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The Principality of Lüneburg (later also referred to as Celle) was a territorial division of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg within the Holy Roman Empire, immediately subordinate to the emperor. It existed from 1269 until 1705 and its territory lay within the modern-day state of Lower Saxony in Germany. The principality was named after its first capital, Lüneburg (also called Lunenburg in English), which was ruled jointly by all Brunswick-Lüneburg lines until 1637. From 1378, the seat of the principality was in Celle. It lost its independence in 1705 when it was annexed by the Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg, but retained its vote in the Reichstag as Brunswick-Celle.
When the Principality of Lüneburg emerged as a result of the division of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1269, the domain of the Lüneburg princes consisted of a large number of territorial rights in the region of Lüneburg. However, it could not be described as a unified state, because many rights were owned by other vassals of the imperial crown. Not until the acquisition of numerous counties and rights in the 13th and 14th centuries did the rulers of Lüneburg succeed in building a unified state. Following the division of the principalities of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and Lüneburg between Bernard and Henry in 1409, the territorial development of the state was largely complete. At that time, the Principality of Lüneburg included the larger part of the Lüneburg Heath and the Wendland, and measured about 11,000 square kilometres (4,200 sq mi).
The Principality of Lüneburg was created by the division of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg, a state that had been formed in 1235 from the allodial lands of the Welfs in Saxony and given as an imperial fief to Otto the Child, a nephew of Henry the Lion. The name of the dukedom was drawn from the two largest towns in the territory, Lüneburg and Brunswick. Following the death of Otto, his two sons split the duchy in 1267 or 1269, into subordinate principalities; Brunswick going to Albert and Lüneburg to John. Together, the two principalities continued to form the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg which remained undivided according to imperial law, something that is clear from the fact that inter alia all the princes of the various lines carried the title of Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. In addition, the two capitals, Lüneburg and Brunswick, remained in the common ownership of the House of Welf until 1512 and 1671 respectively.
When John died in 1277, the regency was held by his brother, Albert, on behalf of John's underage son, Otto the Strict, before Otto assumed power himself in 1282. Otto asserted his rule through the prosecution of numerous feuds against the lesser nobility, which enabled him to achieve consolidate his ducal authority within the state. He also continued the "systematic acquisition policy" (planmässige Erwerbspolitik) in the Lüneburg principality that had operated since the time of Otto the Child, "rounding off the Lüneburg allodial estate" (Arrondierung des Lüneburger Allodialbesitzes) through the purchase of numerous lands and rights, including those of Bleckede and Hitzacker, the County of Dannenberg and the County of Wölpe.
Duke Otto was followed by his sons, Otto III of Lüneburg and William of Lüneburg. The instruction issued by their father in 1318 whereby the principality would be divided after his death between Otto III and his brother, William II, was ignored by the brothers and in 1330 they assumed joint control of an undivided state. The focus of their rule in the early years was a further territorial consolidation of the principality. For example, they were able to considerably increase their estate in the region of Gifhorn through the purchase of the village of Fallersleben, the County of Papenteich and Wettmarshagen. Another top priority was their political support for the towns, which were striving to develop themselves economically. For instance, the merchants of Lüneburg benefited considerably from work to make the River Ilmenau navigable between Lüneburg and Uelzen and from trade agreements between the Lüneburg princes and the dukes of Saxe-Lauenburg. The two brothers reigned jointly until the death of Otto III in 1352, leaving William in sole charge until his own death in 1369.
When William II of Lüneburg died in 1369 without a son, the first house of Lüneburg became extinct. According to Welf house rules and the desire of William, Duke Magnus II Torquatus of Brunswick would have been the rightful heir. Emperor Charles IV, however, considered it an imperial fiefdom, however, and granted the principality to Albert of Saxe-Wittenberg and his uncle Wenceslas, thus precipitating the Lüneburg War of Succession.
The town of Lüneburg supported the Wittenbergs and took the opportunity to escape from the immediate influence of the duke, destroying the ducal castle on the Kalkberg on 1 February 1371 and forcing him to relocate his residence to Celle. An attempt on 21 October 1371, St. Ursula's Day, to overthrow Lüneburg militarily and to secure the old ducal rights, failed. In the military conflict that followed, neither the Brunswicks nor the Wittenbergs were able to enforce their claims, and only the peace of Hanover in 1373, ended the war, at least for a time. According to the agreement reached there, the Welfs and the Wittenbergs were to rule alternately.
Magnus Torquatus had already died in 1373, so the treaty between the two contending houses was further reinforced by the marriage of his two eldest sons, Frederick and Bernard I, to the two daughters of Wenceslas and by the marriage of Magnus's widow to Albert of Saxe-Wittenberg. The younger brother of Frederick and Bernard, Henry the Mild refused, however, to accept the agreement and continued to prosecute the war. It was not until after the Battle of Winsen in 1388, when Wenceslas lost his life, that the Wittenbergs gave up their claims and the principality was finally secured by the Welfs.
