Ravensberg Office

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Ravensberg castle ruins
Location of the Ravensberg office in the county of Ravensberg in 1801
Historical view of Ravensberg Castle

The Ravensberg office was one of four offices in the county of Ravensberg . It existed with a short interruption during the Napoleonic period until the county was dissolved by Prussia in 1816.

Geographical location

Naturally, the office was only to a small extent in the Ravensberg hill country and for the most part in the Ems sand plain south of the Teutoburg Forest . The eponymous castle Ravensberg , which today is only preserved as a ruin, was on the northern edge of the office. It was the state castle and the nucleus of the county.

Neighboring territories

In 1797 the office bordered the prince-bishopric of Münster in the west and south, the Sparrenberg office in the east and the prince-bishopric of Osnabrück in the north .

Current affiliation

Based on its last valid borders (1652–1807), the area of ​​the former office now belongs entirely to the Gütersloh district and within it to the towns and communities of Borgholzhausen , Halle , Steinhagen and Versmold .

organization

From 1652 at the latest, the Ravensberg office consisted of the three bailiffs Borgholzhausen, Halle and Versmold. For 1772 the structure of the office is described as follows:

history

The foundations of the County of Ravensberg and thus the offices were created when the Counts of Calvelage , wealthy around Vechta and Bersenbrück , acquired areas in the Teutoburg Forest northwest of Halle around 1100 and built Ravensberg Castle. Otto (I.) moved his headquarters to the castle around 1140 and from then on, like all his successors, carried the title "Graf von Ravensberg". In the course of the 12th century, the area was expanded to include possessions in the Halle area.

Bielefeld , which was first mentioned as a city in 1214, developed as a result of the construction of the Sparrenburg until around 1250 as the capital of the county. For the next hundred years the Sparrenburg was the preferred seat of the rulers and the Ravensberg Castle no longer had its special significance for the county.

From around 1525 the Reformation spread in the office , so that here the population gradually but finally converted completely to Lutheranism by 1600.

In the course of the reorganization of Germany by Napoleon I , the County of Ravensberg was incorporated into the Kingdom of Westphalia (Canton Bielefeld in the department of the Weser ) in 1807 and the Ravensberg office dissolved. In 1813, as a result of the Wars of Liberation , Prussia regained the area and initially symbolically restored the county with its substructures.

The Ravensberg office finally ceased to exist with the dissolution of the county in 1816 and the area became part of the newly formed Halle (Westphalia) district . When the district was formed, the Vogtei Werther, which was formerly part of the Sparrenberg district, was incorporated into the new district.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ CHARTE OF THE COUNTY RAVENSBERG recorded by high order and given by JC Schloenbach in 1772

Web links

Coordinates: 52 ° 4 ′ 57.4 "  N , 8 ° 17 ′ 49.8"  E