Misplaced Pages

Lower Saxon Circle

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
(Redirected from Saxon Circle) Imperial circle of the Holy Roman Empire
This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Lower Saxon Circle" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (March 2012) Click for important translation instructions.
  • View a machine-translated version of the German article.
  • Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Misplaced Pages.
  • Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 2,136 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
  • Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
  • You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Misplaced Pages article at ]; see its history for attribution.
  • You may also add the template {{Translated|de|Niedersächsischer Reichskreis}} to the talk page.
  • For more guidance, see Misplaced Pages:Translation.
(Learn how and when to remove this message)
The Lower Saxon Circle at the beginning of the 16th century

The Lower Saxon Circle (German: Niedersächsischer Reichskreis) was an Imperial Circle of the Holy Roman Empire. It covered much of the territory of the medieval Duchy of Saxony (except for Westphalia), and was originally called the Saxon Circle (German: Sächsischer Kreis) before later being better differentiated from the Upper Saxon Circle by the more specific name.

An unusual aspect of this circle was that, at various times, the kings of Denmark (in Holstein), Great Britain (in Hanover) and Sweden (in Bremen) were all Princes of a number of Imperial States.

Origin

The first plans for a Lower Saxon Circle originated from Albert II of Germany in 1438. An Imperial Saxon Circle was formally created in 1500, but in 1512 it was divided into an Upper Saxon and Lower Saxon Circle. The division was only codified in 1522, and it took a while before the separation was completely implemented by the Imperial Chamber Court. Furthermore, the first mention of an Upper Saxon Circle, a Lower Saxon Circle or the Netherlands occurred much later on. The term Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen) was first used only in 1548.

Territory

The Lower Saxon Circle included the easternmost part of current Lower Saxony, the northernmost part of Saxony-Anhalt (excluding the Altmark), Mecklenburg, Holstein (excluding Dithmarschen), Hamburg, Bremen, in addition to small areas in Brandenburg and Thuringia. For the most part it was a continuous territory with the exception of small enclaves like Halle and Jüterbog. Nordhausen and Mühlhausen were also areas outside the continuous portion of the imperial circle. Within the circle was the Prince-Bishopric of Verden, which was in personal union with the Archbishopric of Bremen since 1502. The Counties of Schaumburg and Spiegelberg were also part of the personal union, but they were not a part of the Lower Saxon Circle.

By the downfall of the Holy Roman Empire, the circle had 2,120,00 inhabitants and an area of 1,240 square miles. With respect to religion, almost all the citizens were Protestant. The exception was the partially Catholic Bishopric of Hildesheim.

Structure

A large part of the circle was made up of territories ruled by the House of Welf. With the Protestant Reformation the newly converted Archbishopric of Magdeburg was ruled from 1513 by administrators from the Brandenburg line of the House of Hohenzollern. Also, in 1648 the Bishopric of Halberstadt was given to the Margraviate of Brandenburg. The Archbishopric of Bremen, after the Reformation, was ruled by Danes and Swedes, and after 1715 by the House of Welf. Through the Duchy of Oldenburg, the king of Denmark became a prince of the imperial circle.

Also as a result of their possessions in the imperial circles, the kings of Prussia, Sweden, and Great Britain, who governed the Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg, became princes of the empire. Out of the entire empire, the Lower Saxon Circle was ruled the most by foreign kings. Regardless of this, the House of Welf's strong position with the Lower Saxon Circle prevented the dukes of Mecklenburg and the kings of Denmark from completely dominating.

Composition

The circle was made up of the following states:

Name Type of entity Comments
Bremen Duchy Archbishopric of Bremen established in 787 by Charlemagne, secularized in 1648 as fief of Sweden, ceded to Great Britain in 1715; 12th seat to the Reichstag
Bremen Imperial City 8th Rhenish City from 1186
Brunswick-Calenberg Duchy Subdivision of Brunswick-Lüneburg from 1494, united with Celle in 1705 to form Hanover, 34th seat to the Reichstag
Brunswick-Celle Duchy Subdivision of Brunswick-Lüneburg from 1269 until 1705, 32nd seat to the Reichstag
Brunswick-Grubenhagen Duchy Subdivision of Brunswick-Lüneburg from 1291 until 1596, 36th seat to the Reichstag
Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel Duchy Subdivision of Brunswick-Lüneburg from 1269, included Blankenburg, became Duchy of Brunswick after Napoleon, 38th seat to the Reichstag
Gandersheim Imperial Abbacy Established in 852 by Duke Liudolf of Saxony, Immediacy confirmed by King Henry the Fowler in 919, contested by Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, 18th Prelature of the Rhine
Goslar Imperial City From 1290
Halberstadt Prince-Bishopric Established by Charlemagne in 804, secularized in 1648 as Principality of Halberstadt held by Brandenburg
Hamburg Imperial City 9th Rhenish City from 1189
Hildesheim Prince-Bishopric Established in 815 by Louis the Pious; 27th seat to the Reichstag
Holstein Duchy Established in 1474, held by the Danish Royal House of Oldenburg, from 1648 residence in Glückstadt
Holstein-Gottorp Duchy Subdivision of Holstein from 1544 until 1773
Lübeck Prince-Bishopric Established in 1160 by Henry the Lion, 49th seat to the Reichstag
Lübeck Imperial City 3rd Rhenish City, from 1226
Magdeburg Prince-Archbishopric
Duchy 		Established in 955 by Otto I as Archbishopric of Magdeburg, secularized in 1680, held by Brandenburg
Mecklenburg-Schwerin Duchy Established in 1352
Mecklenburg-Güstrow Duchy Subdivision of Mecklenburg-Schwerin from 1520 until 1552, again from 1621 until 1695
Mecklenburg-Strelitz Duchy Subdivision of Mecklenburg-Schwerin from 1701
Mühlhausen Imperial City From 1251
Nordhausen Imperial City From 1220
Rantzau County Established in 1650, held by the Danish Royal House of Oldenburg from 1734
Ratzeburg Prince-Bishopric Established in 1154 by Henry the Lion, secularized in 1648 as Principality of Ratzeburg, held by the Dukes of Mecklenburg, Mecklenburg-Strelitz from 1701
Regenstein County From about 1160, united with Blankenburg in 1368, held by the Dukes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel from 1599
Saxe-Lauenburg Duchy Established in 1296, in 1689 fell to the Dukes of Brunswick-Calenberg, 66th seat to the Reichstag
Schwerin Prince-Bishopric Established in 1154 by Henry the Lion, residence at Bützow from 1239, secularized in 1648 as a principality held by the Dukes of Mecklenburg-Schwerin

Notes

  1. Rudi Fischer: 800 Jahre Calvörde – Eine Chronik bis 1991.

Sources

External links

Holy Roman Empire Lower Saxon Circle (1500–1806) of the Holy Roman Empire
Ecclesiastical Map indicating the Lower Saxon Circle of the Holy Roman Empire
Secular
Cities
until 1648.    until 1701.    from 1648.    until 1731.    until 1705.    until 1596.    from 1708.    until 1773.    until 1640.    until 1695.    from 1701.    until 1734.

Circles est. 1500: Bavarian, Swabian, Upper Rhenish, Lower Rhenish–Westphalian, Franconian, (Lower) Saxon

Circles est. 1512: Austrian, Burgundian, Upper Saxon, Electoral Rhenish     ·     Unencircled territories
Circles of the Holy Roman Empire after the Imperial Reform
Created in 1500 The ten Reichskreise
Created in 1512
and
Categories: