The Archdiocese of Bremen (German: Erzbistum Bremen) is a historical Roman Catholic diocese and formed from 1180 to 1648 an ecclesiastical state, named Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen (German: Erzstift Bremen) within the Holy Roman Empire. The prince-archbishopric consisted of about a third of the diocesan territory. The city of Bremen was no part of the prince-archbishopric but belonged to the archdiocese. Most of the Prince-Archbishopric lay rather in the area to the north of the city of Bremen, between the Weser and Elbe rivers. Even more confusingly parts of the prince-archbishopric belonged in religious respect to the neighboured diocese of Verden, making up 10% of its diocesan territory.

Verden (IPA: [ˈfeːɐdn]) itself had a double identity too as Diocese of Verden (German: Bistum Verden) and Prince-Bishopric of Verden (German: Hochstift Verden). Each prince-bishopric had the status of an Imperial Estate (German singular: Reichsstand, plural: Reichsstände), each of which were represented in the Diet (German: Reichstag) of the Holy Roman Empire. From 1500 on the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen belonged to the Saxon Circle (later the Lower Saxon Circle; German: Sächsischer or later Niedersächsischer Kreis), an administrative substructure of the Empire. The Prince-Bishopric of Verden, on the other hand, belonged to the Lower Rhenish-Westphalian Circle (German: Niederrheinisch-Westfälischer Kreis, colloquially Westphalian Circle) and sent its own representative to the Diet. Even when the two prince-bishoprics were ruled in personal union, in order to maintain the two seats in the Diet they were never formally united in a real union. The same is true for the collectively governed Duchies of Bremen and Verden (German colloquial: Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden, but formally Herzogtum Bremen und Fürstentum Verden) which emerged in 1648 from the securalised two prince-bishoprics.


Contents

History

The Archdiocese before statehood

The foundation of the diocese belongs to the period of the missionary activity of Willehad on the lower Weser. It was erected 15 July, 787, at Worms, on Charlemagne's initiative, his jurisdiction being assigned to cover the Saxon territory on both sides of the Weser from the mouth of the Aller, northward to the Elbe and westward to the Hunte, and the Frisian territory for a certain distance from the mouth of the Weser.

Willehad fixed his headquarters at Bremen, though the formal constitution of the diocese took place only after the subjugation of the Saxons in 804 or 805, when Willehad's disciple, Willerich, was consecrated bishop of Bremen, with the same territory. The diocese was conceivably at that time a suffragan of the archbishops of Cologne, this is at least how they later corroborated their claim to supremacy over Bremen. When, after the death of Bishop Leuderich (838–45), the see was given to Ansgar, it lost its independence, and from that time was permanently united with the Archdiocese of Hamburg.

The new combined see was regarded as the headquarters for missionary work in the Nordic countries, and new sees to be erected were to be its suffragans, meaning subject to its jurisdiction. Ansgar's successor, Rimbert, the 'second apostle of the north,' was troubled by onslaughts first by Normans and then by Wends, and by Cologne's renewed claims to supremacy.[1]

At Archbishop Adalgar's (888 - 909) instigation Pope Sergius III confirmed the amalgamation of the Diocese of Bremen with the Archdiocese of Hamburg to form the Archdiocese of Hamburg and Bremen, colloquially called Hamburg-Bremen, and by so doing he denied Cologne’s claim. He prohibited Hamburg's Chapter to found suffragan dioceses of its own. It was Pope Honorius III who in 1224 finally approved the amalgamation, deciding in the long-lasting dispute between the capitulars from Bremen and Hamburg how to combine their votes in episcopal elections. Honorius III affirmed the continued existence of both Chapters. Hamburg was entitled to send three capitulars for any election.

Bremen's Diocesan Territory and its Suffragans

Hamburg-Bremen's diocesan territory covered about today’s following territories: The Bremian cities of Bremen and Bremerhaven, the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (north of Elbe), the Lower Saxon counties of Aurich (northernly), Cuxhaven, Diepholz (northernly), Frisia, Nienburg (westernly), Oldenburg in Oldenburg (easternly), Osterholz, Rotenburg upon Wümme (northernly), Stade, Wesermarsch, Wittmund, the Lower Saxon urban counties Delmenhorst and Wilhelmshaven, the Schleswig-Holsteinian counties of Dithmarschen, Pinneberg, Rendsburg-Eckernförde (southernly), Segeberg (easternly), Steinburg, Stormarn (easternly) as well as the Schleswig-Holsteinian urban counties of Kiel and Neumünster.

The see of Hamburg-Bremen attained its greatest prosperity and later had its deepest troubles under Archbishop Adalbert of Hamburg (1043 - 1072). He was after Hamburg-Bremen's upgrade to the rank of a Patriarchate of the North and failed completely. Hamburg stopped being used as part of the diocese’s name. The next two archbishops, Liemar and Humbert, were determined opponents of Pope Gregory VII.

