Archbishopric Magdeburg

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Banner of the Holy Roman Emperor with haloes (1400-1806) .svg
Territory in the Holy Roman Empire
Archbishopric Magdeburg
coat of arms
Coat of arms of the Archdiocese of Magdeburg
map
Blaeu 1645 - Archiepiscopatus Maghdeburgensis et Anhaltinus Ducatus cum terris adjacentibus.jpg
Magdeburg territory around 1645


Form of rule Hochstift
Ruler / government Prince Bishop , from 1566 Administrator
Today's region / s DE-ST
Parliament Reichsfürstenrat ; 1 virile vote
Reich register 57 men on horseback, 262 men on foot, 500 guilders (1521)
Reichskreis Lower Saxony Imperial Circle
Capitals / residences including the archbishop's palace in Magdeburg
Dynasties 1513–1631 Hohenzollern
Denomination / Religions Catholic, from 1566 mainly Lutheran
Language / n German


Incorporated into 1648/1680: Duchy of Magdeburg


The Archbishopric of Magdeburg was the secular property ( Hochstift or Erzstift ) of the Archbishop of Magdeburg . This sovereign property of the Archbishop of Magdeburg, known as spiritual territory , was located on the territory of today's federal states of Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg . As a result of the Peace of Westphalia , the territory passed into the possession of the Electorate of Brandenburg in 1680 and was secularized under the name Duchy of Magdeburg .

history

As part of the German settlement in the east , Emperor Otto I founded in 968 with the consent of Pope Johannes XIII. the Archdiocese of Magdeburg to proselytize the Slavs in the East Elbe areas. The dioceses of Brandenburg and Havelberg, founded 20 years earlier, as well as the new dioceses of Merseburg, Zeitz, Meißen and Posen were subordinated to the Archdiocese of Magdeburg. Otto generously endowed the archbishopric with land grants, royal income and usable rights. However, the Slav uprising of 983 disrupted the further development of the archdiocese and limited its sphere of activity essentially to the left Elbe area. Under the Salians , Magdeburg lost its prominent position in the empire and even in Saxony . Isolated attempts to reach out to the East were unsuccessful (e.g. 1109–1123 temporary acquisition of Lebus ).

Archbishop Wichmann von Seeburg (1152 / 54–1192) established the rule of the Magdeburg archbishops and supported the expansion of the archbishopric's properties east of the Elbe by appointing German settlers who came alongside the resident Slavic population. Magdeburg law , newly privileged by Wichmann , became a model for the law of many cities in Central and Eastern Europe. In the Hohenstaufen-Welf throne dispute, the archbishops were initially on the side of the Hohenstaufen, but Bishop Albrecht I (1205-1232) swung over to Otto IV .

During and after the interregnum , the connection between Magdeburg and kingship developed only slightly. It only became stronger again under Emperor Charles IV . In the 14th century the archbishops were involved in violent disputes with the Ascanian margraves of Brandenburg and the cities of Magdeburg and Halle . From 1476 the archbishopric came increasingly under the influence of Saxony and Brandenburg . In 1478 Archbishop Ernst von Wettin subjugated the city of Halle; As the preferred residence for the Magdeburg archbishops , he had the Moritzburg built here from 1484 , which they moved into in May 1503. From 1479 to 1566, the neighboring bishopric of Halberstadt to the west was administered in personal union by the archbishops of Magdeburg.

From 1500 the ore monastery belonged to the Lower Saxony Empire . Since Albrecht von Brandenburg (1513–1545) it has been ruled by archbishops and administrators from the House of Hohenzollern (Kurbrandenburg).

During the Reformation , large parts of the territory of the archdiocese converted to the Lutheran creed. In 1561, Archbishop Sigismund von Brandenburg committed himself to the Reformation. It was followed by the Magdeburg Cathedral Chapter in 1567 . In the course of the Thirty Years War , when the city of Magdeburg was completely destroyed during the so-called Magdeburg Wedding in 1631, the archbishopric was temporarily given a Catholic archbishop again, but a re-Catholicization of the population in the archbishopric was out of the question. Nevertheless, remnants of Catholic life remained in the form of some monasteries even after the Thirty Years' War.

In the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, the Archbishopric of Magdeburg was assigned to the Electorate of Brandenburg as the hereditary Duchy of Magdeburg . However, this provision only came after the death of the last administrator Duke August of Saxe-Weissenfels from the sex of the Saxon Wettin in 1680 into force.

territory

Magdeburg Cathedral ( St. Mauritius and Katharina )

The territory of the archbishopric was the secular property of the archbishopric and was subordinate to the archbishop as sovereign. It differed from the spiritual administrative area of ​​the Archdiocese of Magdeburg, which included several dioceses. The territory was predominantly in the area of ​​today's state of Saxony-Anhalt , as well as to small parts in today's state of Brandenburg :.

The ownership of the archbishopric changed slightly over the centuries.

The cathedral chapter Magdeburg had income from a separate small property

Neighboring Territories

Neighboring areas were:

Duchy of Magdeburg in the 19th century (light blue), around Magdeburg and Halle (dark blue)

Residences

Were residences of the Magdeburg archbishops

coat of arms

Coat of arms of the Archdiocese of Magdeburg based on Siebmacher's coat of arms book from 1605

The coat of arms of the Archdiocese / Archbishopric of Magdeburg was divided in red and silver .

It still appears today in a number of current municipal coats of arms, e.g. B .:

See also

swell

  • Friedrich Israel, Walter Möllenberg (edit.): Document book of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg (= historical sources of the Province of Saxony and the Free State of Anhalt. New series. Volume 18). Part 1: 937-1192. Self-published by the State Historical Research Center, Magdeburg 1937
  • Gustav Hertel (arr.): The oldest loan books of the Magdeburg archbishops. (= Historical sources of the province of Saxony and neighboring areas; Volume 16). Hendel, Halle 1883 ( digitized version )

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Diocese of Magdeburg: Area with a great history.
  2. ↑ Werner Trillmich: Emperor Konrad II and his time.
  3. ↑ a b c Lexicon of the Middle Ages

Web links

Commons : Diocese of Magdeburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files