The Archbishopric/Duchy of Bremen and the Bishopric/Principality of Verden were in different circles of the Holy Roman Empire and thus , with one conspicuous exception, are documented via different sources.
Archbishopric/Duchy of Bremen
General sources
For identifying subdivisions of the Duchy of Bremen and assigning villages to the, my primary source was the fifth volume (1808) of Johan Ernst Fabri’s Geographie für alle Stände available here:
Geographie für alle Stände – Google Books.
An 1824 volume by Peter von Kobbe covering the same information (also for Verden, making it the conspicuous exception mentioned above) is available here:
When the two sources contradict one another, I generally defer to Fabri. Von Kobbe, however, provides more historical background, allowing me to identify earlier subdivisions that had been subsumed by the Guelphic Ämter that were in place when the above two volumes were written.
Sources for Klöster during the period of the Archbishopric
Of particular use in tracing the status of various Klöster (convents and monasteries) that exercised secular jurisdiction during the time of the Archbishopric is kirchengemeindelexikon.de | Historical Parish Exicon of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover (HKLH). On that site, one can enter the name of a Kloster and usually find a history that describes the administrative status of that Kloster at different times. It also sometimes lists villages within the Kloster’s jurisdiction.
In the case of Harsefeld specifically, an even better source for its administrative history can be found at Campsite Nesshof – Altes Land – History Nesshof (How weird is it that the best administrative history for a subdivision of the Archbishopric is on the web page for a campsite?) The state archives also contain some pages with valuable information about some (but not all) of the Klöster. For the Marienkloster in Stade and Kloster Himmelpforten, see here:
Supplemental sources for western subdivisions
Other sources that are useful for identifying subdivisions in the western part of the Archbishopric/Duchy that no longer existed when Fabri and von Kobbe were writing can be found here:
- GENEALOGIE-Allgemein Welches Kirchspiel gehört zu welchem Ort?
- History of the municipality of Nordholz | spotterblog.de
Again, I defer to Fabri or von Kobbe when the above sources contradict either of those two.
Within what is now Stadt Bremen, the following sources helped assign villages to subdivisions:
- Grambke heute, gestern & vorgestern | Geschichte von Dunge und Lesumbrok
- Description of the Lesum Gericht (page 13 of the pdf file that this link will download)
Bishopric/Principality of Verden
Fabri’s work covering the Niederrheinisch-Westfälische Kreis is not available on Google Books. Therefore, to identify subdivisions of the Principality and assign villages to them, I relied almost entirely on von Kobbe. That volume does not explicitly claim that the subdivisions of the Principality was also the subdivisions of the Bishopric, but finding no source to contradict that assumption, I adopt it anyway. To identify villages in the Sottrum parish that actually belonged to Amt Ottersberg in Bremen, I relied on footnote 5 at Sottrum | kirchengemeindelexikon.de.