Under the latter in 1104 Bremen's suffragan Diocese of Lund (S) was elevated to an archdiocese supervising all of Bremen's other Nordic former suffragan sees, to wit Århus (DK), Gardar (Greenland), Linköping (S), Odense (DK), Oslo (N), Ribe (DK), Roskilde (DK), Schleswig (D), Selje (N), Skálholt (IS), Skara (S), Strängnäs (S), Trondheim (N), Uppsala (S), Viborg (DK), Vestervig (DK), Västerås (S) and Växjö (S).

Bremen's remaining suffragan sees at that time were only existing by name, since insurgent Wends had destroyed the so-called Wendish dioceses of Oldenburg-Lübeck, Ratzeburg and Schwerin and they were only to be reestablished later. At the stripping of the Duchy of Saxony (7th c. - 1180) in 1180 all of these suffragan bishops achieved for parts of their diocesan territories the status of imperially immediate prince-bishoprics.

The Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen as a territory of imperial immediacy

Gaining Grounds for a Prince-Archbishopric of Imperial Immediacy

Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa and his allies, many of them vassals and former supporters of his paternal cousin Duke Henry III, the Lion, had defeated the Duke of Saxony and Bavaria. In 1180 Frederick I Barbarossa stripped Henry the Lion of his duchies. In 1182 he and his wife Matilda Plantagenet, the daughter of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine and sister of Richard Lionheart left from Stade to go into exile from the Holy Roman Empire in order to stay with Henry II of England.

Frederick I Barbarossa partioned Saxony in some dozens of territories of Imperial Immediate status allotting each territory to that one of his allies who had conquered them before from Henry the Lion and his remaining supporters. In 1168 the Saxon clan of the Ascanians, allies of Frederick I Barbarossa, had failed to install their family member Siegfried, Count of Anhalt, on the see of Bremen.

But in 1180 the Ascanians prevailed twofoldly. The chief of the House of Ascania, Otto I, Margrave of Brandenburg, son of Albert the Bear, a maternal cousin of Henry the Lion, provided his sixth brother Bernhard, Count of Anhalt, from then on Bernhard III, Duke of Saxony, with the later on so-called younger Duchy of Saxony (1180 - 1296), a radically belittled territory consisting of three unconnected territories along the river Elbe, from north west to south east, (1) Hadeln around Otterndorf, (2) around Lauenburg upon Elbe and (3) around Wittenberg upon Elbe. Except of the title, Duke of Saxony, Angria and Westphalia, which this younger Duchy of Saxony granted its rulers, even after its dynastic partition in 1296, this territory, consisting only of territorial fringes of the old Duchy of Saxony (7th c. - 1180), had little in common with the latter. In 1296 its rulers split the younger Duchy into the Duchies of Saxe-Wittenberg (German: Herzogtum Sachsen-Wittenberg) and Saxe-Lauenburg (German: Herzogtum Sachsen-Lauenburg), the latter holding the unconnected two northern territories, belonging both to the archdiocese of Bremen.

Otto and Bernhard helped their second brother Siegfried, who since 1168 had called himself the Bishop Elect of Bremen, to gain the see of Bremen, with part of the diocesan territory being upgraded to form the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen (German: Erzstift Bremen). Thus the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen became one of the successor states of the old Duchy of Saxony, holding only a small part of its former territory.

The territory of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen consisted of a number of sub-entities. The only thing they all had in common was, that the prior archbishops or capitulars or the Chapter as a collective obtained some secular power in them by way of purchase, application of force, usurpation, commendation, pledge, donation etc. The prior archiepiscopal authorities didn't have succeeded in almost any of the sub-entities to gain all the power, be it judicial, patrimonial, parochial, fiscal, feudal or else what. Almost everywhere the rule was to be shared with one or more competing bearers of authority, e.g. aristocrats, outside ecclesiastical dignitaries, autonomous corporations of free peasants (German: Landsgemeinden) or chartered towns and the like. Therefore the archiepiscopal authority used to refer to each sub-entity by different terms like county, parish, shire, bailiwick or patrimonial district, each according to the particular power, which the archiepiscopal authority had achieved in them.

The Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen's former territory consists about of today's following Lower Saxon counties (German singular: Landkreis) of Cuxhaven (southernly), Osterholz, Rotenburg upon Wümme and Stade as well as of the Bremian exclave of the city of Bremerhaven and from 1145-1526 today's Schleswig-Holsteinian county of Dithmarschen. The city of Bremen was legally a part of the bishopric until 1646, but de facto ruled by its burghers and didn't tolerate the prince-archbishop's residence within its walls any more since 1313. Therefore the prince-archbishop moved to Vörde (IPA: [ˈføːɐdə]). Verden's former prince-bishopric's territory is represented about by the modern Lower Saxon County of Verden.

