This is the ruins of King Sverre's Castle, Norway's first medieval castle

This is the ruins of King Sverre's Castle, Norway's first medieval castle.

Sverre Sigurdsson (1151-1202) was a Norwegian king between 1177 - 1202. He was raised in the Faroe Islands. Kong Sverre ruled the country in a hectic phase of civil war. He was the founder of a new dynasty, called the Sverreætta, a clan which ruled the country until 1319.

It all started in 1176. The young Sverre, trained as a priest, travelled from his home in the Faroe Islands to the city of Bergen with the goal to become the king of Norway. He claimed to be a son of king Sigurd Munn and thus entitled to succeed to the throne. Sverre gathered an army of the poor an dispossed, who was called the Birkebeiners. He developed them into an elite unit. His army was called Birkebeiner. The name of the army was because they were so poor that they had to tie birch bark around the legs instead of stockings. The Birkebeiners continued to fight for Sverre’s successor after King Sverre's death in 1202.

Sverre is one of the most controversial and enigmatic persons in Norwegian history. He is often described as the most powerful and most important king of Norwegian medieval age. At the cliff above the museum he built Norways first medieval castle. The ruins of the castle are preserved in the museum area as a memory of a very exciting chapter in the country's history.

The civil war period in Norway between 1130 and 1240 was dominated by the struggle between many pretenders to the throne. At the end of the 12th century the warring factions reduced to two parties, known as the Birkebeiners and the Baglers. The church supported the Baglers because King Sverre and his men wanted to reduce the privileges of the bishops. Sverre wanted a church where the king was the head, while the bishops wanted an independent church where they only was subjects to the pope. The war between the Birkebeiner and the Bagler was especially rough in Trøndelag, the center of the Birkebeiners power.

On the steep cliff in the middle of the open air museum king Sverre built the country's first medieval castle during the winter of 1182-1183. The castle was named Zion after King David's Citadel in Jerusalem. It must have been an impressive sight, with its gate tower, main tower, curtain wall and various buildings. The castle was destroyed twice by Sverre’s enemies. Both times, the castle was rebuilt. Today only the ruins remain of this impressive fortress.

The first picture is an illustration that shows how the castle probably looked. The other pictures show the mountain where the castle was located and the ruins that remain.