(also called St. Nickolas). St. Niels was a younger son of King Canute V. As a young man, Prince Niels lost interest in life at court and withdrew to the village of Skibby near Aarhus and built a church with his own hands. He lived a saintly life and helped the people in the area around Aarhus. One day, as he and a few men from the town were felling trees to build the church at Viby near the sea, one of the men complained that he was thirsty. St. Niels prayed for water and a spring appeared to slake the man's thirst; St. Niels's Spring has run ever since. It has been a place of pilgrimage for hundreds of years and many miraculous healings are said to have taken place there, especially on St. John's Day. On his death bed in 1180, St. Niels asked to be buried in "the little church by the sea" (St. Clements). He was buried in the churchyard at St. Clements. Aarhus Cathedral The construction of Aarhus Cathedral began in the decade after year 1190, by Bishop Peder Vognsen (d.11 April 1204) of the powerful Hvide family from Zealand. Bishop Vognsen built the cathedral around St. Clement's church because local people venerated St. Niels, and Vognsen wanted to harness that devotion for his cathedral. Vognsen also established the cathedral school of Aarhus Katedralskole, before the cathedral was completed. The church was finished in 1300 in typical Romanesque style with half-rounded arches supporting a flat timber ceiling. The second St. Clements was built of large red bricks, a new building material that became popular all over Scandinavia and northern Germany for ecclesiastical and public buildings. Four chapels were built into the north transept. The episcopal chair was moved from Our Lady Church to St. Clements. However, in 1330, the cathedral and much of the town burned down, and the church was abandoned until 1449. By then the Gothic style of architecture had reached Denmark, and the cathedral was enlarged in stages until it reached its present size in year 1500. The nave was lengthened to 93 meters, the longest in Denmark. The transept was widened, and the typical Gothic vaulting raised the ceilings and permitted high windows which fill the building with light. The Reformation changed life in and around the cathedral in many significant ways. In 1524 Hans Tausen (1494–1561), the Danish Luther, taught