Constitution and Politics within the Prince-Archbishopric

In relation to the interior the archiepiscopal authority, consisting of Prince-Archbishop and Chapter, had to find ways to interact with the other bearers of authority. These were gradually transforming into the Bishopric's Estates (German: Stiftsstände), a prevailingly advisory body, but decision-taking in fiscal and tax matters. The bishopric's estates again were by no means homogenous and therefore often quarreled for they consisted of the hereditary aristocracy, the service gentry, non-capitular clergy, free peasants and burghers of chartered towns. The modus vivendi of interplay of the estates and the archiepiscopal authority, being in itself divided into the Prince-Archbishop and the Chapter, became the quasi constitution of the Prince-Archbishopric. However, the interplay was not determined by fixed standards of behaviour. While the consecutive Archbishops worked on discarding the bishopric's estates from the political landscape, the latter fought for the enforcement of the modus vivendi to become a real constitution. The Chapter often swung between increasing its influence by fighting the estates jointly with the Prince-Archbishop and repelling his absolutist intentions by making common cause with the estates. All parties made use of means like bluffing, threat, obstructionism, corruption, horse-trading and even violence.

In 1542/1547 - 1549 Chapter and estates managed to dismiss the autocratic and prodigal Prince-Archbishop Christopher the Spendthrift, Duke of Brunswick and Lunenburg-Wolfenbüttel. Especially the Chapter used its power to elect very old candidates, to minimise the time a ruler can be harmful, or to elect minors, which it hoped to dress and tame in time. Once in a while the Chapter took up time and protracted elections for years, being itself the ruler for the time of sede vacante. During the dismissal of Prince-Archbishop Christopher the Spendthrift the chapter ruled together with the estates which had gained at that time substantial power.

In relation to the outside the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen had the status of an imperial estate (German singular: Reichsstand, plural: Reichsstände) with a vote in the Diet (German: Reichstag) of the Holy Roman Empire. A prerequisite for being an imperial estate was imperial immediacy (German: Reichsunmittelbarkeit or Reichsfreiheit) of the rulers or ruling bodies, meaning that they had no other authority above them except of the Holy Roman Emperor himself. Furthermore, such rulers or ruling bodies possessed several important rights and privileges, including a degree of autonomy in the rule of their territories.

In their pastoral and religious capacity as Roman Catholic clergy the archbishops lead their archdiocese as the hierarchical superior of all Roman Catholic clergy, including the suffragan bishops of Oldenburg-Lübeck, Ratzeburg and Schwerin.

Decline of the Prince-Archbishopric's Independence

The Prince-Archbishopric often suffered from military supremacy of neighbouring powers. Having no dynasty, but prince-archbishops of different descent, the Prince-Archbishopric became a pawn in the hands of the powerful. The establishment of a constitution, which would bind the conflicting estates, failed.

Schisms in Church and State marked the next two centuries, and in spite of the labours of the Windesheim and Bursfelde congregations, the way was prepared for the Reformation, which made rapid headway, partly because the last Roman Catholic prince-archbishop, Christopher the Spendthrift, was in permanent conflict with the Chapter and the estates. Being simultaneously the prince-bishop of Verden, he preferred to reside in the city of Verden.

By the time he died (1558), nothing was left of the old religion apart from a few monasteries – such as Altkloster, Harsefeld, Himmelpforten, Lilienthal, Neuenwalde, Neukloster, Osterholz and Zeven – and the districts served by them. The title of prince-archbishop, with the secular jurisdiction, was borne for a time by Lutheran princes, officially carrying title of Administrators. These could and would of course not exercise the pastoral functions of a Roman Catholic bishop any more. So practically the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bremen ceased to exist in 1558. After this the Roman Catholic Church considered the Roman Catholic pastoral care and mission in the area of the ceased archdioceses of Bremen and of Lund an endeavour of the Roman Catholic Nordic Missions founded in 1584, since 1622 being subordinate to the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide in Rome. The Holy See conveyed to the papal nuncio with the Electorate- Prince-Archbishoprics of Cologne, Mentz and Triers, Pietro Francesco Montoro, the task to look after the Nordic Missions in - among others - the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and the Prince-Bishopric of Verden.

The Prince-Archbishopric during the Thirty-Years War (1618-1648)

At the beginning of the Thirty Years' War the Prince-Archbishopric maintained neutrality, as did most of the territories in the Lower Saxon Circle. After 1613 King Christian IV of Denmark and Norway, being in personal union Duke of Holstein within the Holy Roman Empire, turned his attention to gain grounds by acquiring the prince-bishoprics of Bremen, Verden, Minden and Halberstadt.

He skillfully took advantage of the alarm of the German Protestants after the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, to stipulate with Bremen’s Chapter and Administrator John Frederick, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, his cousin of second degree, to grant coadjutorship of the See of Bremen for his son Frederick, later Crown Prince of Denmark (September 1621). Coadjutorship usually included the succession of a See. A similar arrangement was reached in November for the Prince-Bishopric of Verden with its Chapter and Administrator Philip Sigismund, titular Duke of Brunswick and Lunenburg-Wolfenbüttel. In 1623 Christian's son succeeded the late Philip Sigismund as Frederick II, Administrator of the Prince-Bishopric of Verden, only to flee the troops of the Catholic League under Johan 't Serclaes, Count of Tilly in 1626.

