Stave Churches

A stave church is a medieval wooden church with a post and beam construction related to timber framing. The wall frames are filled with vertical planks. The load-bearing posts (stav in Norwegian) have lent their name to the building technique. Related church types are post churches and churches with palisade walls.

All of the surviving stave churches except one are or were in Norway, but related church types were once common all over northwestern Europe. The only remaining medieval stave churches outside Norway are one dating to approximately 1500 located at Hedared in Sweden and one Norwegian stave church that was relocated in 1842 to the outskirts of Krummhübel, Germany, now Karpacz in the Karkonosze mountains of Poland. One other church, the Anglo-Saxon Greensted Church in England, has many similarities but is not universally regarded as a stave church.

Flesberg stave church (Flesberg stavkirke) is a stave church located in Flesberg, Numedal in Norway. It was probably built around 1200 A.D. The first written reference to the church is from 1359. The church was originally a single nave church (type B) with four free-standing internal posts bearing a raised central roof, surrounded by an ambulatory or aisles on all four sides. It had a narrower chancel, also with a raised central roof, and a semicircular apse. It was completely surrounded by a gallery loosely connected to the plank walls.

In 1735 the chancel and apse as well as the east wall of the nave were removed. The nave was extended eastwards and two transepts were added, making a cruciform plan. The additions were built in horizontal log construction with notched corners. Of the original stave church only three outer walls survived, as the internal posts and the raised roof were eliminated.

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