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Founding
Founding of Duchy of Bremen and Verden
territories and immediate fiefs of the Holy Roman Empire
- 1648
- Europe
Founding
territories and immediate fiefs of the Holy Roman Empire
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Bremen-Verden, formally the Duchies of Bremen and Verden (German pronunciation: [ˈfɛɐ̯dən]; German: Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden), were two territories and immediate fiefs of the Holy Roman Empire, which emerged and gained imperial immediacy in 1180. By their original constitution they were prince-bishoprics of the Archdiocese of Bremen and Bishopric of Verden.
In 1648, both prince-bishoprics were secularised, meaning that they were transformed into hereditary monarchies by constitution, and from then on both the Duchy of Bremen and the Duchy of Verden were always ruled in personal union, initially by the royal houses of Sweden, the House of Vasa and the House of Palatinate-Zweibrücken, and later by the House of Hanover.
With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, Bremen-Verden's status as fiefs of imperial immediacy became void; as they had been in personal union with the neighbouring Kingdom of Hanover, they were incorporated into that state.
The territory belonging to the Duchies of Bremen and Verden covered a rough triangle of land between the mouths of the rivers Elbe and Weser on the North Sea, in today's German federal states of Hamburg and Bremen (the Elbe-Weser Triangle). This area included most of the modern counties (German singular: Kreis) of Cuxhaven (southerly), Osterholz, Rotenburg upon Wümme, Stade and Verden, now in Lower Saxony; and the city of Bremerhaven, now an exclave of the State of Bremen. The city of Bremen and Cuxhaven (an exclave of Hamburg) did not belong to Bremen-Verden. The Land of Hadeln, then an exclave of Saxe-Lauenburg around Otterndorf, was not part of Bremen-Verden until 1731. Stade was the administrative headquarters.
Bremen-Verden's coat of arms combined the arms of the Prince-Bishopric of Verden, a black cross on white ground, with those of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, two keys crossed Bremen-Verden's seal), the symbol of Simon Petrus, the patron saint of Bremen.
At the beginning of the Thirty Years' War the predominantly Lutheran Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen maintained neutrality, as did most of the Protestant territories in the Lower Saxon Circle, a fiscal and military subsection of the Holy Roman Empire. The neighbouring Prince-Bishopric of Verden also tried to maintain neutrality, but, being part of the Lower Rhenish-Westphalian Circle, which was troubled by confrontation between Calvinist, Catholic and Lutheran rulers and their territories, Verden soon became involved in the war.
In 1623 Verden's cathedral chapter, consisting mainly of Lutheran capitulars, elected Frederick II, Administrator of the Prince-Bishopric of Verden to be the ruler of the bishopric. Since he was Lutheran, the Holy See denied him the title of bishop. Nevertheless, he and later administrators were often referred to as prince-bishops. Frederick II was a son of King Christian IV of Denmark and Norway.
In 1626, Christian IV, who was also Duke of Holstein, and thus a vassal of the Emperor, joined the anti-imperial coalition of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands and the Kingdom of England under James I. After Christian IV was defeated at the Battle of Lutter am Barenberge, on 27 August 1626, by the troops of the Catholic League under Johan 't Serclaes, Count of Tilly, he and his remaining troops fled to the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and set up headquarters in Stade. Administrator John Frederick, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, who was also Administrator of the Prince-Bishopric of Lübeck, fled to Lübeck and left the Prince-Archbishopric to be ruled by the Chapter and the Estates.
In 1626, Tilly and his Catholic League troops occupied Verden, causing the Lutheran clergy to flee. He demanded that the Chapter of Bremen allow him to enter the Prince-Archbishopric and while the Chapter declared its loyalty to the Emperor, it delayed an answer to the request, arguing that it had to consult in a diet with the Estates, which would be a lengthy procedure.
Meanwhile, Christian IV arranged for Dutch, English and French troops to land in Bremen. The Chapter's pleas for a reduction of the contributions, Christian IV commented by arguing once the Leaguists would take over, his extortions will seem little.
In 1627, Christian IV withdrew from the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, in order to fight Wallenstein's invasion of his Duchy of Holstein. Tilly then invaded Bremen and captured its southern parts. The city of Bremen shut its city gates and entrenched behind its improved fortifications. In 1628, Tilly besieged Stade with its remaining garrison of 3,500 Danish and English soldiers. On 5 May 1628 Tilly granted them safe-conduct to England and Denmark-Norway and the whole of ecclesiastical Bremen was in his hands. Now Tilly turned to the city of Bremen, which paid him a ransom of 10,000 rixdollars in order to save itself from a siege. The city remained unoccupied.
The populations in both prince-bishoprics were subjected to measures of "re-Catholicisation" within the scope the Counter-Reformation, with Lutheran services suppressed and Lutheran pastors expelled. In July 1630, Tilly and most of the Catholic occupants were withdrawn, since on 26 June Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden had landed with 15,000 soldiers at Peenemünde, opening a new front in the Thirty Years' War. He had been won by French diplomacy to join a new anti-imperial coalition, soon also joined by the United Netherlands.
In February 1631 John Frederick, the exiled Lutheran administrator of the Prince-Archbishoprics of Bremen and Lübeck conferred with Gustavus II Adolphus and a number of Lower Saxon princes in Leipzig, all of them troubled by Habsburg's growing influence wielded by virtue of the Edict of Restitution in a number of Northern German Lutheran prince-bishoprics. John Frederick speculated to regain the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and therefore in June/July 1631 officially allied himself with Sweden. For the war being John Frederick accepted Swedish overlordship, while Gustavus Adolphus promised to restitute the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen to its exiled elected Administrator.
