Gråbrødretorv

thumb|300px|Gråbrødretorv Gråbrødretorv is a public square in the centre of Copenhagen, Denmark, just off the pedestrian street Strøget.

==History== left|thumb|200px|Ulfeldt's Square in 1748, painting by Johannes Rach and Hans Heinrich Eegberg thumb|200px|The square in 1755 by Johan Jacob Bruun|J. J. Bruun Gråbrødretorv (Greyfriars Square) takes its name from a Franciscan friary, which was established at the site in 1238. The friary consisted at its height of a church, a refectory, a great hall which was used on many occasions for important state meetings and meetings of the provincial which governed Franciscan monasteries in Denmark. The friary was dissolved in 1530 but the church tower was a visible part of the city skyline as late as 1596. The huge cellars of the friary became the town jail and eventually the church itself was converted to a prison. In 1621 Christian IV added an orphanage and recommissioned the church as a house of worship, though it was called the "Prison Church".