In November 1619 Christian IV of Denmark, Duke of Holstein stationed Danish troops in the Bremian city of Stade, officially on behalf of his son the provided to be Administrator successor, suppressing an unrest of its burghers.

In 1620 Christian, the Younger, titular Duke of Brunswick and Lunenburg-Wolfenbüttel, the Lutheran Administrator of the Prince-Bishopric Halberstadt requested that the Lutheran Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen would join the war coalition of the Protestant Union. The Administrator and the Estates of the Prince-Archbishopric met in a Diet and declared for their territory their loyalty to Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, and their neutrality in the conflict.

With Danish troops within his territory and Christian the Younger's request Administrator John Frederick tried desperately to keep his Prince-Archbishopric out of the war, being in complete agreement with the Estates and the city of Bremen. When in 1623 the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, fighting in the Eighty Years' War for its independence against Hapsburg's Spanish and imperial forces, requested its Calvinist co-religionist of the city of Bremen to join, the city refused, but started to enforce its fortifications.

In 1623 the territories comprising the Lower Saxon Circle decided to recruit an army in order to maintain an armed neutrality, with troops of the Catholic League already operating in the neighboured Lower Rhenish-Westphalian Circle and dangerously approaching their region. The concomitant effects of the war, debasements and dearness, had already caused an inflation also in the region. The population suffered from billeting and alimenting Baden-Durlachian, Danish, Halberstadtian, Leaguist, and Palatine troops, whose marching through the Prince-Archbishopric had to tolerate in order to prevent entering into armed conflict.

In 1623 the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, diplomatically supported by James I, King of England and of Ireland and as James IV King of Scotland, the brother-in-law of Christian IV of Denmark, started a new anti-Hapsburg campaign. Thus the troops of the Catholic League were bound and the Prince-Archbishopric seemed relieved. But soon after the Hapsburg-loyal imperial troops under Albrecht von Wallenstein headed for the North in an attempt to destroy the fading Hanseatic League, in order to subject the Hanseatic cities of Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck and to establish a Baltic trade monopoly, to be run by some imperial favourites including Spaniards and Poles. The idea was to win Sweden's and Denmark's support, both of which since long were after the destruction of the Hanseatic League.

In May 1625 Christian IV of Denmark, Duke of Holstein was elected – in the latter of his functions – by the Lower Saxon Circle's member territories commander-in-chief of the Lower Saxon troops. More troops were recruited and to be billeted and alimented in the Lower Saxon territories, including the Prince-Archbishopric. In the same year Christian IV joined the Anglo-Dutch war coalition. In 1625 Tilly warned the Prince-Archbishop John Frederick to further accept the stationing of Danish troops and Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, demanded the immediate end of his and Verden's alliance with Denmark, with Verden being already ruled by Christian's son Frederick, being as well the provided successor of John Frederick. He declared again his loyalty to the Emperor and neutrality in the conflict. But all in vain.

Now Christian IV ordered his troops to capture all the important traffic hubs in the Prince-Archbishopric and entered into the Battle of Lutter am Barenberge, on 27 August 1626, where he was defeated by the Leaguist troops under Tilly. Christian IV and his surviving troops fled to the Prince-Archbishopric and took their headquarters in Stade. Administrator John Frederick, in personal union also Administrator of the Prince-Bishopric of Lübeck, fled to the latter and left the rule in the Prince-Archbishopric to the Chapter and the Estates.

In 1626 Tilly and his troops occupied the Prince-Bishopric of Verden, which caused a flight of Lutheran clergy from that territory. He demanded the Bremian Chapter to allow him to enter the Prince-Archbishopric. The Chapter, now holding the baby, declared again its loyalty to the Emperor and delayed an answer to the request, arguing that it had to consult with the Estates in a Diet first, which would be a lengthy procedure.

Meanwhile Christian IV ordered Dutch, English and French troops for his support to land in the Prince-Archbishopric, while extorting from the latter high war contributions to finance his war. The Chapter's pleas for a reduction of the constibutions Christian IV commented by arguing once the Leaguists would take over, his extortions will seem little.

By 1627 Christian IV had de facto dismissed his cousin John Frederick from the Bremian See. In the same year Christian IV withdrew from the Prince-Archbishopric, in order to fight Wallenstein's invasion of his Duchy of Holstein. Tilly then invaded the Prince-Archbishopric and captured its southern parts. The city of Bremen shut its city gates and entrenched behind its improved fortifications. In 1628 Tilly beleaguered Stade with its remaining garrison of 3,500 Danish and English soldiers. On May 5, 1628 Tilly granted them safe-conduct to England and Denmark and the whole Prince-Archbishopric was in his hands. Now Tilly turned to the city of Bremen, which paid him a ransom of 10,000 rixdollars in order to spare its siege. The city remained unoccupied.

