churches special😭 They’re special because part of the structure is based on a vikingship and because the church is decorated with norse pagan art and culture, to an extend that the christian symbols almost seem like an afterthought. This is unique to scandenavia, because the vikings were from scandenavia, not Poland and Ukraine and other slavic countries😭 You do not have to try to one up our churches lmao
As a Norwegian, this video made me truly proud! But this animation style is incredible! I have never seen anything like it! Very well done, and great storytelling!
As 50% norwegian, 25% english, 14% scottish, 7% austrian, 2% hungarian, 0,7% german, 0,6% danish and 99% not idiot this is beginning to be irrelevant as it didn't even add up to 100%
I believe Axis mundi is the general term for anything that serves as a connection between afterlife and earth across mythologies, while Yggdrasil is the Norse variant. Cool video though, never knew about these wood churches.
I wondered about this, the doomy and overwhelming appearance of churches I saw all the way up to Narvik when travelling by car back in 2017. but besides this explanation - your animation and storytelling capabilities are *amazing* rarely have I subbed so quickly to a channel like yours
The world tree is called Yggdrasil, just felt like adding that. I'm Norwegian and I've seen the stave church in the video and many more around the country. This video is very interesting and I learned a lot about their construction, thank you!
The stone churches here are mostly gray, like the mountain’s. Here in Stavanger the cathedral was built in ca 1150, it looks funny how big it was at the time when you look at estimates of how the city looked at the time
There are a lot of wooden churches in the middle/eastern part of Europe. If anybody is interested search for the following: - Wooden churches of Southern Lesser Poland 🇵🇱 - Wooden Tserkvas of the Carpathian Region in Poland 🇵🇱 and Ukraine 🇺🇦 You’ll find a whole list of these churches on Wikipedia
Gonna send this to my Norwegian friend for comment. Will report back with comment Edit: He sent me a picture of a Stave church he visited and told me that there aren’t a lot of them left in Norway still though
"there aren’t a lot of them left in Norway still though" There are only 25 left at their orginal locations. In addition there are three that have been relocated to different Norwegian museums and one that was sort'a relocated to Poland in the mid 19th century.
In the village near the farm my grandma grew up in there is a small wooden house near a church which has stood there for over a millenia. It's located in inland sweden where temperatures are comparable to norway and the weather is not very harsh.
Such a cool video. Great work. It's really interesting to see how the Norse paganism and Christianity mixed and produced unique buildings and assumably also branches of religions.
Please check out: go.nebula.tv/hoog It makes videos like this possible, and it gives you access to really, incredible content like Becoming Human. (Also makes a great Christmas gift).
Corrections/nuances:
Eastern European wood churches are great and beautiful, but they're not the same as Norway's.
I do not mean that all stone buildings are built out of soapstone, but I mean that of the limited stone buildings, some are built out of soapstone, which is atypical.
This video is beautiful.
Dude u completely forgot romanian churches... I was so excited to see my country represented but tgat, never happened 😭
Can you make a video about the weird Netherlands architecture?
@@johnwt7333 yes
If you like chruches that are a bit different you should look at pictures of skållerud kyrka, very small but extremely decorated
Recently, there was a problem with the cathedral in Trondheim. They replaced the copper roof, so the popular green that was the result of oxidation was lost. So in order to get the color back faster, they used horse piss to make it green. After looking throughout the country they finally found a stallion that had a extremely regular piss session every day. After importing loads of piss, everybody was happy with the result. And that's why roof on the cathedral is green again.
Honey blocks also can be used to prevent the oxidation of copper
@@johnwt7333 Imagine someone hits it with an axe...
That would've happened eventually. The oxidizing of the copper happens pretty quickly, but it takes some time.
Oh yes, piss. One of the founding case in European law, that explains that people can use EU law before the national judges, Van Gend en Loos was also because of piss - fermented urine - transported from Germany to the Netherlands. Lol
The rebuilt city castle in Berlin has a new copper roof as well, which is brown-ish, except the spots with bird shit, they are already green
These animations are getting better and more unique than any other creator I've seen. Keep up the great work.
Then you should look in to Lemmino, he has a similar animation quality.
