[WERDEN+ESSEN] Civitatis WERDENAE Exactiss: Descrip: [on sheet with:] Civitatis ESSENSIS Exactiss. Descrip.

A nice decorative map with two panoramic views by Braun and Hogenberg: Werden and Essen.
Werden is seen from the northwest, coming from the direction of Essen, in its location nestled between the hills above the Ruhr. The castle, constructed around 1479, lies directly beside the bridge on the right. Werden's most striking building is the Benedictine abbey (here labelled Abbatia) around which the town originally sprang up.
Founded by St Ludger ca. AD 799, the monastery first, Carolingian church was replaced in 1256-1275 by a new Romanesque abbey. Werden was chartered around 1317 and was subsequently fortified with ramparts and towers. Until 1803 the abbots of the monastery were also the lords of the city, to whom the surrounding lands also belonged.
Today, Werden is a district of the city of Essen with some 10,000 inhabitants. Since coal has been extracted here since the 16th century, Werden is also considered the birthplace of mining in the Ruhr.

The plate shows a view of Essen from the southeast, seen in cavalier perspective. The skyline is dominated by the church spires soaring above the densely packed houses inside the city walls, constructed in 1244: in the centre the Gothic cathedral (Das Munster), which replaced the original convent church of c. AD 852; to the left the former parish church of St John the Baptist (S. Iohan); and to the right St Gertrude's (S. Geerth).
Essen arose in the year 845 following the founding of the convent by Altfrid, the later bishop of Hildesheim. The convent was a religious community of unmarried noblewomen, of whom only the abbess had to take a vow of chastity. The abbesses were of high social rank: the daughters and nieces of German emperors and kings.
In 1216 they were made imperial princesses and thereby accorded the same status as the abbot of nearby Werden abbey. In 1377 Essen became a Free Imperial City, which led to a 200-year feud between the city and the abbesses for dominance in the region. Essen lies at the heart of the Ruhr Valley and from the late 1700s until the 1900s was shaped by coal mining.

Reference: Taschen