Steinvikholm castle

Steinvikholm castle is a late medieval castle at Skatval, near Trondheim, Norway. The castle was built by Norway's last Catholic archbishop, Olav Engelbrektsson in Nidaros (Trondheim). At the time, the castle was the strongest fortification in the country.

Compared to other fortifications at home and abroad, Steinvikholm was very modern for its time, but rapidly changing military technology and strategy quickly made it obsolete. The castle has an almost rhombic ground surface with round towers in the pointed corners to the north-east and south-west.

Construction began at the earliest in the summer of 1524, and there is a fairly large consensus that the castle was completed in 1532, i.e. after about seven years, in record time by the standards of the time. The castle was both a defensive structure and permanent residence for the archbishop, and it served as the Catholic Church's last stronghold in Norway before the archbishop was forced into exile at the Reformation in 1537.