@@leonmuller8475 Yes. Unfortunately he only uploads once every full moon.
@@HisMajestyWalrus Actually even less than that, but yeah.
also similar to newer theramintrees
This channel is going to blow up. I love this streamlined and efficient animation style. It has an easy to understand and charming artistic value to it
Dude, I'm Norwegian and I've never seen my culture being visualized this beautifully. Thank you Sir! Truly great stuff
same
Same
Black metal begs to differ
I am not Norwegian, but i have studied europe and early Christianity and i have had never known about this. It is wild and so interesting, and awesome at the same time.
same
As a Norwegian carpenter who has worked on several newer wooden churches as well as one stave church in Rogaland this video is lovely to see.
The one stave church I worked at also had a leper wall featuring a seperate room with carved eye holes for lepers to watch through.
That deserves a scene in a film right there.
Is there a leper Gloryhole ?
@@Payvul sure, if you too want your dick to rot off by the end of the year
Interesting!
Why’sa
As a Norwegian I've always wonered why we have so little medieval stone buildings
If you are reffering to castles just asume that the swedes burned them down.
@@tomihodet354 burn down stone? what?
We didn't build any, Norway was Denmark and Sweden's backyard
@@_yellow Akershus festning, Håkonshallen and the fortress in Trondheim, Halden etc. beg a differ. You can find ruins of stone fortifications all over the country, Slottsfjellet in Tønsberg, is the a good example, and it was indeed burned and razed many times, including by the swedes.
@@imnotnotgameiacmaniac5327 Stone is a rock and can burn or even melt given enough heat.
Those animations though
I'm so hard 🔥🔥🔥
and after 7 months, AYOOO
@@mattd2026huh?
@@mattd2026 U Wot m8?
It's actually quite beautiful that the distinctiveness of their churches is reflective of the environment and people who built them. It gives it a greater sense of belonging, and of connection to the communities in which they exist.
🤮🤮🤮🤮monsieur z
@@dirtegarbage what?
@@JumalaPlays monsieur z is a professional loser
@@JumalaPlaysHe said 🤢 🤮
There are a few examples of areas with unique chruches. Northern germany for instance has quite distinct brick churches though they are closer to the "typical" chruch than the ones in Norway.
my local wooden church in finland was first build sometime around mid 1400s but it burned down when it got hit by a lightning in year 1700. New wooden church was built in its place few years later and it still stands to this day.
Ylivieska finland had a church from 1786 but someone decided to go ahead and commit arson to it. The church was completely in flames within 10 minutes or so.
The house on my family farm in Norway was built in 1630. The one before that was built in the 1200s, but it was burned down just before the 1600s
I think the oldest stave churces still standing were build in the 11/12th century
@@juti488 ....and the church you saw in the video is 800 years old...
@@Dan-fo9dk yea im aware
When we learned about Stav Churches in school, a truck came and delivered precut wooden logs that we would use to puzzle together a mini church in our big classroom. Was about 5 by 5m and about 2 meters tall. Was quite the experience.
What I wood give to try that.
It would really help me stav of the boredom.
There’s Norway I wouldn’t love that.
This is cool to see. In college, one of my jobs was to give tours of a replica of the Hopperstad stave church in Norway. The replica was in Moorhead, MN just across the river from Fargo, ND. I used to talk about the dragons on the roof, and the designs at the portal to the guests. It was built in Moorhead because of the significant Norwegian immigrant population in Eastern ND and Northwestern Minnesota. Norwegian foods like lefse and lutefisk are even still very common in this part of the US.
also really cool is the replica longship that Bob Asp made and sailed to Norway from Duluth. I mean, the Hjemkomst Center is named after the ship itself.
all my relations. grandma from the black hills and grandpa on the other family side from Rosseau County. Homesteaded by walking north into Canada, and ran into MORE Norwegians. Manitoba is a suburb of Noway and Iceland.
Spectacular. You should honestly win awards for the level of detail and professionalism shown in your videos.
I actually wrote a term paper on stave churches for my archaeological conservation class, it's very interesting. This is a very good video, and you had some good points I wish I'd considered back then. This is really good.
