Haderslev

Haderslev lies in a valley leading to a fjord on the eastern coast of southern Jutland. Granted the status of a royal borough in 1292, it became an important trading town in Schleswig. Its great Gothic church, whose origins reach back to the thirteenth century, and the royal castle of Haderslevhus, first mentioned in 1327, marked its place in the duchy.

In the sixteenth century Haderslev became an early centre of Lutheran reform in Scandinavia. Duke Christian introduced the Reformation here in 1526, before he became king of Denmark eight years later. A second castle, Hansborg, was built in the town; Christian IV was married there when plague affected Copenhagen. Hansborg burned in 1644, one of several fires that changed the appearance of the old town.