Stadt & Amt Lüchow

Amt Warpke

Wooden castles began being built (and burned down) in Lüchow during the 11th century. In the 12th century, the Counts of Warpke acquired the castle (abandoning their own) and made it the seat of Grafschaft Lüchow. By the end of the 13th century, Lüchow had received city rights. The county was acquired by the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1320, where it became an Amt (excepting the Stadt itself, which was self-governing) that was assigned to the Principality of Lüneburg in 1409.

 

A new castle was built in Warpke in the 14th century and it served as the seat of an Amt until 1548, when it was absorbed into Amt Lüchow as Vogtei Bergen. Parts of Vogtei Bergen, in turn, were transferred to Amt Bodenteich in 1740.

 

In 1591, Stadt & Amt Lüchow were reassigned to the nonsovereign spin-off Principality of Lüneburg-Dannenburg, which had been founded in 1569. Beginning in 1636, that principality and its constituent Ämter were administered by Wolfenbüttel while remaining under the sovereignty of Lüneburg. In 1671, the principality was abolished and its constituent Ämter reverted to Lüneburg (from which I drop the -Celle because it was no longer divided).

 

Initially, Amt Lüchow consisted of a large Hausvogtei and eight smaller Vogteien. In the early 18th century, seven of those smaller Vogteien were consolidated into a new “Reisevogtei.” (The exact year in which the Reisevogtei was created is unknown. I use 1705 as an estimate, which corresponds to when the Principality was absorbed into the Electorate of Hannover.) The eighth small Vogtei (referred to in different sources as either Vogtei Lūbbow or Grenzvogtei) remained intact. I use “Grenzvogtei” as the formal name and “Lübbow” as the simplified name.

 

In 1720, several parishes (or parts thereof) were transfered to Gericht Gartow. Because my sources generally do not identify which Vogtei the transferred villages belonged to, I rely on parish groupings to make assignments. In the case of two parishes, I created quasi-Vogteien to contain the associated villages rather than assign them to the small Vogteien reported in my sources.

 

The lists of villages below are organized such that the first column includes all subdivisions that existed when the database ends in 1803. The second column includes subdivisions that were obsolete in 1803, having been abolished by the early 18th century.