These churches are really interesting and they remind me of those built in parts of Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine and Romania. They are not the same but very similar, Norwegian churches are generally taller and their religion is slightly different. I grew up in Slovakia where you can find many wooden churches (there are 59 wooden churches in Slovakia). I'd like to see those in Norway one day :)
Exactly. There is even a "Trail of wooden architecture" in southeastern Poland.
its because Slavic and northern Germanic was mainly build with the wood because of natural resources like he say in the video and because if you look at medieval Citizen housing you can see that Slavic and Nordic cities was mainly in wooden logs (for example game Kingdom come Deliverance) and western was mainly in Timber Framing and stone (because of Roman empire and Frankish influence).
@Holex TV He also said that "You can only find them in Norway," which is not that accurate after all...
@@vkdrk he meant stave churches
wooden church doesnt mean stavechurch and in poland there is one stavechurch that was transported from norway to poland
@@vkdrk Stave churches are pretty unique to Norway. But we also have 1620 other wooden churches that are not stave churches.
I have never watched a video and thought to myself this this is a piece of art. But after watching your video I really truly have to say the amount of effort that went into the visuals plus the great narration gives me the feeling of high art that I'm witnessing! You are not just some TH-camr this is one of the best videos that I've ever seen. MAD RESPECT keep it up!
I imagine church builders used a lot of techniques used in shipbuilding. After all, many woodworkers would be familiar with both, especially in a forested maritime nation. It reminds me of a chapel I visited in Pine Valley, UT. The designer learned shipbuilding in Scotland, so the roof was built like an upside-down ship.
Not sure if they used shipbuilding techniques or just general wooden house techniques that were used at that time. In southern Poland there are a lot of wooden churches and that as far away as possible from the sea. But Wikipedia says it’s “horizontal log technique”
"The wooden churches of southern Little Poland represent outstanding examples of the different aspects of medieval church-building traditions in Roman Catholic culture. Built using the horizontal log technique, common in eastern and northern Europe since the Middle Ages..."
I'd like to add that the main room of a stave church is called 'the ship'.
@@LadyLiveLol It's not exclusive to stave churches or even a language group though. There is a Germanic source and a latin source meaning "large boat" used for the major vault of a church, leading to a number parallels in many languages where one word means both:
From Proto-Germanic: *skipą
Norwegian: skip
Swedish: skepp
Danish: skib
Dutch: schip
High German: Schiff
From Latin: Navis
Spanish: nave
There is also:
English: nave
Polish: Nawa
French: nef
but those refer only to the church afaik.
There is the obvious similarity between both, at least in Old High German there is a more wide meaning of "hollow body", but more importantly there is a christian connection. Noah's ark, the Barque of Saint Peter, the ship has been a symbol for the church from the beginning.
I don't think there's is too much overlap between building a ship and building a roof. These days wood isn't used as often therefore the similarities stand out more but back then it was completely normal. In general a ship as a water vehicle is much more sophisticated and I think the superficial similarities would be very trivial to a wood working master.
When it comes to Pine Valley Chapel, it has the most basic house shape that you can imagine, no ship to be seen. Some of language used to describe it's supposed ship-like qualities is straight up bull feces. Ebenezer Bryce learned ship building before he left Scotland at 17 years old and the church has a curved ceiling (not roof!) but the disney like narrative that they made from this sounds like a typical tourist tale.
I live a few meters from one of the stave churches, there is ancient graffiti of fish and dragons and also runes, possibly created by bored kids (or even adults) in the middle ages. If anyone visits a stave church, bring a flashlight, you'll be amazed at what historic traces you can find in the wood! In some cases, these have been highlighted in later times
There is another factor too. The timber used in these churches are of an exceptional quality. The trees grew extremely slowly due to the harsh climate and short grow season. Evergreen trees that grow slowly become incredibly dense and have a high content of resin that works as a natural preservative.
In other words, the wood doesen't decay but can remain standing for up to a thousand years.
Wooden churches can also be found in Russia, where the trees grew on the Siberian Taiga. These old growth trees also have exceptional quality.
You would probably have found structures like these in Northern USA and Canada too, but since the Native Americans didn't have access to iron tools prior to the European contact, they could not develop the same level of craftsmanship.