Wallenstein had meanwhile conquered all the Jutish Peninsula, which made Christian IV to sign the Treaty of Lübeck, on May 22, 1629, in order to regain possession of all his feoffs on the peninsula, he in return agreed to formally end Denmark's participation in the Thirty Years' War and waived for his son Frederick II, Administrator of the Prince-Bishopric of Verden, the administration of that prince-bishopric as well as the provided succession as Administrator of the Prince-Bishopric of Halberstadt.

Administrator John Frederick, exiled in the Imperial Free City of Lübeck, was in a markedly weak position. So in 1628 he consented that the Lutheran convent in the former Roman Catholic St. Mary’s monastery in Stade – under Leaguist occupation – was restituted to Catholic rite and manned with foreign monks, if the Chapter would also agree. Again passing the buck on to the Chapter.

The Leaguist takeover enabled Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, to implement the Edict of Restitution, decreed March 6, 1629, within the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and the Prince-Bishopric of Verden. The Bremian monasteries still maintaining Roman Catholic rite – Altkloster, Harsefeld, Neukloster, and Zeven – became the local strongholds for a reCatholicisation within the scope of Counter-Reformation.

Under the threat of the Edict of Restitution John Frederick consented to Canonical Visitations of the remaining monasteries, those clinging to Roman Catholic rite and those converted to voluntary Lutheran convents alike. Nun monasteries had traditionally been instutions to provide unmarried daughters of the better off, who couldn't be provided a husband befitting their social status or who didn't want to marry, with a decent livelihood. So when an unmarried woman of that status joined a nun monastery she would bestow earning assets (real estate) or – restricted to her lifetime – regular revenues paid by their male relatives, on the monastery, making up in the former case part of the monastery’s estates (not to be confused with the political body of the Estates).

In many territories, where the majority of the population adopted Lutheranism, the nun monasteries' function to provide sustenance for unmarried women wasn't to be given up. So it happened that the Prince-Archbishopric's former Roman Catholic nun monasteries of Himmelpforten, Lilienthal, Neuenwalde,[2] and Osterholz with all their estates had turned into such foundations (German: das Stift, more particular: Damenstift, literally Ladies' foundation), while the monastery of Zeven was in the process of becoming one, with – among a majority of Catholic nuns – a number of nuns of Lutheran denomination, usually called conventuals. Other expressions like abbess, for the chairwoman, and prioress for conventuals of certain hierarchic function, were – and are partly – continued to be used in such Lutheran Stifte.

Within the scope of the visitations by the end of the year 1629 the Roman Catholic visitors issued an ultimatum to the Lutheran conventuals to convert to Catholicism or to leave the monasteries. No conversion had been recorded, so at different dates between before Christmas 1629 and April 1631 all Lutheran conventuals had been thrown out from the monasteries, with the estates of Himmelpforten and Neuenwalde then being bestowed to the Jesuits, in order to finance them and their missioning in the course of the Counter-Reformation in the Prince-Archbishopric. The conventuals were denied to get the real estate restituted, which they bestowed on the monastery, when they entered it.

Ferdinand II suspended the capitulars from penalty, if they would dismiss the Lutheran coadjutor Frederick, later Crown Prince of Denmark from office. The Chapter refused, still backing Frederick, whom it had elected with full legal validity in 1621. So Ferdinand II dismissed him himself by way of using the Edict of Restitution, in favour of his youngest son, the Roman Catholic Leopold Wilhelm, Archduke of Austria, already prince-bishop of Halberstadt (1628-1648), Passau (1625-1662) and Strasbourg (1626-1662).

Ferdinand II left John Frederick in office, against Leaguist resistence, for he had always kept loyalty to him. The Catholic League wished the Roman Catholic Franz Wilhelm, Count of Wartenberg, prince-bishopric of Osnabrück (1625–1661), onto the See. After all, the See included at those years an annual revenue of 60,000 rixdollars at the free disposal of its holder, making up half the Prince-Archbishopric’s budget.

Franz Wilhelm, Count of Wartenberg, appointed by Ferdinand II as chairman of the imperial restitution commission, carrying out the provisions of the Edict of Restitution in the Lower Saxon Circle, dismissed John Frederick in 1629, who acquiesced.

In September 1629 the Chapter was ordered to render an account of all the capitular and prince-archiepiscopal estates (not to be confused with the Estates), which it refused, arguing first that the order was not authenticised and later that due to disputes with the city council of Bremen, they couldn’t freely travel to render an account let alone do the necessary research on the estates. The anti-Catholic attitudes of the burghers and the council of Bremen would make it completely impossible to prepare the restitution of estates from the Lutheran Chapter to the Roman Catholic Church. Even Lutheran capitulars were uneasy in Calvinistic Bremen. In October 1629 the capitular secretary finally rendered the ordered account in Verden and was informed that by the Edict of Restitution the Chapter is regarded to be illegitimate. Lutheran capitulars were interrogated, but the Chapter was left in office, with its decisions subjected to the consent of the restitution commission. Pope Urban VIII appointed additional Roman Catholic capitulars in 1630, including a new provost.

