The Spanish Black Friars (Dominicans) came to Ribe in 1228 and began constructing a church and chapter house (the east wing of a monastery). Parts of the original edifice can still be seen, especially the southern wall. The present church, near Dagmarsgade, with nave and aisles, dates from 1400 to 1450, the tower from 1617. Only the monks' stalls and the Romanesque font remain from the Middle Ages, with the delicately carved pulpit dating from 1591, the ornate altarpiece from 1650. The brothers were kicked out in 1536, at the time of the Reformation, and in time the complex became both an asylum for the mentally ill and, later, a wartime field hospital. You can walk through the cloisters and see ship models and religious paintings hanging in the southern aisle. Tombstones of Ribe citizens from the Reformation and later can be seen along the outer walls of the church.