Tamdrup Church

20km south of Sønder Vissing lies the site of one of the crucial events in Danish history. According to legend, it was at Tamdrup Church in 965 that Harald Bluetooth witnessed the German monk Poppo undergo his trial by ordeal, which convinced the king that Christianity was the true religion. He allowed himself to be baptised, and made it his mission to make the Danes Christian. The dramatic scene is reproduced in the church’s altarpieces, which date from around the twelfth century. They may originally have been the sides of a reliquary, as Tamdrup Church served as a place of pilgrimage for devotees of Poppo. Legends are one thing, but archaeological facts are another – it can probably never be proved that Poppo actually visited Tamdrup, but it’s remarkable that this very small village houses one of the country’s oldest village churches, dating from 1125 and built as a Romanesque basilica, with some of the country’s oldest preserved wall paintings. Moreover, outside the church, archaeologists found the remains of a large Viking Age farm. Debate continues as to whether it was a royal estate or one of the country’s earliest bishop’s estates. The current altarpiece is a copy – the original can be seen at the National Museum.