Bishopric/Principality of Paderborn

The Bishopric of Paderborn was founded as an ecclesiastical entity in the 9th century and acquired secular jurisdiction in the late 12th century. The Archbishop of Cologne contested the Bishop’s secular authority until the 1288 Battle of Worringen, after which Paderborn was unambiguously independent as part of Ecclesiastical Germany (although both Cologne and Hesse unsuccessfully challenged that in the 14th and 15th centuries). In a portion of the Bishopric (Oldenburg and the village of Rolfzen), administrative duties were shared with Lippian entities—sometimes the core County/Principality of Lippe(-Detmold) and other time with spin-off counties. The boundaries of the Bishopric remained very stable until 1802, when it was secularized during the Napoleonic Wars. For four years, the territory of the former Bishopric was ruled as the Principality of Paderborn under Prussian sovereignty. After the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the territory was incorporated into the Kingdom of Westphalia, a Napoleonic client state.

 

The Bishopric of Paderborn was informally divided into two Distrikte (Oberwaldischer and Unterwaldischer), each of which contained multiple smaller subdivisions. The organization and naming of the subdivisions was confusing (click on the Distrikte link for more details). The Prussians reorganized the territory into three Kreise (Oberwaldischer, Unterwaldischer, and Warburger) in 1803. I can find no record of subdivisions below that level between 1803 and 1806.

 

Master list of countries and subdivisions in the Paderborn region