economically from an increase in trade between Eastern and Western Europe during the Middle Ages giving the inhabitants the financial means to construct large, prestigious churches. The first churches on Gotland were wooden stave churches, but they were used for a relatively short time before stone churches began to replace them. Traces of around ten stave churches have been found on Gotland. The most well-preserved remains are those of Hemse stave church, whose timber had been re-used as floor boards in a later stone church. Wooden churches were built over a time span of a bit less than 100 years, 1120–1200. These first churches were probably not parish churches in the modern sense, but erected on private initiative adjacent to rich farmsteads by members of the local elite. (However, Gotland differed from much of Europe in that there was no land-owning aristocracy of the island.) Later, church building became a communal undertaking, where several peasants joined forces to finance a church. In the Hanseatic town of Visby the situation differed from that in the countryside. There, many of the churches were constructed by religious orders, confraternities or foreign merchants; present-day Visby Cathedral originally served the German traders of the city. More churches were eventually built in Visby than in any other city in medieval Sweden, and there were at least 12 churches within the city wall. Only Visby Cathedral remains, the rest having been preserved as ruins only. Architecture The first stone churches on Gotland were built in the first half of the 12th century. They were simple Romanesque churches. They were constructed without a socle or base, and had undecorated, narrow, round-arched portals. Sometimes they were decorated with friezes of reliefs depicting religious or possibly mythological subjects; some of these have been preserved by being re-used and incorporated in later, Gothic structures. These earliest churches display stylistic influences from both Western and Eastern Europe, the latter especially evident in the Russo-Byzantine church murals in Garde Church. During the second half of the 12th century, stylistic tendencies shifted decisively towards Western Europe. The construction site of Lund Cathedral in Scania spread influences from present-day Germany. The establishment of the Cistercian Roma Abbey on Gotland in 1164 would have a lasting influence on church architecture on Gotland, which came to incorporate several elements from Cistercian architecture. These include both certain notable details, such as chancels lacking apses, with straight walls facing