Budolfi Church

St Budolfi Church is the cathedral church for the Lutheran Diocese of Aalborg in north Jutland, Denmark.

Aalborg was already a town in the mid-10th century, with a fine position on the east-west Lim Fjord that served as a trade route between the North Sea and the Baltic until the 12th century, when the west end of Lim Fjord was closed by sand drifts. Aalborg became the regional trade center for northern Jutland. The famous Viking burial site at Nørresundby across the Lim Fjord indicates that this was a populated area of Denmark long before the town appeared on the fjord.

Christian missionaries probably arrived sometime in the 9th century since nearby Viborg and Aarhus have evidence of Christian activity. In 948 Denmark was divided into dioceses and Aalborg in time fell under the See of Viborg. Of the earliest churches in Aalborg no trace remains. They would have been constructed of timber and been very small. Many times stone churches were built on the same location as the first churches, but direct evidence of an earlier "Viking" church has not been found.

In the crypt of Budofi Cathedral visitors can see the remains of the large stones used for the original church that was built at the direction of Bishop Eskil of Viborg no later than 1132. The first church was much smaller than the current church since it was a parish church. It consisted of a short nave and choir built in Romanesque style. That means it had half-round arches supporting a flat timber ceiling.

The existing Budolfi Cathedral (Danish:Budolfi Domkirke) was built in the last decades of the 14th century over and around the original St Budolfi Church and was listed for the first time in the Atlas of Denmark in 1399. The church was named after St Botolph, an English abbot and saint. His reputation as a learned and holy man in Anglo Saxon England as the patron saint of farmers and sailors made him a popular saint in pre-Reformation Denmark. His remains were venerated at Westminster Abbey, Ely, and Thornley Abbey. No references are made to relics of St Botolphus at Aalborg, but it was not uncommon for churches to be named after the relics of the most famous person the church possessed. Other churches in Denmark and southern Sweden have also been named after him including St Bodel and St Bodil, other Scandinavian forms of the name Botolph.

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