page_title: Skagen
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: Skagen / History / Early history
caption_attribution_description: Dansk: Skagens tilsandede kirke, Skagen Sogn, Horns Herred, Hjørring Amt
context_page_description: Skagen is Denmark's northernmost town, on the east coast of the Skagen Odde peninsula in the far north of Jutland, part of Frederikshavn Municipality in Nordjylland, 41 kilometres north of Frederikshavn and 108 kilometres northeast of Aalborg. The Port of Skagen is Denmark's main fishing port and it also has a thriving tourist industry, attracting 2 million people annually.
  The name was applied originally to the peninsula but it now also refers to the town. The settlement began during the Middle Ages as a fishing village, renowned for its herring industry. Thanks to its seascapes, fishermen and evening light, towards the end of the 19th century it became popular with a group of impressionist artists now known as the Skagen Painters. In 1879, the Skagen Fishermen's Association was established with the purpose of facilitating the local fishing industry through the Skagensbanen railway, which opened as a narrow-gauged railway in 1890. The modern port of Skagen opened on 20 November 1907, and with the railway connections to Frederikshavn and the rest of Denmark, tourism began to develop.
context_section_description: Skagen was mentioned as far back as the first century AD by Pliny the Elder:
  "Promenturium Cimbrorum excurrens in maria longe paeninsulam efficit quae Tastris appellatur" (Book IV, 97)
  "The promontory of the Cimbri running far out into the seas makes a peninsula, which is called Tastris."
  This is the only time the name Tastris is mentioned but Skagen itself, first documented as Skaffuen in 1284, simply means narrow, high point of land
  The first building in the area, dating from the 12th century, was in Højen on the west side of the peninsula. It belonged to Tronder, a shepherd who also became Skagen's first fisherman. Around 1340, Vesterby, on the east coast (to the south west of today's harbour), developed into the main village. Further to the south west, St Lawrence's Church was built at the end of the 14th century. In 1413, Erik of Pommern granted Skagen the status of market town with the result that for a time it became Vendsyssel's largest community with up to 2,000 inhabitants.
  In 1549 a grammar school was opened (closing again in 1739), and in 1561 Skagen's first lighthouse was constructed. In 1568, some 350 fishing boats and merchant ships were wrecked off the coast of Skagen. In the 1590s, successive storms led not only to numerous drownings but to flooding, destroying many of the houses. In 1591, 22 died in a flood and in 1593, 14 houses were washed away. In 1595, 25 farms in the area were covered in drifting sand. As a result, new housing was built in Østerby to the north east, away from the rapidly accumulating sand.
caption: The sand-engulfed Buried Church (tilsandede kirke) at Skagen.
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