It is likely that wooden churches were built all over Europe, but the ones built in the far north are the only ones that would last for so long.
Your videos are so professionally made that it completely caught me off guard when you ended the segment about soapstone with "it's weird" and then moved on, I laughed out loud. I thought you would elaborate, but moving on was really funny for some reason.
It was funny. And now I’m dying from curiosity. 😂
@@kellybraun7048 There is very little limestone in Norway, which where more frequently used further south.
Soapstone is also much more resistant to the cold/wet climate than limestone, so it's not actually weird at all...
Really honing that style/brand man - incredible stuff.
Ayyy my man is here ❤️ love your videos
You can actually find many scavenged bits and pieces of deconstructed/destroyed stave churches in the walls and foundations in some old barns around Norway.
Those animations are insane 😍 love the clean, yet so detailed and recognisable style!
Wow this was a crazy good video!!! The stav-churches here in norway are beatiful, thanks for taking the time to make such a well put together video about them and their history!!
I from a small costal city on the west coast of Norway. And there used to be a stave church here. But It fell in decay (13th century) and eventually got replaced by a more traditional looking church. Many stave churches on the west coast suffered the same fate, as the west coast has way rougher weather then the mountain range protected east. This explains why you'll barely find any Stave churches on the wast Coast, and tons in the east.
Many was destroyed because of the size. I know the stave church where my fathers family are from outside Sogndal was destroyed in the last part of 19 century. Just to give room for a bigger new church
'tons' is a bit of a stretch when there are less than 30 left in the whole country.
@@DaDa-ui3sw if you weigh them, I'm sure you'll find they weigh several tons
Harpiks is what we call that black "paint" in danish. We still use it today, albiet not on houses as people who enjoy wooden houses tend to like colour. Its mainly used on boats and if you want some of the wood in your garden that'll be in the ground to last long
Man I've been to Norway a couple of times and the Stavkirke are absolutely amazing. I've been to a tiny city where one of the oldest are. The wooden details are beautiful and the smell is so goooooood. I also saw one being 'painted' with the tar for upkeep. That didn't smell so good lol, but was super amazing to see. Ahhhh good memories.
Also: this video with animations is so much calmer than shitty (or even beautiful) stock videos. Had to get used to it for a second, but it's absolutely fantastic and much much nicer to watch. And as an architect, having been to Norway only when I was younger, it's amazing to finally understand the architecture and construction of these churches, as back then I was looking at very different things! Thanks for the effort!!
Such cool animation! I'd love to see the full set of models all laid out together 😍
Your animation makes your content amazing.
Worth mentioning the Wooden Churches of Maramures in Romania, built much later but remarkably similar in style to
Norwegian stave churches!
In Ukrainian part of the Carpathian mountains there are similar churches as well.
@@elagrion Slava Ukraini!
This was a really beautiful and creative way to tell a story. Greetings from Norway.
It’s a little hectic right now, but I enjoy the sheer abundance and creativity of your animations. I suspect in the longer term you’ll reduce the number of cuts between different style (block, hex, smooth and real), but in the meantime I’m enjoying the simple ‘fun’ you/we’re having with the visual storytelling.
I think he is trying to appeal the current generation of fast edits and quick cuts while keeping quality. Tho I do agree that it is a shame we don't get to see some of the great visualizations for more than 5 seconds
I studied geology in a town nearby the Urnes Stave church, and what was interesting there, was that the church is built in a landslide prone area. You can see lots of large boulders that have come down from the mountain side above, but none of them have hit the church during the almost 1000 years that have passed since it was built. They knew exactly where to place the church so that it was out of the way for rockfalls and landslides.
Great video 😍😍
I’m proud of our churches, especially the stave churches💕
I live in a small community, population just below 1600.
We have in total 6 wooden churches, and two of them are stave churches, beautiful 😍
This channel is absolute gold. Channels like this will be the death of regular TV shows, quality of videos on TH-cam are amazing right now. This channel will have millions of subscribers and views per video if it continues with this quality.
Here before the channel reaches 200K subscribers!
