Eine accurate Karte von Pomeren wie auch dem Land Rügen neben Strahlsundt in Form seiner Beläger

Title

Eine accurate Karte von Pomeren wie auch dem Land Rügen neben Strahlsundt in Form seiner Beläger

Description

Map shows the island of Rügen.

ca. 1730

Artist

Schenk (1660-1718)

Petrus Schenck, (1660 – 1711) was a German engraver and cartographer active in Amsterdam and Leipzig. Valck was married to Maria Bloteling, the sister of the Amsterdam engraver Abraham Bloteling. In 1687 Schenk married Gerard's sister Agatha Valck. In 1694, together with Valck, he bought some of the copperplates of the artdealer and cartographer Johannes Janssonius. Along with Valck and Bloteling, he produced prints for the London market, though it is not known if he ever went there with them.

Historical Description

Rügen is Germany's largest island by area. It is located off the Pomeranian coast in the Baltic Sea and belongs to the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The island of Rügen is part of the district of  Vorpommern-Rügen, with its county seat in Stralsund. The towns on Rügen are: Bergen, Sassnitz, Putbus and Garz. In addition, there are the Baltic seaside resorts of Binz, Baabe, Göhren, Sellin and Thiessow. From the 7th century the West Slavic Rani (or Rujani) built an empire on Rügen and the neighbouring coast between Recknitz and Ryck. It decidedly affected the history of the Baltic Sea area and the surrounding Obodritic and Liutician occupied mainland for the next few centuries. In 1168, the Danish king, Valdemar I, and his army commander and advisor, Bishop Absalon of Roskilde destroyed the Svetovid temple in the hillfort at Cape Arkona, ending both the territorial and religious autonomy of the Rani; their former monarchs became Danish princes of Rügen. Under Danish rule the Principality of Rugia changed its character. Danish monasteries were established. The Slavic cultural element disappeared, mostly due to the lack of their own Slavic church structures, so that the Rani were absorbed in the period that followed into the now German-influenced people of Rügen. After the death of the last Slav prince, Wizlaw III, in 1325, the principality was acquired by Pomerania-Wolgast as a consequence of the 1321 inheritance agreement  and from 1372-1451 was part of the estate of a branch line, the House of Barth. In 1478, Pomerania-Wolgast and Pomerania-Stettin were united and, 170 years later, the combined state went to Sweden in 1648 as a result of the Treaty of Westphalia. At the time of Napoleonic Wars, Rügen was held by the French from 1807–1813. In the Treaty of Kiel of 1814, it was transferred initially from Sweden to Denmark and then fell to Prussia, along with New Western Pomerania thanks to the Vienna Convention of 1815. In 1818 the island became part of the administrative district of Stralsund and thus belonged to the Prussian Province of Pomerania.