The term fieldstone church denotes a type of church, built using fieldstone

Fieldstone

Fieldstone is a building construction material. Strictly speaking, it is stone collected from the surface of fields where it occurs naturally...

 of glacial erratic

Glacial erratic

A glacial erratic is a piece of rock that differs from the size and type of rock native to the area in which it rests. "Erratics" take their name from the Latin word errare, and are carried by glacial ice, often over distances of hundreds of kilometres...

s and glacial rubble

Rubble

Rubble is broken stone, of irregular size, shape and texture. This word is closely connected in derivation with "rubbish", which was formerly also applied to what we now call "rubble". Rubble naturally found in the soil is known also as brash...

. Such churches occur mostly in areas where the ice age

Ice age

An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...

s have deposited such rock material on the one hand, and where on the other hand there is little or no access to natural rock for quarry

Quarry

A quarry is a type of open-pit mine from which rock or minerals are extracted. Quarries are generally used for extracting building materials, such as dimension stone, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, and gravel. They are often collocated with concrete and asphalt plants due to the requirement...

ing and fashioning. In Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, the primary areas with fieldstone churches are Saxony-Anhalt

Saxony-Anhalt

Saxony-Anhalt is a landlocked state of Germany. Its capital is Magdeburg and it is surrounded by the German states of Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia.Saxony-Anhalt covers an area of...

, Schleswig-Holstein

Schleswig-Holstein

Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig...

, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Brandenburg

Brandenburg

Brandenburg is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam...

 (including Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

) in Germany, as well as Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

, Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

, parts of Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

 and the Baltic states

Baltic states

The term Baltic states refers to the Baltic territories which gained independence from the Russian Empire in the wake of World War I: primarily the contiguous trio of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania ; Finland also fell within the scope of the term after initially gaining independence in the 1920s.The...

. The stones used are often granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

, gneiss

Gneiss

Gneiss is a common and widely distributed type of rock formed by high-grade regional metamorphic processes from pre-existing formations that were originally either igneous or sedimentary rocks.-Etymology:...

 or quartzite

Quartzite

Quartzite is a hard metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. Pure quartzite is usually white to gray, though quartzites often occur in various shades of pink...

; they can be used both hewn and unshaped. Since some of the churches are painted, the stones are not always visible. Especially in later examples, the fieldstones are often combined with other materials, such as brick

Brick

A brick is a block of ceramic material used in masonry construction, usually laid using various kinds of mortar. It has been regarded as one of the longest lasting and strongest building materials used throughout history.-History:...

 or half-timbered parts.

Many fieldstone churches are of Romanesque

Romanesque architecture

Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...

 date, some are Gothic

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

 or somewhat later. The earliest examples date to the 11th century (in some regions later, depending on the date of Christianisation and of the German eastward expansion

Ostsiedlung

Ostsiedlung , also called German eastward expansion, was the medieval eastward migration and settlement of Germans from modern day western and central Germany into less-populated regions and countries of eastern Central Europe and Eastern Europe. The affected area roughly stretched from Slovenia...

). Many early examples in Holstein

Holstein

Holstein is the region between the rivers Elbe and Eider. It is part of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost state of Germany....

 are associated with the activities of St. Vicelinus

Vicelinus

Saint Vicelinus was a German bishop of Oldenburg in Holstein who was considered the apostle of Holstein.Orphaned at an early age, Vicelinus received his primary education at Hamelin, his birthplace...

 and are thus known as Vizellinskirchen (Vicellinus churches); they often have round towers. Some of the earliest churches in Denmark (especially Bornholm

Bornholm

Bornholm is a Danish island in the Baltic Sea located to the east of the rest of Denmark, the south of Sweden, and the north of Poland. The main industries on the island include fishing, arts and crafts like glass making and pottery using locally worked clay, and dairy farming. Tourism is...

) are fieldstone-built round church

Round church

A round church is a special type of church construction, having a completely circular plan. Round churches are often found in Sweden and Denmark and were popular church constructions in Scandinavia in the 11th and early 12th centuries.Round churches should not be confused with the older types of...

es. The flourish of the development of fieldstone churches was around the end of the 12th century, after which they became less common due to the increasing popularity of brick-built architecture (see Brick Romanesque

Brick Romanesque

Brick Romanesque is an architectural style and chronological phase of architectural history. The term described Romanesque buildings built of brick; like the subsequent Brick Gothic, it is geographically limited to Northern Germany and the Baltic region...

 and Brick Gothic

Brick Gothic

Brick Gothic is a specific style of Gothic architecture common in Northern Europe, especially in Northern Germany and the regions around the Baltic Sea that do not have natural rock resources. The buildings are essentially built from bricks...

). Their construction mostly ceased at the end of the 16th century. In the context of architectural revival styles, especially of Neo-Romanesque

Romanesque Revival architecture

Romanesque Revival is a style of building employed beginning in the mid 19th century inspired by the 11th and 12th century Romanesque architecture...

, further fieldstone churches were erected in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

External links

• Gallery of fieldstone churches in High Fläming Nature Park
  High Fläming Nature Park
  High Fläming Nature Park is a 827 km² nature park in Potsdam-Mittelmark district in the German state Brandenburg. It is the third largest of 11 nature parks in the state of Brandenburg...
  
  , Branednburg, on wikimedia commons
  Wikimedia Commons
  Wikimedia Commons is an online repository of free-use images, sound and other media files. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation....
  
  
• Informative site about medieval village churches in Brandenburg (in German