CHAPTER EIGHT ( 5 )

RIBE

Claus Feveile

T

he written sources about Viking Age Ribe are few (Skovgaard-Petersen 1981 ). Ribe
is mentioned for the first time in the Frankish annals in the 850 s when the Danish
king Horik the younger gives the missionary Ansgar from the Episcopal residence in
Hamburg a piece of land where a church could be erected as well as permission for a
priest to take up permanent residence.
Among the participants at the synod in Ingelheim in 948 Bishop Leofdag of Ribe
(Liopdago Ripensis ecclesiae episcopo) is mentioned. In 965 and 988 Ribe is referred to as
an Episcopal residence as well. Finally Ribe occurs in Adam of Bremen’s Gesta from the
1070 s, where the town is described as follows, ‘the town is surrounded by a river
streaming in from the ocean and through which the ships steer towards Friesland or at
any rate to England and our Saxony’.
The first archaeological attempts to locate ancient Ribe were carried out in the 1950 s
and took place in the area around the present cathedral on the south-west bank of the
Ribe River. Here, however, the layers do not date back any further than to the end of
the eleventh century. In the 1960 s the archaeological search for the town among other
things led to excavations outside the town, for example at Dankirke and Okholm
(Hansen 1990 ; Feveile 2001 ), 6 – 8 km south-west of Ribe.
The final breakthrough in the archaeological investigation of Ribe came in the 1970 s,
when Mogens Bencard carried out a long excavation campaign for several years on the
north-east bank of the Ribe River. Here remains of the marketplace as well as one
inhumation grave dating from the eighth century were found. The excavations in 1970 – 6
are in course of publication: five volumes have been released and one is in preparation
(Bencard 1981 , 1984 ; Bencard et al. 1990 , 1991 , 2004 ). During 1984 – 2000 more than
twenty excavations were carried out on the north and east banks of the Ribe River. A
number of intermediate results and surveys have been released successively (Frandsen
and Jensen 1988 a and b, 1990 ; Feveile 1994 ; Feveile et al. 1992 , 1999 ; Feveile and
Jensen 2000 ), while a more comprehensive new series, Ribe Studier, dealing with the
results from the excavations of 1984 – 2000 has been initiated (Feveile 2006 a).
The oldest part of Ribe is situated on the north and east banks of the Ribe River,
whereas from the end of the eleventh century the town centre was situated on the south-
west bank of the River. North-east of the river the landscape is dry and sandy, while the