The estates within the boundaries of the unoccupied city of Bremen weren’t restituted by order of the city council. The council argued, that the city had long been Protestant, but the restitution commission argued that the city was de jure a part of the Prince-Archbishopric, so Protestantism had illegitimately alienated estates from the Roman Catholic Church. The city council answered under these circumstances it would separate from the Holy Roman Empire and join the Republic of the Seven Netherlands. The city was neither to be conquered nor to be successfully beleaguered due to its new fortifications and its access to the North Sea.

Within the occupied Prince-Archbishopric the Leaguist occupants carried out the restitution. In Stade, Tilly’s headquarters, all churches, except of St. Nicholas, were handed over to foreign Catholic clergy. But the burghers didn’t attend Catholic services. So in March 1630 Tilly expelled all Lutheran clergy, except the one of St. Nicholas. Tilly levied high war contribution from Stade's burghers (e.g. 22,533 rixdollars in 1628 alone) and offered in 1630 to relieve every burgher, who would attend Catholic services, without success. In July 1930 Tilly left to head for the Duchy of Pomerania, where King Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden had landed his troops, opening a new front in the Thirty Years’ War.

In 1667 the Holy See further institutionalised the Nordic Missions by establishing the Vicariate Apostolic of the Nordic Missions.

The further History of the Prince-Archbishopric after its Transformation in 1648

The Duchies of Bremen and Verden in personal union with Sweden (1648-1712) and under Danish occupation (1712-15)

The political entity of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen was transformed by the Peace of Westphalia (1648) into the Duchy of Bremen, without changing the territory's status of imperial immediacy. The same happened to the neighboured Prince-Bishopric of Verden, which became the Principality of Verden. The new duchy and principality, colloquially called Bremen-Verden, were both conveyed as an appanage to the crown of Sweden and collectively governed in personal union, even though they were formally not in real union, in order to maintain the Swedish crown's two seats in the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire.

In 1712 in the course of the Second or Great Northern War (1700-1721) against the Swedish supremacy in the Baltic Denmark occupied Swedish Bremen-Verden.

The Duchies of Bremen and Verden in personal union with Great Britain and the Hanoveran Electorate (1715-1803/06)

In 1715 Frederick IV of Denmark, still fighting in the Second or Great Northern War, gained with George I Louis, British king and Hanoveran prince elector, a new ally in the anti-Swedish coalition. For George Louis' aid Denmark sold to him Swedish Bremen-Verden, which it kept under occupation since 1712. So the Prince-Electorate of Brunswick and Lunenburg (or, colloquially called after its capital Electorate of Hanover; German: Kurfürstentum Braunschweig und Lüneburg, or Kurhannover) took de facto possession of Bremen-Verden and stipulated in the Treaty of Stockholm (1719), settling the war with Sweden, to compensate the latter by 1 million rixdollars.

Sketch map of the Electorate of Brunswick and Lunenburg (alias Electorate of Hanover), c.1720, and its neighbouring territories such as the Principality of Brunswick and Lunenburg-Wolfenbüttel (alias Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel), and the Prince-Bishopric of Osnabrück. George I Louis acquired Saxe-Lauenburg and Bremen-Verden for his electorate.

In 1728 Emperor Charles VI enfeoffed George II Augustus, who in 1727 had succeeded his father George Louis, with the reverted fief of Saxe-Lauenburg. By a redeployment of Hanoveran territories in 1731 Bremen-Verden was conveyed the administration of the neighboured Land Hadeln, since 1180 an exclave, first of the younger Duchy of Saxony, from 1296 on of the Duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg, one of the former's successors. It took George II Augustus until 1733 to get Charles VI to also enfeoff him with the Duchy of Bremen and the Principality of Verden.

At both feoffments George II Augustus swore that he would respect the existing privileges and constitutions of the Estates of the realm in Bremen-Verden and Hadeln, thus conforming 400-year-old traditions of Estate particpation in government. Being a Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire and represented in its Diet by virtue of his Electorate of Hanover, George II Augustus didn’t bother about Bremen-Verden's status of imperial estate. Since Bremen-Verden had turned Hanoveran it never again sent its own representatives to a Diet.

In the course of the Anglo-French and Indian War (1754-1763) on North American colonies Britain feared a French invasion in Hanover. Thus George II Augustus formed an alliance with his Brandenburg-Prussian nephew Frederick II the Great combining the North American conflict with the Austro–Brandenburg-Prussian Third Silesian or Seven Years’ War (1756-1763). In summer 1757 the French invaders defeated George II Augustus' son William Duke of Cumberland, leading the Anglo-Hanoveran army, and drove him and his army into remote Bremen-Verden, where in Zeven he had to capitulate on September 18. In the following year British army, supported by troops from Brandenburg-Prussia, Hesse-Kassel and the Principality of Brunswick and Lunenburg expelled again the occupants.