In October, an army newly recruited by John Frederick started to reconquer the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and — supported by Swedish troops — to capture the neighboured Prince-Bishopric of Verden, de facto dismissing Verden's intermittent Catholic Prince-Bishop Francis of Wartenberg who ruled 1630–1631, and causing the flight of the Catholic clergy wherever they arrived. The Prince-Bishopric of Verden was then subjected to Swedish military administration.
The reconquest of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, helped by forces from Sweden and from the city of Bremen, was completed by 10 May 1632. John Frederick was back in his office, only to realise what Swedish supremacy meant. The Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen continuously suffered from billeting and alimenting soldiers. The relation between the Estates, who had to maintain administration under Catholic occupation, and the returned Administrator were difficult. The Estates preferred to directly negotiate with the occupants, this time the Swedes.
After John Frederick's death in 1634 Chapter and Estates regarded the dismissal of the Danish Prince Frederick as coadjutor bishop by Emperor Ferdinand II by virtue of the Edict of Restitution illegitimate. But the Swedish occupants had to be persuaded first, to accept Prince Frederick's succession. So Chapter and Estates ruled the Prince-Archbishopric until the conclusion of the negotiations with Sweden. In 1635, he succeeded as Lutheran Administrator Frederick II in the sees of Bremen and of Verden. But he had to render homage to the minor Queen Christina of Sweden.
In 1635–1636 the Estates and Frederick II agreed with Sweden upon the prince-bishoprics' neutrality. But this didn't last long, because in the Danish-Swedish Torstenson War of 1643–1645 the Swedes seized de facto rule in both prince-bishoprics. Christian IV of Denmark and Norway had to sign the Second Peace of Brömsebro on 13 August 1645, and a number of Danish territories, including the two Swedish occupied prince-bishoprics, were ceded into Swedish hands. So Frederick II had to resign as Administrator in both prince-bishoprics. He succeeded his late father on the Danish throne as Frederick III of Denmark in 1648.
With the impending enfeoffment of the military great power of Sweden with the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, as under negotiation for the Treaty of Westphalia, the city of Bremen feared falling under Swedish rule as well. Therefore, the city beseeched an imperial confirmation of its status of imperial immediacy from 1186 (Gelnhausen Privilege). In 1646 Emperor Ferdinand III granted the Free Imperial City of Bremen the requested confirmation (Diploma of Linz).
The political entities of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and the Prince-Bishopric of Verden were transformed by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 into the Duchy of Bremen and the Principality of Verden, however, colloquially the Duchies of Bremen and Verden, without changing the territories' status of imperial immediacy and imperial estate. Every imperial estate, thus Bremen and Verden separately, was represented in the Diet (German: Reichstag) of the Holy Roman Empire. The formerly Free Imperial City of Verden upon Aller was mediatised by the Peace of Westphalia and incorporated into the Duchy of Verden.
The two neighbouring territories could not unite in a real union without finding support by the emperor and a majority among the imperial estates, which never happened. They were parts of two different imperial circles. From 1500 on the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and thus its successor Duchy of Bremen belonged to the Saxon Circle (later the Lower Saxon Circle; German: Sächsischer or later Niedersächsischer Kreis), a fiscal and military substructure of the Empire. The Prince-Bishopric of Verden and thus its successor, the Duchy of Verden, on the other hand, belonged to the Lower Rhenish-Westphalian Circle (German: Niederrheinisch-Westfälischer Kreis, colloquially Westphalian Circle).
The Holy Roman Empire's taxes were collected and armies recruited and financed along the lines of the imperial circles. Bremen and Verden sent their representatives to the circle diet (Kreistag) of their respective imperial circle. The circle diet decided how to share the burden of the taxes to be levied among the member territories. Thus Bremen and Verden even conflicted on the border between each other — i.e. on who may levy taxes where — which were not solved, even though the two fiefs were ruled in personal union by Sweden.
Emperor Ferdinand III at first enfeoffed the Queen regnant Christina of Sweden and her legal heirs with the duchies, as Sweden's reward from its participation in the Thirty Years' War. Bremen-Verden provided Sweden a strategic advantage, because it would participate with them in recruiting and financing armies in two imperial circles already covering all of the northern and north-western parts of the Holy Roman Empire, with Swedish Pomerania, a member in the Upper Saxon Circle, covering the Empire's North East.
The Swedes installed a new authority, Bremen-Verden's General Government (German: Brem- und verdensches Generalgouvernement), and chose Stade to be the new seat of government, with Bremervörde being the former Bremian capital, and Rotenburg upon Wümme being the former capital of the Prince-Bishopric of Verden.
The Swedish takeover in 1648 became a milestone for Bremen-Verden's interior constitution. Bremen-Verden turned from two elective monarchies into a hereditary double monarchy, with a personal rule of the prince-(arch)bishop or administrator exchanged for a viceregent government bound by Swedish instructions. The lax administrative structures were replaced with strictly hierarchic authorities with fixed competences. The co-rule of the Estates was curtailed. Bremen and Verden declined from independent territories of imperial immediacy to a collectively governed dominion of a European great power with all the pertaining restrictions and opportunities.
For her new fief, the Duchy of Bremen, the Queen regnant Christina of Sweden, ruling from 1644 to 1654, from 1648 on simultaneously Duchess of Bremen and Verden, sought after annexing the Free Imperial City of Bremen for it would be an important taxpayer. Earlier the city of Bremen had de facto participated in the Diets of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen. The latter's successor state, the Swedish Duchy of Bremen, tried to regain the city, arguing the Treaty of Westphalia named the city of Bremen as part of the to-be-established Duchy.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Bremen-Verden”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.