Ribe is a town in southwestern Jutland and was previously
formally part of the South Jutland enclaves that belonged to the
kingdom. The city has 8,317 inhabitants (2020), belongs to Esbjerg
Municipality and is located in the Region of Southern Denmark. Ribe
is Denmark's oldest city. It is located in a flat marsh area not far
from the North Sea and has historically been characterized by
floods. Ribe Å meanders through Ribe along several branches, further
across the marsh and through Kammerslusen into the Wadden Sea.
Ribe was founded as a trading post during the Viking Age in the
early 700s. Ansgar built the first church here in the ninth century,
and in 948 it became the episcopal see. The city grew and became
large and important both for the church and as a trade center, and
was in the Middle Ages among the country's largest cities. When Ribe
Å became impassable for ships at the end of the 17th century,
however, it declined sharply, and with Esbjerg's founding in 1868,
the city's industry was also challenged.
The city has several
educational institutions. Ribe has preserved its old urban
environment with Ribe Cathedral as its majestic landmark. Many
thousands of tourists from all over the world make a pilgrimage to
the city every year to experience the special atmosphere of the
market town. Ribe has several museums, including two that deal with
the Viking Age.
Ribe is called the "City of Storks". The storks have only visited in
recent years and have not bred in the city, but the city's stork nests
are still prepared every year.
Ribe was chosen as "Europe's Best
Big Time Small Destination" by Global Grasshoppers in 2014.
Ribe Fritidscenter is a sports facility with, among other things,
swimming pool and sports halls. It is the home court for the handball
club Ribe-Esbjerg HH. There is also the handball club Ribe Håndboldklub.
Ribe Boldklub is the city's football club. In the 1970s it had a
very strong women's team that won the Danish championships five times.
Ribe Art Museum is housed in a large villa that was built in the
1860s. The museum was founded in 1891 and displays Danish art from 1750
until 1950.
The Ribes Vikinger Museum was founded in 1992, and is
a cultural history museum with archaeological finds that particularly
focuses on the Viking Age. Together with Ribe Cathedral Museum, it is
run by South West Jutland Museums.
At the open-air archaeological
museum Ribe Vikingecenter at Lustrup, 2 km south of Ribe, there are,
among other things, reconstructed buildings, built in consultation with
South-West Jutland Museums, and the center also has a practical
collaboration with the high school and primary schools, as well as
several revival associations.
The Jacob A. Riis Museum is
dedicated to the journalist Jacob A. Riis, who was active in New York
City at the end of the 20th century. The museum opened in 2019.
In the summer of 2020, HEX opened! Museum of witch hunt, which deals
with Maren Splids and the witch hunt in Ribe and Europe. The opening was
postponed for 10 days, as the corona crisis had delayed the work to
restore the old buildings.
At Vester Vedsted, 7 km south-west of
the city, there is also the Wadden Sea Centre, which has the declared
purpose of "increasing knowledge and understanding of the Wadden Sea and
the marshes" through exhibitions on the area's geology and biology.
Ribe is on the European route for brick Gothic.
Ribe Cathedral is
among the country's oldest churches, and the only five-aisled church in
Denmark. The first brick church was built at the beginning of the 12th
century, while the current one was begun in 1150.
Riberhu's castle
complex was built by the king in the 12th century, but today only the
castle bank and a few remains of the foundation have been preserved.
Sankt Catharinæ Church was founded in 1250, and was built in connection
with a Dominican monastery in the city. In the 14th century, major
renovations were made, and the current church dates from around 1450. It
is among the country's most complete monastery buildings.
Ribe Old
Town Hall on Von Støckens Plads, a stone house built in 1496, functioned
as a town hall from 1709 until 2007.
Den Gamle Arrest was built as a
chaplain's residence for the assistant priest in 1546.
In
Puggårdsgade is Taarnborg, a bishop's residence from the end of the 16th
century and one of the best-preserved examples of Renaissance
architecture in the country.
There are many buildings from the early
modern era, including several restored half-timbered houses. In
addition, there is Den Gamle Avlsgård in Ribe from the end of the 19th
century, and two water towers: Dagmarsgade Water Tower built in 1887
which functioned until 2011 and Tangevej Water Tower built in 1907 and
in operation until 1990.
The name "Ribe" can be traced back to the Old Danish
ripa, which means stripes or strips, as the trading post originally
consisted of at least 70 narrow plots of land. They were highest in
the middle with ditches in between.
The inhabitants of Ribe
are called ripensers.
Morten Søvsø connects the name with the Latin ripa, meaning river
bank. The inhabitants of Ribe are called Ripense.
