Why were so many stone and brick churches built in Denmark during the 12th century?

The construction of hundreds of stone and brick churches across Denmark during the 12th century was part of a broader, earnest church-building program that followed the establishment of Lund as the seat of an independent Nordic archbishopric in 1103.12

Prior to this period, Christian worship in Denmark primarily took place in small wooden churches. The transition to more permanent stone and brick structures reflected the growing institutional strength of the church and its alignment with the consolidation of royal power. This era of construction was marked by the building of a great Romanesque cathedral in Lund and the introduction of the monastery system, with orders such as the Cistercians establishing significant foundations across the country. These developments helped establish the basic ecclesiastical structures that would define the Danish church until the 16th-century Reformation.12