Agunnaryds gamla kyrkoruin

The former medieval church of Agunnaryd, probably built in the 13th century as a replacement for a wooden farm church, has its earliest written record from 1330. In that year, Erland, a canon in Linköping and the parish priest of Agunnaryd, bequeathed his estate Ekenäs to serve as the priest’s seat in the parish. The condition was that the priest would hold a mass for his soul once annually for all eternity.

Agunnaryd’s oldest farm church, the predecessor to the stone church, is associated with Saint Sigfrid. According to legend, Sigfrid arrived from England with the Norwegian king Olav Haraldsson. Later, in the early 11th century, Sigfrid is said to have baptized Olof Skötkonung at Husaby spring in Västergötland, making him Sweden’s first Christian king.

The medieval stone church on this site underwent several expansions. The sacristy was erected sometime before 1621. The large stone slab with carved crosses, embedded in the northeast corner of the sacristy, likely served as a reused medieval gravestone.

At some point, the church was extended westward. In 1821, a new brick vestibule replaced a previous wooden one. The church suffered damage during Danish raids, and a letter to the king in 1582 reported that the church had been plundered and was in poor condition.

When the new church was completed 300 meters north of this location, the old Agunnaryd church was mostly demolished in 1872. Only the sacristy walls and parts of the northern church wall remain. From the medieval church, only a few items were transferred to the new church, including a pulpit dating back to the late 16th century.

This text is AI-generated.