Two major
excavations, 1973-1975, and 2008-2012, have emphasized the Frisian
influence in Ribe's early history, while an incredible metal detector
find in 2018, of a coin hoard at Damhus immediately south of Ribe with
262 newly minted coins from the 8th century, is still rather
nondescript.
Ribe is considered Denmark's oldest town, with a history that
stretches back to between 704 and 710, where there was probably a
trading post on the site - the almost exact dating is due to a
dendrochronological study of timber in a well installation. The location
was good for trade, as there was access to the sea via Ribe Å, and it
was possible to travel overland both to the north and south, and to the
east coast of Jutland. Also worth mentioning is the trade in people -
Old Danish slave; slaves. No traces have been found of the slave trade,
which typically only leaves a few traces in the archaeological material,
so it is a difficult theme. Soil investigations have shown traces of
large amounts of animal manure, and the analysis of "seeds, fruits and
other macrofossils" also indicates local arable cultivation. The
archaeological finds mostly consist of ceramic shards, horn splinters
and pieces of glass. Some pottery has been interpreted as molds for
copper objects, including belt buckles, while horns and glass indicate
the production of horn combs and glass beads, which were well-known
trade goods at the time. Hundreds of loom weights used in a loom, as
well as the presence of bones from sheep, indicate that there has been
textile production at the site. A large number of amber pieces have also
been found, mostly unprocessed, but the quantity is interpreted as
evidence of the processing of amber jewellery. Slag residues from iron
forging and 117 whetstones, including 17 from Eidsborg, complete the
picture of the complex production enterprise, which probably had its
liveliest phase around the middle of the 7th century. Finally, the
discovery of a total of 218 coins of the sceatta type and their
stratigraphic location have led to the assumption of the presence of
some kind of control of the coin base. With Claus Feveile, this control
is thought to be with the Danish king, while Kirsten Bendixen, among
others, seems more reserved.
As in Dorestad, traces of the early
trading post have been found along the water's edge and they probably
represent trading stalls. The stalls were located along the north-west
bank of the stream, in a strip about 400 meters long and relatively
narrow, and close to the west of this was a large burial ground. Both
plant construction, coin finds and Mainzer wine barrels used as well
liners show a connection with the trading places at the Rhine and Elbe
estuaries, along the coast towards England and the southern English west
coast.
A 'real', or written, historical context appears in the
Vita Anskarii, written towards the end of the 8th century. Here the town
name is mentioned in chapter 32, Latin: vico regni sui Ripa vocato
similiter locum, where it is told about King Horik, who has just
regained control of Schleswig - then Hedeby - and is now also willing to
let a church be built in Ribe. The incident where Uffe is expelled from
Schleswig takes place around the years 853-855. Evidence that a church
was actually built brings the story back to the archaeological findings.
The Christian burial ground in Ribe came to light in connection with the
excavations in 2008-2012, on the south-eastern side of the stream, and
makes it likely that there was a church towards the end of the 8th
century, perhaps even in the place where the cathedral has its place
today. If you follow the written source - i.e. "Vita Anskarii" - as a
clue, the church in Ribe becomes the third oldest in Scandinavia, after
the churches in Hedeby and Birka.
In 948, at a church meeting in
Ingelheim, the three bishops are mentioned in Ribe, Aarhus, and,
according to Petrus Olai, in Schleswig, so that Ribe must now be the
episcopal seat, a few decades before the Jellinge stones were erected.
The ancient right of the Bishop of Ribe to half the king's income in
Ribe is claimed to have been given by Canute the Great. In any case, the
privilege was confirmed by Knud d. 6 in 1196, handed down to our time as
the first text in Ribe Oldemother.
In 1127, King Niels' son
Magnus the Strong was married to Richiza of Poland in Ribe. Ten years
later, Erik Emune is killed at Urnehoved, and later buried in Ribe
Cathedral.
The construction of Riberhu's castle was begun at the
beginning of the 12th century and the king held court here when he
visited the area. Ribe Cathedral was begun at the end of the 12th
century and consecrated in 1250.
The Dominican order founded a
black friars monastery in Ribe in 1228. In 1259, Christoffer the 1st
died in Ribe and was buried in the cathedral. At that time, Archbishop
Jacob Erlandsen had held a synod in Vejle, and there it was decided that
the kingdom should be in interdict if the king mistreated or imprisoned
a bishop. The archbishop was imprisoned by King Christoffer in 1259, and
it is said that it was the abbot of Ryd monastery, Arnfast, who found
the opportunity to poison the king. The royal tomb is located in the
middle under the cathedral's large dome.
On 26 June 1269, the
Ribe City Court was issued at the Danish court in Nyborg by King Erik 5.
