Monastery In the 12th century the
Baltic coast south of the island of
Rügen belonged to the
Rani principality of Rügen, which in its turn was subject to the
Danes. The Danish Cistercian monastery,
Esrum Abbey, was thus able to found a daughter house in the area,
Dargun Abbey, at
Dargun, west of
Demmin, in 1172. When in 1198 this monastery was destroyed in fighting between Denmark and
Brandenburg,
Jaromar I, Prince of the Rani, whose wife was of the Danish royal house, offered to re-settle the monks at a new site at the mouth of the River
Ryck, close to the boundary between the territory of the Princes of Rügen, and the
County of Gützkow, since the early 1120s subordinate to the
Duchy of Pomerania. The offer of the site, which included profitable
salt pans, was founded, The princes of Rügen further endowed the new monastery with extensive lands in the border country between the Rügen-owned territories of
Gristow and
Wostrose (
Wusterhusen), the area of
Lositz (
Loitz) which was debated between Rügen and
Mecklenburg, and the
County of Gützkow. The monastery became wealthy from the salt trade and was very influential in the Christianisation of
Western Pomerania. It also brought about the foundation at the beginning of the 13th century of the town of Greifswald, which started out as the monastery's trading settlement opposite the salt pans, near the point where the
via regia, an important trade route, crossed the river. After the
Battle of Bornhöved in 1227 the Danes withdrew from this part of their former territories, and despite some competition from the princes of Rügen, the
Duke of Pomerania,
Wartislaw III, was able in 1248/49 to press the abbey into subinfeudating Greifswald to him. Wartislaw was later buried in Eldena Abbey, as were later members of the ducal family, the
House of Pomerania. and later members of the
ducal family Throughout the 13th century, Eldena Abbey organized the cultivation and settlement of its growing estates in the
Ostsiedlung process, allocating and founding
Wendish,
Danish and
German villages. In the growing town of
Greifswald however, the
Cistercians of Eldena lost much of their influence the foundation in the town in the mid-13th century of friaries of the
Franciscans (Greyfriars) and the
Dominicans (Blackfriars). The east end of the abbey church was built in about 1200, while the conventual buildings date from the mid-13th and 14th centuries, all in
Brick Gothic. The final stages of construction were the west front and the nave of the church, which were completed in the 15th century.
Dissolution and later history The abbey was dissolved in 1535, when the
Reformation was introduced into Pomerania by Duke
Philip I, who took over its estates. The buildings were severely damaged during the
Thirty Years' War. In 1634 the site was given to the
University of Greifswald. The buildings fell derelict during the
Swedish occupation of western Pomerania (1648–1815), and bricks were taken away to build fortifications. '' (1809-10), based on the ruins of Eldena Abbey By the beginning of the 19th century, when the
Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich knew the abbey, it was a ruin, which he made the subject of several paintings. Renewed public interest led to the beginning of restoration work in 1828, and on the basis of designs by the
Prussian landscape gardener
Peter Joseph Lenné a park was laid out on the abbey precinct. In 1926-1927, scientific excavations were carried out in order to reconstruct the exact layout of the site. In the 1960s further work was carried out to make the site suitable for use for public and cultural events. Still more works were authorised from 1996 onwards jointly by both the State Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments (
Landesamt für Denkmalpflege) and the town of Greifswald, which eventually led to the declaration of the ruins as a cultural site of the
Pomerania Euroregion. ==List of abbots==