Bremen-Verden remained unaffected for the rest of the war and after its end peace prevailed until the French Revolutionary Wars started. The War of the First Coalition against France (1793-1797) with Great Britain-Hanover and other war allies forming the coalition, didn't affect Bremen-Verden's territory, since the first French Republic was fighting on several fronts, even on its own territory. But also in Bremen-Verden men were drafted in order to recruit the 16,000 Hanoveran soldiers fighting in the Low Lands under British command against France. In 1795 the Holy Roman Empire declared its neutrality, comprising Hanover, and a peace treaty with France was under negotiation until it failed in 1799.

By this time the War of the Second Coalition against France (1799-1802) started and Napoléon Bonaparte urged Brandenburg-Prussia to occupy Hanover. In the Treaty of Basel (1795) Brandenburg-Prussia and France had stipulated, Brandenburg-Prussia would assert the Holy Roman Empire's neutrality in all the latter’s territories north the demarcation line of the river Main, including Hanover. To this end also Hanover had to provide troops for the so-called demarcation army maintaining the armed neutrality. In 1824 24,000 Brandenburg-Prussian soldiers invaded surprising Hanover, which surrendered without a fight.

In April 1801 Brandenburg-Prussian troops arrived in Bremen-Verden's capital Stade and stayed there until October of the same year. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland first ignored Brandenburg-Prussia's hostility, but when Brandenburg-Prussia joined the pro-French coalition of armed 'neutral' powers such as Denmark-Norway and Russia, Britain started to capture Brandenburg-Prussian sea vessels. After the Battle of Copenhagen (1801) the coalition fell apart and Brandenburg-Prussia withdrew its troops.

The Duchies of Bremen and Verden in the Napoléonic wars (1803-14)

After Britain - without any ally - had declared war on France (May 18, 1803), French troops invaded British Hanover on May 26 and installed - among others - two occupation companies in Bremen-Verden's capital Stade on June 18. According to the Convention of Artlenburg (July 5, 1803), confirming the military defeat of Hanover, the Hanoveran army was disarmed and its horses and amunitions were handed over to the French. The electoral government fled to the trans-Elbian Hanoveran territory of Saxe-Lauenburg. In the summer 1803 the French occupants raised their first war contribution with 21,165 rixdollars levied in Bremen-Verden. In 1803 the Duchy of Bremen had 180,000 inhabitants and an area of 5,325.4 square kilometres, the Principality of Verden 1,359.7 square kilometres and 20,000 inhabitants (1806), while Hadeln comprised 311.6 square kilometres.

In autumn 1805 at the beginning of the War of the Third Coalition against France (1805-1806) the French occupational troops left Hanover in a campaign against Austria. British, Swedish and Russian coalition forces captured Hanover, including Bremen-Verden. In December the Empire of the French, since 1804 France’s new form of government, ceded Hanover, which it didn’t hold anymore, to Brandenburg-Prussia, which captured it early in 1806. But when the Kingdom of Prussia[3], after it turned against France, was defeated in the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt (November 11, 1806), France recaptured Hanover, including Bremen-Verden.

In 1807 Bremen-Verden was incorporated into the ephemeric Kingdom of Westphalia, only to be annexed by the Empire of the French in 1810, forming the arrondissement Stade in the département Bouches-de-l'Elbe and several cantons in the département Bouches-du-Weser.[4]

The Duchies of Bremen and Verden in personal union with the Kingdoms of Hanover and - until 1837 - of Great Britain

Bremen-Verden was restored in 1813 to the Electorate of Hanover, which transformed into the Kingdom of Hanover in 1814. In 1823 an administrative reform united Bremen-Verden and Hadeln to form the High-Bailiwick of Stade, administered according to unitarian modern standards, thereby doing away with various traditional Bremian government forms. Hadeln kept part of its traditional autonomy until 1852, its Estates continued to function with restricted authority until 1884. The High-Bailiwick of Stade (German: Landdrostei Stade) was named after and seated in Stade, Bremen-Verden's former capital, taking over its staff, installations and buildings. In 1823 the high-bailiwick consisted of 7,025 square kilometres with 208,251 inhabitants.

On 1 May 1827 a small section of the lower Weser shore in the West of the High-Bailiwick of Stade, forming the nucleus of the future city of Bremerhaven, was transferred to the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, as agreed upon earlier that year in a contract by the Hanoveran minister Friedrich Franz Dieterich von Bremer and Bremen's Burgomaster Johann Smidt. Bremerhaven (literally English: Bremian Harbour) was founded to be a haven for Bremen's merchant marine, with that city located upstream the Weser being more and more disconnected from the sea, due to that river's silting up. Bremerhaven also became the home port of the German Confederation's Navy.

