Ribe amulet (Pendant in antiqued silver)

Filigranes Nordic amulet, 25 x 46 mm, 925 old silver finishing, Kettendurchlaß: 4 mm

When the missionary Ansgar of Bremen in 860 looked for a place for the first in Scandinavia to be established church, he chose Ribe. No coincidence, since the city was already the most important trading center of the north, due to the good harbor and the navigable river. So the request to King Ansgars Horik II Although the first mention of the city, yet they can be archaeologically traced back to the 8th century. As the discoveries show that the city was at that time of Craft marked (metal foundry, leather processing, weaving, pottery). Even in ancient times the city must have had commercial links to northern Germany and England, especially after Stade, Bremen, Cologne, Bruges, Deventer, Groningen and Utrecht.

During the Middle Ages Ribe remained a flourishing city, despite numerous setbacks. So it should have been in 1043 plundered by the contact. Between 1176 and 1402 destroyed seven fires much of the city. As elsewhere in Europe raged in 1350 the plague in Ribe. Two serious flooding, the second Marcellus of 1362 and the flood of 1512, the city also damaged. Nevertheless, the end of the 15th century, about 5,000 people lived in Ribe, so it was one of the major cities in Northern Europe (compared to Hamburg then had about 10,000, Lübeck population 25,000). 1460 Treaty of Ribe was completed in the city, which should confirm the indivisibility of Schleswig and Holstein. While it went Ribe in the 16th century still in good shape economically, but it gradually lost its importance for the Danish maritime trade. The trade routes had shifted, Copenhagen and other cities rose. The population of the city declined steadily.

A large fire in 1580, four outbreaks of plague and some floods - the worst of the Burchardiflut on 11-12. October 1634 (the water was 6.1 meters above sea level.) - Accelerated the decline of the once thriving commercial city. Another plague epidemic in 1659 cost one-third of urban residents living. The quartering of soldiers in the wars of the 17th century deprived the citizens of their prosperity. Yet about 2,000 people lived at that time in Ribe, a number that even until the beginning of the 19th century changed little. As insignificant city she experienced the occupation by Napoleonic troops in 1808 and the three years' war over Schleswig 1848-51 and the German-Danish War of 1864th

Although the boundaries of 1864 the city took a direct link with the northern part of the Office, after the date Schleswig neighboring communities Farup Sogn (dt .: Fardrup) Hjortlund Sogn, Kalvslund Sogn (dt .: Kalslund) Vester Vedsted Sogn (dt .: Wester-Wittstedt) and Seem Sogn were placed to the kingdom. But came the city and surrounding to the south in an uncomfortable stalemate situation, because the duchy of Schleswig to Prussia had fallen and now lay beyond the customs and border. The establishment of Esbjerg in 1870 moved Ribe also trade from the sea. Even the connection to the railway network five years later could not compensate for this loss, Ribe sank more and more into insignificance. The Second World War the city was without significant damage.