A bronze bishop on horseback rises above Hojbro Plads, axe in hand, gazing toward the island of Slotsholmen where his fortress once stood. The equestrian statue portrays Absalon (c. 1128-1201), the warrior-bishop of Roskilde and later archbishop of Lund who is credited as the founder of Copenhagen: around 1167 he built a castle on the islet that now carries Christiansborg Palace, and the fishing village beside it grew into the Danish capital. The monument was created by sculptor Vilhelm Bissen and unveiled in 1902, marking the 700th anniversary of Absalon's death. Bissen chose to show the churchman as a mounted warrior in mail rather than in vestments - a nod to the campaigns against the Wends that made Absalon as much a military and political figure as a religious one. The statue stands on a tall granite plinth in the middle of one of the city's liveliest squares. Hojbro Plads itself links Amagertorv and the Stroget shopping street with the Hojbro bridge across to Slotsholmen, so the statue makes a natural orientation point on any walk through central Copenhagen. From the plinth it is a few steps to the canal, the Christiansborg parliament complex, and the famous view of the small Merman and his Sons sculpture beneath the water by the bridge. Absalon himself remains one of the towering figures of Danish medieval history. Bishop of Roskilde from 1158 and archbishop of Lund from 1177, he was the closest adviser to King Valdemar the Great, led naval campaigns against the Wendish pirates that plagued the Danish coasts, and commissioned the chronicler Saxo Grammaticus to write the Gesta Danorum, the great history of the Danes. His fortress on Slotsholmen protected the herring-rich trading harbour that grew into Kobenhavn - "merchants' harbour" - and its excavated foundations can still be seen beneath Christiansborg today. He died in 1201 at Soro Abbey, where he lies buried.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: Hojbro Plads, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1202

Opening Date: 01/01/1902