After the Prussian annexation in 1866, the high-bailiwick in 1885 was redesigned according to Prussian law as the Governorate of Stade (German: Regierungsbezirk Stade), which weathered the following wars and constitional changes. Bremerhaven was several times enlarged at the expense of the Governorate of Stade's territory. But on the latter's territory several suburbs grew and in 1924 were united to form the city of Wesermünde. In 1937 the Reich's Nazi government decreed to incorporate the Hamburgian exclave of Cuxhaven into the Governorate of Stade. Two years later the Reich's Nazi government decreed to disentangle Bremerhaven from the Hanseatic City of Bremen and to incorporate it into Wesermünde. But that redeployment didn't last long.

From 1945 on the occupational US forces in defeated Germany used the harbours of Bremen and Wesermünde as their Port of Embarkation. Being actually located in the British Zone of Occupation the Control Commission for Germany - British Element and the Office of Military Government for Germany, U.S. (OMGUS) agreed in 1947 to constitute the cities of Bremen and Wesermünde as a German state named Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, becoming at that occasion an exclave of the American Zone of Occupation within the British zone. Radio AFN (American Forces Network), based in rechristened Bremerhaven, became popular for its transmissions of jazz and rock music.

After this territorial toing and froing the Governorate of Stade, since 1946 belonging to Lower Saxony, the state newly founded by the Control Commission for Germany - British Element, even before in 1947 the Allies officially dissolved the Free State of Prussia, continued to exist until 1977. Then it was incorporated into the neighbouring Governorate of Lunenburg (German: Regierungsbezirk Lüneburg), with the complete dissolution of all Lower Saxon governorates following in 2004.

Today no single administrative entity covers the territory of the former Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen. Today’s efforts and activities in the field of culture in the territory of the former Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and the former Prince-Bishopric of Verden are covered by the Landschaftsverband der ehemaligen Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden (Engl. about: landscape union of the former duchies of Bremen and Verden, or short Landschaftsverband Stade).

Reorganisation of Roman Catholic Church in the former Territory of the Archdiocese and Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen

In 1824 Bremen's former diocesan territory was distributed among the still-existing neighbouring dioceses of Osnabrück, Münster and Hildesheim, the latter of which covers today the former territory of the Prince-Archbishopric proper. Except for the prevailingly Calvinist Free Hanseatic City of Bremen and its territory, which continued to be supervised by the Roman Catholic Vicariate Apostolic of the Nordic Missions. The Free Hanseatic City of Bremen became part of the Diocese of Osnabrück only in 1929, with the Vicariate Apostolic being dismantled in the same year.

Notes

  1. ^ When in 1180 Frederick I Barbarossa dismantled the old Duchy of Saxony (7th c. – 1180) he enfeoffed his friend Archbishop Philip I of Heinsberg, who had had a great effort in defeating the last Saxon Duke Henry III, the Lion, on the behalf of the archdiocese of Cologne with part of the Saxon territory bearing the official name of a Duchy of Westphalia and Angria, colloquially called Duchy of Westphalia (German: Herzogtum Westfalen und Engern). In 1238 the archbishop of Cologne also gained Imperial Immediacy for part of the diocesan territory, so that from then on Archbishopric-Electorate of Cologne (German: Kurfürstentum Köln or more colloquial Kurköln) and the Duchy of Westphalia were always ruled in personal union by the respective archbishop of Cologne.
  2. ^ The Stift Neuenwalde has been re-established as Lutheran convent after the end of the Catholic occupation and is functioning up to the present day as such an institution.
  3. ^ The usage of the name element of the Electorate of Brandenburg became senseless, when the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved on August 6, 1806, thereby abolishing the function of prince-electors electing its emperors
  4. ^ Cf. on this period Isensee, Klaus (2003). Die Region Stade in westfälisch-französischer Zeit 1810-1813: Studien zum napoleonischen Herrschaftssystem unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Stadt Stade und des Fleckens Harsefeld (zugl.: Hannover, Univ., Diss., 1991, (Einzelschriften des Stader Geschichts- und Heimatvereins; vol. 33) ed.). Stade: Stader Geschichts- und Heimatverein. 

List of administrators, archbishops, bishops, prince-archbishops and periods of sede vacante

Roman Catholic Bishops of Bremen (787-845)

Roman Catholic Archbishops of Hamburg in personal union Bishops of Bremen (848-1072)

Roman Catholic Archbishops of Bremen (1072-1179)

Roman Catholic Prince-Archbishops of Bremen (1180-1568)

Lutheran Administrators of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen (1568-1645)

Roman Catholic titular Prince-Archbishop and Vicar Apostolic 1635/1645

References

See also

v • d • e
Flag of Holy Roman Empire Lower Saxon Circle (1500–1806) of the Holy Roman Empire
Ecclesiastical
Bremen1 · Halberstadt1 · Hildesheim · Lübeck · Magdeburg1 · Ratzeburg (until 1701) · Schwerin1
 Map indicating the Lower Saxon Circle of the Holy Roman Empire