Klipping. It is precisely such royal confirmations that are later
associated with the term 'marketplace' - actually 'marketplace',
respectively 'marketplace right'. The city became one of the country's
largest, and had a good trade in the export of oxen.
Ribe
belonged to the jurisdiction of the king and the bishop of Ribe - the
royally privileged citizens set their city law and in the bishop's
domains the church law was administered - but appeals then went to the
county council in Viborg. It also included bishop estates and royal
property which lay further south - i.e. in the Duchy of Schleswig -
which thus became a kind of enclave. For that reason, or perhaps because
Queen Margrethe D. 1. had in her time traded for Trøjborg estate (now
Trøjborg Castle Ruin), the enclaves were later known as the royal
enclaves.
On 3 September 1580, the city was hit by "The Great Fire", a fatal
fire in which 213 houses in 11 streets burned. The fire started at the
rich man Kristen Borg in Stenbogade, where, according to reports, that
very evening a lot of hay had been brought into the backyard, which lay
up to Torvet and over towards Peder Dovns Slippe. The hay was now
believed to have spontaneously ignited, but despite an acquittal on 21
February 1581, Borg had to seek the king's protection before he was
cleared of suspicion.
After the reformation of the ecclesiastical
institutions in the 16th century, the city managed to maintain both
trade and prosperity, but also faced other, in a way natural,
challenges. Thus, during the 17th century it became difficult to keep
Ribe Å navigable, and Fanø and Mandø were therefore used as loading
points for the city, and during "the second great drowning" on 11-12.
October 1634 the water in Ribe rose to 6.1 meters above daily water. In
the cathedral, you can still see a mark where the water was 1.7 m above
the floor.
One of the country's most talked about witch burnings
took place in Ribe, when the tailor's daughter Maren Splids was
convicted as a witch in 1641.
During the Torstensson Feud in
1643-44, the Riberhus castle complex was laid waste, and with the time
of the monarchy, the town's trade with foreign countries declined in
favor of Copenhagen and Aalborg. In the 18th century, the city's heyday
was over, although the craft still thrived and the city gradually became
known for lace and canvas production.
Newer modern times
In
the middle of the 19th century, the first industrial companies came, and
in 1885 the railway, when the Bramming-Tønder line was inaugurated, and
two years later it was extended to the German border, and on towards
Hamburg.
The establishment of Esbjerg in 1868, a brand new
industrial town with direct access to the sea, had its influence on the
industries in Ribe. However, there were still factories, including Crome
& Goldschmidts Tekstilfabrik, Sct. Nicolaj Gade who had approx. 120
employed at the end of the 19th century, and in the middle of the 20th
century Ribe Jernstøberi had 520 employees. A good part of the city's
workforce was employed as civil servants, since Ribe, right up until the
structural reform in 2007, housed the administration of Ribe
Municipality, Ribe Stift, and Ribe County. With the neoliberal currents
in the state administration, more jobs also followed for the industries
in the service sector. The town then became part of Esbjerg
Municipality.
To the northwest, Primary Route 24
goes towards Esbjerg, and to the northeast, Primary Route 32 goes to
Kolding. To the south, Primary Route 11 goes towards barrels
The ring road is a bypass west of the city, which is part of route
11. It is proposed to establish a bypass east of the city. To the
east, primary route 24 goes towards Gram.
A large part of the
city's old street network is preserved in the center of the city.
Ribe Station is a stop on the Bramming-Tønder line. In 1985,
Ribe Nørremark Station opened in the northern part of the city,
where the train also stops.
The city has two water towers;
Dagmarsgade Water Tower was built in 1887 and operated until 2011 as
well as Tangevej Water Tower which was built in 0907 and which
closed in 1990.
Among the city's old streets are Badstuegade,
Bispegade, Fiskergade, Hundegade, Præstegade, Puggaardsgade, Sct.
Nicolaj Gade, Skibbroen, Stenbogade and Sønderportsgade as well as
Torvet.
One of the city's large manufacturing
companies is the Mineralvandsfabrikken Frem, which was established
in 1949. In 2016, it was taken over by Bryggeriet Fuglsang.
The record studio Hansen Studio is located in Ribe. It is run by the
Danish producer Jacob Hansen, and is mainly used for recording rock
and heavy metal bands. Among the bands that have recorded albums
here are i.a. Dizzy Mizz Lizzy and Volbeat.
The city's retail
trade is mainly centered around Torvet and the pedestrian section
Overdammen, Mellemdammen and Nederdammen.
Ribe has a number
of hotels, including Ribe Hotel and Hotel Dagmar. The latter is part
of Danske Hoteller A / S. The Danhostel chain runs a youth hostel in
the city.
The city enjoys its close location to the German
border, and is therefore visited by many Germans.