page_title: Ommen
section_title: Development into a city
hierarchical_section_title: Ommen / History / Development into a city
context_page_description: Ommen is a municipality and a Hanseatic city in the eastern Netherlands. It is located in the Vecht valley of the Salland region in Overijssel. Historical records first name Ommen in the early 12th century and it was officially founded as a city in 1248. The municipality had a population of 17,813 in 2019 and covers an area of 182.01 km².
context_section_description: On 25 August 1248, Ommen received city rights and fortification rights from Otto III, the Prince-Bishop of Utrecht, after the town was pillaged by local robber baron Rudolf of Coevorden and his militia of freemen in both 1215 and in the aftermath of the Battle of Ane of 1227. Ommen's location at the confluence of two rivers at the heart of the region made it the bishop's strategic and logistic basis in the defence of his domain Oversticht against the rebellious Drents. Ommen thus became the 4th-oldest officially recognised city in Overijssel, after Deventer (956 A.D.), Zwolle and Rijssen.
  A wall was soon erected around Ommen, including three gates: the Vechtpoort or Voorbruggenpoort (on the bank of the Vecht), the Varsenerpoort (on the western wall for traffic with Varsen) and the Arriërpoort (on the northern wall for traffic with Arriën). Even to this day, the two bells in the church's belltower, named Maria and Salvator and cast in 1517 by Hendrick de Tremonia of Dordrecht, are rung every evening at nine o'clock. These so-called Ave-Maria peals form a custom which traces its origin to the tradition of ringing the bell at the closing of the gates. Ommen never received a moat, even though it was permitted one.
  Ommen soon became a regional port and market for agricultural products. Due to this commercial growth and strategic commercial position, Ommen eventually joined the prosperous Hanseatic League – although most of its trade was not directly with the Baltic Sea region, but with fellow Hanseatic cities Zwolle, Kampen, Zutphen and especially Deventer, of which it was a subsidiary city. A toll bridge across the Vecht (first built in 1492) further increased its wealth and commercial importance, even though the toll bridge across the Vecht was destroyed by ice floes three times through the centuries. The toll levy was usually auctioned off to private tax collectors, who resided in the toll house (built in 1531) next to the bridge. A bridge toll would be levied until 1925.
  For centuries during the Middle Ages, the Estates of Oversticht, a diet or feudal parliament representing the quarters of Salland, Twenthe and Vollenhove (and until 1527 also Drenthe) and the cities of Zwolle, Deventer and Kampen, convened just outside the city of Ommen at Nieuwebrug (or New Bridge), named after the bridge over the Regge on the road between Ommen and Hellendoorn. Following a feud between Kampen and Zwolle in 1519, however, a gathering of the Estates was attacked by citizens of neighbouring Zwolle, who abducted three noblemen and pillaged nearby Eerde castle. During the years that followed, conflict escalated in Overijssel.
caption: The death of Otto II of Lippe during the Battle of Ane near Ommen (Frederik Zürcher, 1825–1876)
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