 Before the Protestant Reformation, later Franzburg was the site of Neuenkamp Abbey.In the course of the medieval conversion of Pomerania and German Ostsiedlung, prince Wizlaw I granted the central parts of the woods covering the mainland section of his Principality of Rügen, then Danish, to Cistercian monks from Camp Abbey in Lower Saxony who build Neuenkamp Abbey on 8 November 1231.The monks erected a church that, with a length of 80 meters, a width of 15 meters, and an arch height of 25 meters, was then the largest church in all Pomerania.