Very cool video! It's very interesting point about the viking boat craftsmanship being used in the church construction - Church architecture often makes an explicit point of including that, as theologians saw the Church as the New Testament version of the Ark - each church building being a place one could go to for salvation from the flood of the world.
It's not surprising that norse pagan imagery is used. In many cultures which were evangelized by the Church after the fall of the Roman empire, like in Ireland, or even in the old Aztec and Incan empires - those doing the evangelisation usually wouldn't try to completely destroy their cultural heritage, but Christianize or baptize it - placing it at the worship of Christ, rather than for its own sake.
Exactly. Even in the 'heart' of Christendom in Italy you can find churches and cathedrals which are adored with the depictions of different mythical beings not present in the bible like harpies, centaurs etc. I even saw an entire zodiac carved into the floor in some Sicilian church. In this case they were probably however done for artistic purposes rather than preserving old traditions as I doubt they were popular that late into history, but the point is people definitely didn't shy from depictions like that back in the day
The same thing happened in Sami areas many hundreds of years later. The drum was used in pre-Christian religious rituals. There are preserved drums that have images of Christ and church buildings next to the old Sami gods. Whether it is an expression that the Sámi had room for another god, or whether it was a deliberate way of carrying out the Christianization from the missionaries, is more uncertain. I believe more in the first than the latter.
The nave is literally called The Ship in all three Scandinavian languages. Danish churches takes it a step further and include a large model ship suspended from the ceiling.
@@chrthiel You will also find the ship in Norwegian churches.
@@chrthiel The nave is also called that in finnish
NEVER STOP, im invested in your videos
I pretty much watched this due to my fascination for survival games that allow for building/crafting and your simple but great animation. The Norwegian (or old European style) construction looked so amazingly crafted that you can't help but be drawn to it. Same goes for those sophisticated Japanese old shrine and buildings.
Wow. Those clips with the live shots of the church and surrounding area are some of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen
I am from Norway and i find it amazing that such videos about our history is made by non norwegiens which just shows me that a lot of people know and like the history of my country.
This is whitout a doubt one of the most beautiful channels around. Just a pleasure to watch . I love it. More please
I decided to do my final history project on Stave churches and this was uploaded just as I started working on it. Great video helped me a lot!
I think this might bee the most comprihensive video on stave churches i have ever seen. Being norwegian i knew most of this from before but this video puts everything i knew about them and then some and everything is crammed in at under 12 minuts. Most other videoes spends 12 munuts just explaining the staves or the tar ( and other details)
Greate Job on this video
Thank you for pouring your hard work into showing off our national treasures
This video style is amazing. I love the hexagon style animations and can only imagine how much time it must have taken to create something this detailed D:
The trusses inverting to the shape of a viking ship's hull is probably a remnant of the tradition of vikings flipping their ships to use as the roof of a temporary lodge or hall; the same designs were used for hundreds of years in the creation of permanent halls and other large structures. Just as southern European churches converted the basilica into the basic structure of the church, northerners appear to have adopted their lodges towards the same purpose.
That claim about the trusses is not something found in the litterature about stave churches so take that with a grain of salt 🙂
(It would be really inconvinient to build with such materials when lumber and an axe is available)
@@rolfnilsen6385 I mean, trusses are pretty much the same as the skeletal structure of a boat, just of a uniform size rather than varying to provide curvature. It may not be mentioned in the literature, but structurally the pieces are effectively the same.
@@ShiftySqvirrel The loads are very different, and so is the wood choosen for the job, and the way it is joined together. The common denominator is that it is wood. Not very much more.
In brazil soapstone was also used a LOT back in the day, you can still visit historical towns that have all sorts of stuff made out of it.
There was a moment in Brazilian history where soap stone was heavily used, mostly during the 1700's. Buts its really cool to know that Norwegians were also doing it all the way through
Those visuals and animations are mind-blowing!
Eastern European orthodox churches: wait, you guys also build churches out of wood?
This video is so beautiful, such high quality and high-effort. Dankuwel
One of my favorite channels ever. Keep up the great job
Super high quality video! Interesting that the most effective tar recipe has been lost and can not be recreated, comes with a lot of thoughts about the skills of old craftsmen.
