Bishopric/Principality of Verden

Imperial City of Verden

Landesteil Verden

The ecclesiastical Bishopric of Verden dates from 850. The Bishop gained secular power in the 10th century, but did not exercise sovereignty until the 11th century. In the 15th century, the city of Verden became an Imperial City and left the Bishopric. That left only two subdivisions of the Bishopric—Amt Verden (although the city itself was not part of it) and the larger Amt Rotenburg, where the administrative functions of the Bishopric had largely moved. On the basis of the locus of administrative activity, I use the simplified name of Verden-Rotenburg for the Bishopric.

 

I begin the database in 1568, when the first Protestant bishop was installed. During the Thirty-Years War, the Bishopric was occupied by Sweden. Under the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which ended the war, the Bishopric’s territory was secularized, enhanced by the addition of the previously independent Stadt Verden, and converted to a Principality under Swedish sovereignty. Because Bremervörde, the capital of the neighboring Archbishopric of Bremen, had been largely destroyed during the war, Sweden set up its capital in Stade from which it also administered the Principality of Verden. The territory ruled from Stade became known as the Duchy of Bremen-Verden, but because Bremen and Verden remained members of different circles of the Holy Roman Empire, I continue to recognize them as distinct entities, with the simplified country names of Bremen-Stade and Verden-Stade.

 

In 1712, sovereignty was turned over to Denmark, which sold both Bremen and Verden to the Electorate of Hannover (which was in personal union with the United Kingdom) in 1715. From that point on, I refer to the Principality as a Landesteil of Hannover. In the 1760s and the 1790s, certain villages were exchanged between the Landesteile of Bremen and Verden. The Electorate of Hannover was occupied by Napoleonic France in 1803, and I end the database then. (After the Napoleonic Wars, Hannover was elevated to a Kingdom and any meaningful distinction between the Landesteile of Bremen and Verden was eliminated. They were combined, along with Hadeln, into Landdrostei Stade in 1823. When Hannover was acquired by Prussia in 1866, the Landdrostei was converted to a Regeierungsbezirk—an entity that persisted until 1978.)