Östra Sallerups kyrka i Frosta härad, Skåne: kolonisation och kulturella kontakter

Abstract

Title: Östra Sallerup Church in the Frosta hundred, Scania: colonisation and cultural contacts
The chronology of the Scanian churches and the dating of their murals has been a popular subject for art historians and archaeologists since the 19th century. An important but often overlooked factor is that large parts of the landscape were not colonised until the second half of the 12th century and the beginning of the 13th century. This article deals with Östra Sallerup Church in the Frosta hundred – the district “between the forest and the plough” – in Ringsjöbygden, at the centre of Danish Scania. The geographical, demographic and political conditions behind the establishment of the church, the motifs and Byzantine origins of its paintings are studied. Special attention is paid to the mural painting with the Biblical motif “Christ and the Samaritan woman at Sychar’s well” (John 4:1–42) and its possible models in the Mediterranean area, especially the mosaic with the same motif in the Cathedral of Monreale, erected by William II of Norman Sicily.