Such unique animations, I love it! Thanks for covering the topic about stave churches, I think it's very interesting!
this has incredible production quality and it's very interesting i want to go see them now
My ancestors are Norwegian and I have always loved the uniqueness and ancient wisdom of Stave Churches. So cool to hear more about them here!
Man, these animations are so good!!
This was a great documentary on something I was really wanting to know more about. Thanks for sharing and nice job. My one bit of feedback, maybe it would have been too expensive, would be that it would be nice to have more footage of the churches in question.
Interesting fact: in Poland we have one Norwegian church- St. Vang, which was deconstructed, transported to Poland and build back again. Warm greetings from Poland to all Norwegians. ❤️
You know the story behind why it was transported their?
Johan Christian Clausen Dahl, a painter from Bergen who became Norway's first professor of art history, was a central figure in the creation of what is now called Fortidsminneforeningen (The Historical Preservation Society), which played a huge part in the process of preserving Stave churches. He wrote a highly influential article on the uniqueness and origin of the stave churches, and their "wildly fantastic shapes", which helped save the last remaining churches. He also introduced the history of these unique buildings to a broader audience of European art historians.
Dahl ended up purchasing Vang church at an auction and was able to convince the King of Prussia to move the church to Berlin. It was taken down piece by piece and transported south by horse, sled, and ship. A year later, the king demanded that the church be rebuilt in Lower Silesia in Poland, in what is today the town Karpacz.
This was fascinating, and amazing production value!
If anyone from central or eastern Europe want to see wooden churches i highly recommend either southern Poland with it's UNESCO buildings or The swidnica peace Church, beautiful and breathtaking
Yes, the Wang Church. It was actully built in Vang, Norway ab 1200, puchased by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Preussen, and rebuilt in Karpacz, Poland
Beautiful break-down of the process, necessity and thought-delivery pace.
The comments on Norse pagan influences are especially fascinating. Syncretism (the practice of adopting elements of the existing belief system into a new one to make it more easily acceptable to local people) was a fundamental element of the spread of Christianity, from Christmas trees to the concept of God as a big bearded man, you can see the impact of pagan beliefs on Christian traditions and aesthetics all over the continent and beyond.
I've always found it interesting how so much of medieval Scandinavian folklore bases itself around the distinction between Christian and non-Christian creatures, where magical beings like trolls and elves were often contrasted with humans through their refusal to adhere to Christian beliefs. I think this is probably a unique product of the slow and late expansion of Christianity into the region, especially the more remote and geographically difficult parts of the country.
You're right. Although it is important to note that many traditions we have today in christianity do not share links with pagan tradition. An important example of this is the christmas tree, which is a 19th century tradition and does not have any links to any pagan tradition, even though this is often suggested.
@@jellees The Christmas tree is a gentile tradition though, in the north it may be associated with yule, but for instance, us Catalans have the tió de nadal, which also goes back to our gentile days. Trunks have been associated to winter solstice celebrations since before christianity existed.
Also, at least in Catholic Europe (with the exception of Castile and Portugal), the presence of myths and gallo-roman ideas was present all the way into the 1600s, some books from the 1300s in Catalonia even reference the influence of Mars and other deities on the people.
This is really, really, really good in quality. I am glad I found this channel.
Super nice animations and visuals, good job! Lots of new information I wasn't aware of aswell. We have some wooden churches here in Estonia too, but many of them have been lost in wars which I guess Norway hasn't had that much. Stone lasted longer so I guess that's why the switch was made.
This is an insanely well-made video. Thank you.
I would be really interested in hearing more about soapstone being used for building and why it's so outrageous
these visuals are fascinating. an excellent video essay
These animations look great!
You should look into changing the 'subsurface radius' settings in your shaders, as I noticed they all use the Blender default which is actually tuned for flesh.
This doesn't affect the surface color in the same way changing 'subsurface color' does as they just affect how far each color is scattered through the object.
This was amazing! I signed in for a quick church architecture video, and I got geography, history and all with spectacular visuals. 🎉
In Portugal, churches are made with black granite with fine christal. Smaller churches are stone painted white or covered with ceramics and tiles, mostly blue.
