Brattingsborg Castle (''Gammel Brattingsborg'') was a royal castle in the town of

Tranebjerg Tranebjerg is a town, situated at the south central part of the island of Samsø in Denmark. It is the largest town on Samsø and also the municipal seat of Samsø Municipality. Tranebjerg is an old town, with a big village church from the 14th c ...

Samsø Samsø (Anglicized: "Samso" or "Samsoe") is a Denmark, Danish island in the Kattegat off the Jutland Peninsula. Samsø is located in Samsø municipality. The community has 3,724 inhabitants (2017) (January 2010:4,010) called ''Samsings'' and is ...

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

. Brattingsborg castle shared its name with the manor house Brattingsborg (''Brattingsborg Gods''). To distinguish the two, the former castle is commonly referred to as Old Brattingsborg (''Gammel Brattingsborg'').

History

The castle was erected at some point in the 12th century but destroyed and burned down in a battle led by the outlawed Stig Andersen Hvide in the year 1289. After its destruction,

the Crown The Crown is a political concept used in Commonwealth realms. Depending on the context used, it generally refers to the entirety of the State (polity), state (or in federal realms, the relevant level of government in that state), the executive ...

decided to construct the castle of Vesborg on the south coast. The only remains of Brattingsborg are the earth-mounds of the castle hill along with traces of its double-

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch dug around a castle, fortification, building, or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. Moats can be dry or filled with water. In some places, moats evolved into more extensive water d ...

defences and foundations. The castle hill was thoroughly investigated by archaeologists from the

National Museum of Denmark The National Museum of Denmark (Nationalmuseet) in Copenhagen is Denmark, Denmark's largest museum of cultural history, comprising the histories of Danish and foreign cultures, alike. The museum's main building is located a short distance from S ...

and

Moesgård Museum Moesgaard Museum (MOMU) is a Danish regional museum dedicated to archaeology and ethnography. It is located in Beder, a suburb of Aarhus, Denmark. MOMU cooperates with the Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology, Medieval and Renaissance Archaeolog ...

in 2008, as part of a larger project, concerning all of Samsø's five medieval castles. They collaborated with Samsø Museum and the Cultural Heritage agency. The excavations revealed remains of a former church (25 m long and 8.5 m wide), inside the castle grounds and suggests, that the church caught fire in the violent conflict of 1289, but that it was in use for some years after and then superseded by Tranebjerg Church just 100 m away. There were hints of an even older wooden church at the site and it was clear from the start, that the castle hill had been important since at least the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

, as Brattingsborg itself was founded on a barrow from that period.

References

Other Sources

Gammel Brattingsborg
The National Museum of Denmark * Etting, Vivian ''et.al'' (2018)
''Borgene på Samsø''
University of Southern Denmark Studies in History and Social Sciences, Vol. 558,

External links

Brattingsborg Gods website
{{Samsø Municipality Samsø Buildings and structures in Samsø Municipality Former castles in Denmark 1289 disestablishments in Europe 13th-century disestablishments in Denmark 12th-century establishments in Denmark