Saint Hans and Saint Per Churches Ruins, Visby

The Ruins of Saint Hans and Saint Per Churches stand as historic testaments in the city of Visby. These architectural structures, erected in the 13th century, were dedicated to John the Evangelist and Peter the Apostle respectively.

The original Saint Hans Church, thought to be the first stone church erected on Gotland, was built around 1060 at an ancient pagan viet, or offering place. It signifies the onset of Christianity and the expulsion of the Old Believers, marking a pivotal shift in Gotland's spiritual landscape. Evidence suggests that Saint Hans Church likely succeeded a pagan temple, which might be traced back to the Eke Ting area of the island.

As the parish church for the Gotlanders in Visby, Saint Hans initially served a purely local congregation. Conversely, Saint Per was erected post-1161 on the site of a forsaken wooden church, All Saints Church, catering to the town's German community. As the 13th century saw increasing German influence and intermarriage, the churches transformed. Saint Hans became a high-class place of worship for both Germans and Gotlanders, while Saint Per served the lay population.

The 17th century marked a further deterioration of the churches, rendering them absent from maps of 1646 and 1696. Their stones were repurposed in the 19th century to construct the nearby Lythberg house. Interestingly, this demolition also led to the preservation of a vast number of medieval tombstones, the largest such collection in Europe. The discovery of a runic tombstone dated to around 1070, the Hailgair's häll, during an archaeological dig in Saint Hans is a testament to this.