Stunning production!
Hoog doesn't post often , but when he does it's worth the wait every time, and watching the videos is no choice , you see it you click instantly
7:33 Slowly growing wood get stronger, but take longer to get "full size" Noting that is encouraged in modern forest industry.
This coment section is not it, wow. Sorry but why are so many slavs here indulging in whataboutism? Yes, we know y’all have wood churches too, that’s not what makes the Norwegian stave churches special😭 They’re special because part of the structure is based on a vikingship and because the church is decorated with norse pagan art and culture, to an extend that the christian symbols almost seem like an afterthought. This is unique to scandenavia, because the vikings were from scandenavia, not Poland and Ukraine and other slavic countries😭 You do not have to try to one up our churches lmao
Man i never thought I would see someone show the small stave church in the next valley over from where I live. Thanks for this video!
Great video, and impressive presentation. I am also very happy to hear you appreciate real science as much as i do!
I'm in awe with the animations. Not your regular stock video youtube video here. Respect and like
Very cool, informative, and beautiful mini doc. Thanks!
As a Norwegian, this video made me truly proud! But this animation style is incredible! I have never seen anything like it! Very well done, and great storytelling!
As 50% norwegian, 25% english, 14% scottish, 7% austrian, 2% hungarian, 0,7% german, 0,6% danish and 99% not idiot this is beginning to be irrelevant as it didn't even add up to 100%
What a wonderfully informative and beautifully made video. Fine work indeed!
I believe Axis mundi is the general term for anything that serves as a connection between afterlife and earth across mythologies, while Yggdrasil is the Norse variant. Cool video though, never knew about these wood churches.
You're right
I wondered about this, the doomy and overwhelming appearance of churches I saw all the way up to Narvik when travelling by car back in 2017.
but besides this explanation - your animation and storytelling capabilities are *amazing*
rarely have I subbed so quickly to a channel like yours
I'm getting married in the cathedral at 3:30 next August! 🥰
Best animations and models I've seen this year. Great video, super interesting
The man did it. This madman actually used Fennoscandia in a sentence
He even used it correctly!
CGPGrey would be proud!
The world tree is called Yggdrasil, just felt like adding that. I'm Norwegian and I've seen the stave church in the video and many more around the country. This video is very interesting and I learned a lot about their construction, thank you!
The stone churches here are mostly gray, like the mountain’s. Here in Stavanger the cathedral was built in ca 1150, it looks funny how big it was at the time when you look at estimates of how the city looked at the time
I LOVE the visual style with the hexagons! :)
There are a lot of wooden churches in the middle/eastern part of Europe.
If anybody is interested search for the following:
- Wooden churches of Southern Lesser Poland 🇵🇱
- Wooden Tserkvas of the Carpathian Region in Poland 🇵🇱 and Ukraine 🇺🇦
You’ll find a whole list of these churches on Wikipedia
Top notch video here guys!
You made me love Norwegian churches, they are so cool after your explanation adn video animations!
The christianization of Sweden and Norway is a super interesting story
The production value of this video is immaculate
Gonna send this to my Norwegian friend for comment. Will report back with comment
Edit: He sent me a picture of a Stave church he visited and told me that there aren’t a lot of them left in Norway still though
Following for your report.
smamme
@@smeetsnoud1 left on read so far :( he’s probably like “dude why are you sending me this” lmao
"there aren’t a lot of them left in Norway still though" There are only 25 left at their orginal locations. In addition there are three that have been relocated to different Norwegian museums and one that was sort'a relocated to Poland in the mid 19th century.
Really enjoyed this video, the algorithm brought me here 🎉
Thank you :)
In the village near the farm my grandma grew up in there is a small wooden house near a church which has stood there for over a millenia. It's located in inland sweden where temperatures are comparable to norway and the weather is not very harsh.
Your animations are mesmerising. Awesome!
Such a cool video. Great work. It's really interesting to see how the Norse paganism and Christianity mixed and produced unique buildings and assumably also branches of religions.
❤ thank you for this amazing video!
1:34 they can also be found in Sweden
I love the little grid graphics in this video. Beyond that, well researched and interesting. :)