Alla stora män behöver en kyrka : En studie kring Gotlands kyrkobygge under tidig medeltid

Sammanfattning: This thesis aims to analyse six different churches around Gotland and to answer whether they were built by private farms or by the collective effort from near-situated farms. By exploringthis, further conclusions can be made regarding the placement of the churches and the involvement of larger farms. The source material consists of churches from six Gotlandic parishes and farms from every chosen parish and other building of interest, like the medieval defence towers.The thesis timeframe is primarily from the early 12th century to the middle of the 14th. But later periods are also the focus since the placement of churches and farms are all based on maps depicting the parishes during the late 17th and early 18th centuries.Since this is a spatial analysis much of the methods are based on the usage of GIS (Geographich information system), but a big focus is also on analysing the churches themselves and things as inscriptions. As this subject has been discussed by many researchers, the theory is very much based on earlier studies made by people like Anders Andrén, Tryggve Siltberg and Sven-Olof Lindquist.The churches in Bunge, Sundre and Stenkyrka was determined to be private built by possible larger farms and had many similarities with other areas in Scandinavia. Anga, Stånga and Eskelhem was more likely to be a collaborative effort made by all of the parish’sfarms.