The Lüneburg War of Succession resulted in a large plenitude of power going to the estates within the principality . To secure the support of towns and the lower nobility, both the Welfs and the Ascanians were forced to give the estates wide privileges, and enfeoff them with numerous rights and castles. The Celle dukes, Bernard and Henry had emerged victorious from the conflict to be sure, but faced huge financial problems as a result. So when they appeared before the town of Lüneburg with a fresh request for funds in September 1392, they had to agree to a significant treaty, the so-called Lüneburg Sate, in which the estates were granted numerous privileges and the dukes had to submit to the authority of a council of the landowners of the estates, in return for a loan of 50,000 marks.
The years that followed were characterised by renewed tensions between the rulers and the landowners and attempts by the dukes to weaken the standing of the Lüneburg Sate. In 1396 it was finally rejected. After he had secured the assistance Sweden and Mecklenburg by concluding a treaty of friendship and security, Duke Henry, soon to be followed by his brother, Bernard, took the town of Uelzen as his residence, which forced the town to announce its withdrawal from the Sate and to pay homage to the dukes of Lüneburg. In the course of the clashes that now arose between the dukes and the town of Lüneburg, numerous battles were fought across the entire country. Through the support of the Hanseatic towns of Hamburg and Lübeck, Lüneburg achieved military superiority, so that the Celle dukes sued for peace with their opponents. In October 1397 there was a contractual agreement between the warring parties, but the restitution of the Lüneburg Sate that had been sought by the town of Lüneburg was not forthcoming.
The joint reign of brothers, Bernard and Henry, from 1388 to 1409 was followed by another division of the principality in which Bernard was given Brunswick and Henry received Lüneburg. After Duke Henry's death in 1416, he was followed by his two sons, William and Henry. Their rule was characterized primarily by the financial constraints under which the country continued to suffer in the wake of the Lüneburg War of Succession.
In 1428 there was a further division of the Welf estate between the 2 brothers and their uncle, Bernard, Prince of Brunswick. The brothers William and Henry received the land between the Deister and the Leine, which was later to become the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, having acquired the Principality of Calenberg; and their uncle, Bernard, received the Principality of Lüneburg, thus becoming the progenitor of the Middle House of Lüneburg.
After Duke Bernard died in 1434, his eldest son, Otto became the ruling prince. In 1446 he was followed by his brother, Frederick the Pious, who abdicated, however, in 1457 in favour of his sons, Bernard and Otto, in order to enter the Franciscan abbey at Celle. After both brothers had died in 1464 and 1471 respectively, Frederick the Pious left the abbey again in order to hold the reins of power for his 3-year old nephew, Henry the Middle, the son of Otto of Lüneburg and Anna of Nassau.
When Frederick died in 1478, Anna of Nassau ruled the principality for her son until he was old enough to take power in Celle in 1486; she then retired to her dower at Lüchow Castle. Because of his role in the Hildesheim Diocesan Feud and the associated political opposition to Emperor Charles V, Henry was forced to abdicate in 1520 in favour of his sons Otto and Ernest the Confessor. Otto relinquished his princedom in 1527 and was compensated with the Amt of Harburg. In 1539, their youngest brother, Francis, who had also shared the reins of power since 1536, also abdicated and was given the Amt of Gifhorn, leaving Ernest the Confessor to rule alone.
One priority for Duke Ernest "the Confessor" was to pay off the principality's massive debts. When he came to power, all the offices (Ämter) were pledged, with the exception of the Schlossvogtei. Consequently his efforts were aimed primarily at the redeeming them again (Wiedereinlösung). The necessary tax increases led to serious clashes with the estates. However, Ernest succeeded in asserting himself, and in enforced reduction of the state debt. His second major work was the introduction of the Protestant Reformation. Ernest had himself studied at Wittenberg and had been in contact with Luther's teachers there. Soon after succeeding, he began to reform the church of Lüneburg to Lutheranism. At the 1527 Landtag recess, even those nobles who had been hostile declared their support for the new faith. In 1530, Ernest signed the Augsburg Confession, and brought back with him the Augsburg reformer Urbanus Rhegius, who was largely responsible for the implementation of the Reformation in Lüneburg over the succeeding decades.
When Duke Ernest died, his sons were still minors, and their two uncles, Otto and Francis, refused the regency. As a result, the Emperor decreed that the Archbishop of Cologne and the Count of Schaumburg were to govern on their behalf. The eldest son, Francis Otto assumed power in 1555, but abdicated as early as 1559 in favour of his brothers, Henry and William.
Following Henry's resignation ten years later, William officially reigned alone until his death in 1592, but due to serious mental problems, he only played a very limited part in political life and spent his last years in mental derangement. His rule, like his father's, was dominated by an enforced policy of debt relief. But reconciliation with the town of Lüneburg in 1562 and the associated acquisition of part of the principality's debt and imperial taxes by the town played a major role in easing the parlous financial situation. Further important reforms included the Lutheran Church Order, adopted in 1564, which practically completed the Reformation in Lüneburg, as well as the aulic court and administrative ordinances (the Hofgerichtsordnung and Polizeiordnung).
Text from the Wikipedia article “Principality of Lüneburg”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.