This tour takes you though medieval Skaraborg, where you will get an insight into what society looked like in the Middle Ages. In some places, you can use Augmented Reality to see 3D models of archaeological objects. You need to be at the location to be able to see these.
First, listen to the story and then click on the AR symbol in the image above.
You are now seeing the axe, a form of beheading axe, found in the castle's dungeon during excavations conducted in the mid-1960s.
The story in text:
A few hundred metres west of the church in Husaby, the ruins of the former bishop’s stronghold rise. The stronghold comprises a rugged keep and the surrounding stone wall with small adjoining buildings, both half-timbered and brick.
We have no date for its construction, but the final bishop’s stronghold was probably built around 1480 by Bishop Brynolf Gerlaksson in Skara, probably on the site of an earlier stronghold.
Bishop Brynolf lived amidst the tribulations of the union conflicts with Denmark. The Bishop himself was a member of the Swedish assembly and was long a supporter of Sweden’s Lord Protector, Sten Sture, in the independence struggle against the Kalmar Union. However, in 1497 the bishop changed sides and worked for the Danish king Hans during his invasion of Sweden. This enraged the Sture supporters and a west-Swedish force captured the Bishop, possibly at Husaby.
After the victory of King Hans in October the same year, Bishop Brynolf is released and decides to further strengthen his stronghold in Husaby. But already in 1527, the story of the stronghold comes to an end when King Gustav Vasa confiscates the stronghold in the name of the Crown.
When the ruins were excavated in the 1960s, in addition to finds from the Middle Ages and the Late Iron Age, the walls of an earlier stone building were discovered – possibly Husaby Royal Demesne. They may even be the remains of vanished monastery. According to legend, Edmund the Elder founded a Benedictine monastery here.
Another discovery here was a dungeon below the stairs of the central building, which resembles a deep well. Prisoners were lowered into it through a small opening and hade their hands and feet shackled at the bottom of the well. This room was concealed and had no staircase – only this hole in the ceiling through which people were lowered. That, together with the finds discovered here, a foot shackle and an axe for decapitation, lead archaeologists to the conclusion that it is a prison dungeon.
Archaeologists also discovered a charred layer which indicates that the stronghold burned. Perhaps Husaby did not give up without a fight when the stronghold was seized by the Crown, was attacked and burned by a mightier Royal force.