Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
castle's last resident was Hedvig Eleanor, the widowed queen of Karl X; after she died in
the 1770s the castle was regarded as hopelessly unfashionable, and so no royal would
consider living there. At the end of the seventeenth century, the building fell into decay
and was used as a grain store; the original hand-painted wooden ceilings were chopped
up and turned into grain boxes. Today, the interior is crammed with
portraits
mainly
of the Vasa family, characterized by some very unhappy and unattractive faces. It's
worth joining the regular English-language
tours
to hear all the Vasa family gossip.
6
Klosterkyrkan
Daily April & early to mid-Sept Mon-Fri 8am-5pm, Sat & Sun 10am-4pm; May Mon-Fri 8am-5pm, Sat & Sun 10am-5pm; June-Aug
8am-7pm; July 9am-7pm; mid-Sept-March Mon-Fri 8am-3.30pm, Sat 11am-3.30pm, Sun 10am-3.30pm
St Birgitta specified that the
Klosterkyrkan
, easily reached by walking towards the lake
from the castle, should be “of plain construction, humble and strong”. Wide, grey and
sombre, the lakeside abbey, consecrated in 1430, certainly fulfils her criteria from the
outside; inside it has been embellished with a celebrated collection of medieval
artwork. More memorable than the crypt containing the tombs of various royals is the
statue of Birgitta, now devoid of the hands “in a state of ecstasy” - as the description
puts it. To the right, the poignant “Door of Grace and Honour” was where each
Birgittine nun entered the abbey after being professed - the next time they would use
the door would be on the day of their funeral. Birgitta's bones are encased in a red
velvet box, decorated with silver and gilt medallions, in a glass case down stone steps in
the monks' choir stalls.
he
altarpiece
here is worth a glance, too: another handless Birgitta, looking rather
less than ecstatic, is portrayed dictating her revelations to a band of monks, nuns and
acolytes, while around her, representations of hell and purgatory depict finely sculpted
faces of woe disappearing into the bloody mouth of what looks like a hippopotamus.
Other than Birgitta's, a tomb to note inside the abbey is that of Gustav Vasa's mentally
retarded son Magnus. His grand, raised tomb is flanked at each corner by obese,
glum-faced cherubs, but the most impressive feature is the remarkably lifelike hands
raised in prayer on the likeness of Magnus on the top.
The monastery and nunnery
Although now housing the
Vadstena Klosterhotel
(see p.220), the
monastery
and
nunnery
on either side of the abbey are open for tours. The most interesting part of
the nunnery, housed in the thirteenth-century Bjälbo Palace, is the King's Hall, with
an elegant lofty ceiling. On its conversion to a convent, Birgitta had the ceiling
lowered to what she considered a more appropriate level for the nuns - it remains
thus today.
ST BIRGITTA
Birgitta
(1303-73) came to the village of Vadstena as a lady-in-waiting to King Magnus
Eriksson and his wife, Blanche of Namur, who lived at Bjälbo Palace. Married at 13, she gave
birth to eight children, and had the first of her many visions while living at the palace. Such
was the force of her personality, she persuaded her royal employers (to whom she was vaguely
related) to give her the palace in order to start a convent and a monastery. To obtain papal
approval for the monastery, she set off for Rome in 1349, but the times were against her - the
pope was in Avignon, France. She spent the next twelve years in Rome, having more visions,
pressing for his return but dying before she could return to Vadstena. She was canonized in
1391, a final vision having already told her this would be the case. Her daughter, Katarina,
carried on her work and brought about the building of the monastery and abbey; she too
became a saint and her remains lie in the same co
n as her mother's.
