Rheine

Rheine lies on the Ems in Westphalia, near an old river crossing and trading roads. Bishop Louis of Münster granted it town rights in 1327. A bridge over the Ems, documented in 1362, brought traffic through the town, where travellers paid tolls. Construction of the town church of Saint Dionysius began around 1400 and continued into the sixteenth century.

Near the end of the Thirty Years' War, Swedish and Hessian troops besieged imperial soldiers in Rheine. Fires caused by heated cannonballs destroyed hundreds of houses in 1647. Following the dissolution of the prince-bishopric of Münster, the town became the centre of the short-lived principality of Rheina-Wolbeck in 1803, before further changes brought it under Prussian rule.