[88] It is a fine late Romanesque building, quite moderate in scale. For five bays extend nave and aisles, and the square chancel is flanked by small towers which become octagonal above the roof. (These are a characteristic German feature, and recall Trier or Mainz, but this Visby church has no resemblance to any existing building in Lübeck.) Pillars of some variety with figure-and leaf-carved caps sustain the triple vault, nor is the centre carried higher than the aisles. The great south door, six times recessed with shafts both round and square, is a magnificent example of what in England is called Norman work. There are many such fine doorways in the town, but no other is as good as this. Rather later than the rest a great west tower was built, and on the northern side it has a gallery open by a rich arcade.
Extensive alterations and additions to the church were undertaken when men first began to build large traceried windows; they probably went on for long, but it may safely be assumed they were in progress about the year 1300. Most beautiful windows with foliated circles in their heads, not all alike, were pierced through the elder walls. A fair chapel was added west of south, adorned with pinnacles and gargoyles and statues and recessed carved door; clustered shafts hold up its vault. The climate doubtless caused it to open by a doorway, not arches, to the church. A tall addition was raised over the church with blindstorey arches and trefoil lancets in the clearstorey walls. It is a tempting hypothesis that it was intended to break through the central vault and to double the height of the nave, but C. Enlart is almost certainly right in saying: "These lofty halls above Scandinavian churches are sometimes habitable. The one which still rises over the nave of the church of St. Mary, now the cathedral, at Visby, had a chimney. It was the seat of the consulate of the Lübeck merchants, to whom the church belonged" (Revue de l'Art Chrétien, Sept.-Oct., 1910). In the middle ages churches served for the most miscellaneous purposes, and meetings of all kinds were held in them. In much the same style two stages were added to each of the eastern towers. In later days Renaissance spires were added to all the three towers, the largest having a balcony all round. A canopied pulpit was set up in the church, which is dated 1684.
[89] At first sight the remains of Romanesque work are by no means clear, but the spacing of the pillars through the seven bays is exceedingly irregular, and on the south by the ruined cloister is an older chapel, the vault below quadripartite, above a tunnel. This church was finally consecrated, it seems, only in 1412, and it is apparently the only important mediæval building which is subsequent in date to the raid of 1361. The tower stood at the west end till 1885, and then it had to be removed or it would have tumbled down.
[90] Square pillars, thirty feet in height, sustain the vaulting arches and fragments of the rough rubble vault. One of them has a shield inscribed "Iacob Chabba A." At the east end two pillars are octagonal for a change; at the west old Romanesque responds are used. On the north remains a newel stair that led, it seems, to pulpit, rood and roof. Along the same side are still the remains of the vaulted cloister of the friars.
[91] St. Göran is of late twelfth century date, and the low chancel still retains its vault, rising from corbels to a sort of dome at the top. From the keystone of the chancel arch started the vault-supporting arches that ran down the centre of the nave and rested on two pillars, round and square. Tall round-arched windows pierce the walls; there are twin west doors and three high gables mark the sky.
[92] Heimskringla; Story of the Ynglings, Ch. II.
[93] Story of the Ynglings, Chs. X. & IX.
[94] Story of the Ynglings, Chs. XII. & XIII.
[95] ib., Ch. XL.
[96] Story of the Ynglings, Ch. LXXVI.