The Archbishop's Palace: Power Behind the Cathedral

Tucked against the south side of Nidaros Cathedral, the Archbishop's Palace (Erkebispegården) is the oldest secular building in Scandinavia and one of the oldest in northern Europe. Begun around 1160 under Archbishop Eystein Erlendsson, it served for nearly four centuries as the seat of the Archbishop of Nidaros, whose reach extended to Iceland, Greenland, the Faroes, the Hebrides and the Isle of Man.

The palace was a city in miniature. Its courtyards held a mint that struck silver coins, an armoury, workshops for stonemasons and goldsmiths, and stables for the archbishop's retinue. When archaeologists excavated beneath the floors in the 1990s after a devastating fire, they uncovered casting moulds, coin dies, and the only known medieval gun-foundry workshop north of the Alps — a reminder that the archbishop was also a military prince.

After the Reformation in 1537, the Danish crown seized the palace and turned it into a royal residence and arsenal. Today the complex houses three museums: the medieval finds from the excavations, the Norwegian Crown Regalia, and a military museum tracing Trondheim's role from the Napoleonic Wars to the Second World War. Walking the cobbled courtyards, you can still trace the outline of the medieval Norway that was governed from this single, walled enclosure.