Lübeck bishopric

Territory in the Holy Roman Empire
Lübeck bishopric
coat of arms
map
Schleswig and Holstein around 1650. The territory of the Lübeck bishopric (green) was largely between the cities of Plön and Lübeck.
Arose from	Formed from the Duchy of Saxony in 1180
Form of rule	Electoral principality / corporate state
Ruler / government	Prince-bishop , administrator or vacant : cathedral chapter
Today's region / s	DE-SH
Reich register	2 horsemen, 13 foot soldiers, 60 guilders
Reichskreis	Lower Saxony
Capitals / residences	Eutin
Dynasties	from 1586: Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf
Denomination / Religions	Roman Catholic until the Reformation , Protestant from the 16th century
Language / n	German
Incorporated into	1803: Oldenburg / Principality of Lübeck

The Eutin Castle , Prince-Bishop's residence since 1350

The Lübeck bishopric (also known as the Fürstbistum Lübeck) was an imperial estate of the Holy Roman Empire in what is now Schleswig-Holstein . It was the secular property of the bishop of Lübeck and the cathedral chapter . From 1500 it was part of the Lower Saxony Empire .

history

The area of ​​the Lübeck bishopric comprised the properties of the bishop , the cathedral chapter and the Eutin collegiate monastery . These were mainly around the city of Eutin , the bishop's residence and on the lower reaches of the Trave around Bad Schwartau . In the city of Lübeck itself, only the choir room of the Lübeck Cathedral and a few properties around the cathedral on which the canon curia were located belonged to it.

In the late Middle Ages (finally around 1350) the bishops, whose influence in the trading city of Lübeck remained small, moved their residence to the castle there in Eutin .

While the spiritual oversight district of the Roman Catholic Church much larger diocese Luebeck in the Reformation went down, which remained high pin as authority obtained because the cathedral chapter in 1586 undertook, as Prince Bishops / administrators Members of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf to choose. Through skillful negotiations by his representatives David Gloxin and Christian Cassius , Prince-Bishop Johann X. von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf succeeded in securing this construction in the Peace of Westphalia of 1648. As a result, the Hochstift / Fürstbistum Lübeck became the only Protestant ecclesiastical imperial estate . In the bishopric of Osnabrück , rulership changed between Catholic and Lutheran bishops , and the archbishopric of Magdeburg was secularized in 1680.

These (at least temporarily Protestant) ecclesiastical principalities were accordingly not placed on the (Roman Catholic) ecclesiastical bench at the Reichstag in Regensburg , but at a right angle from the emperor in the front right (the Lübeck representative sat alone when Osnabrück was Catholic) . One of the special features was that four of the canon posts were still occupied by the Pope .

The binding of the Bishopric to the House of Holstein-Gottorp led to ongoing disagreements with the Danish royal family . At times there were competing coadjutors . After the death of Prince-Bishop August Friedrich von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf , a military dispute about his successor broke out, which culminated in the siege and occupation of Eutin Castle by the Danes at Christmas 1705 . The Danish general Hartwig von Passow was fatally wounded. Finally, the coadjutor of the Danish party, Prince Karl of Denmark, was brought to give up his claim through diplomatic intervention by the English Queen Anne and the States General and after a pension had been guaranteed, so that the coadjutor of the Gottorf party, Christian August von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf the successor could take over. 1707 was under pressure from the Swedish King Karl XII. in Article II of the Altranstädter Convention the bishop's election mode and thus the Gottorf rule also recognized under imperial law.

Catherine II of Russia , who held the guardianship of Grand Duke Paul Petrowitsch , the Hereditary Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, exchanged the Holstein-Gottorp hereditary lands for the Danish counties of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst in May 1773 after negotiations in 1767 ; Grand Duke Paul ceded this to the Prince-Bishop of Lübeck, Friedrich August , the leading member of Holstein-Gottorp's younger line that remained in Holstein, through the Treaty of Tsarskoe Selo at the end of 1773 . As a result of this process, Russia renounced all claims to the Duchy of Schleswig, which now came fully into Danish possession. Furthermore, the Duchy of Lübeck was effectively united with Oldenburg, which was elevated to a duchy by imperial decree at the end of 1774.

In the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss 1803, the bishopric was finally converted into a hereditary secular principality and awarded as the Principality of Lübeck to the Dukes of Oldenburg .

The canonicals existing at the time of secularization and the privileges and income associated with them remained in place until the end of their owners' lives. The last cathedral dean , Friedrich Ludwig von Moltke , lived until 1824, and the last canon did not die until 1871. It was Karl Freiherr von Stenglin (born August 12, 1791 in Kiel; † March 15, 1871 in Geneva), who was already a child Had become canon. He was married to Karoline Countess Hessenstein (1804-1891), the youngest daughter of Elector Wilhelm I of Hessen-Kassel and Karoline von Schlotheim .

In 1804, the Duke of Oldenburg Peter Friedrich Ludwig agreed in a settlement with the Hanseatic City of Lübeck on a distribution of the monastery properties in the city and the lands of the cathedral chapter, so that there was a reciprocal delimitation of the area, especially for the Lübeck exclaves .

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  Seating arrangement on the Reichstag in Regensburg

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  Canon Wilhelm Carl Ferdinand von Ahlefeldt († 1852) with a chapter cross

See also

• Diocese of Lübeck
• List of the canons of Lübeck
• List of the bishops and prince-bishops of Lübeck

literature

• Oliver Auge / Anke Scharrenberg (ed.): On the way to the “Weimar of the North”? The Eutin prince-bishops and their court in the 18th century , Eutin State Library, Eutin 2019 (Eutingen Research, Volume 15), ISBN 978-3-939643-21-0 .
• Eckhard Hübner: Struggle for independence. The prince-bishopric of Lübeck between 1647 and 1803. In: Frank Baudach (Ed.): Acting and preserving. Contributions to regional cultural history and the history of the Eutin State Library . Festschrift for Ingrid Bernin-Israel, (Eutiner Research, Vol. 8), Eutin 2003, ISBN 3-9808529-1-1 , pp. 285-300.
• Everhard Illigens : History of the Lübeck Church from 1530 to 1896, that is the history of the former Catholic diocese and the current Catholic community as well as the Catholic bishops, canons and pastors of Lübeck from 1530 to 1896 . Paderborn 1896 ( digitized version ).
• Volker Jacobsen: The Prince Bishopric and the Free Imperial City of Lübeck (1586–1803 / 04). In: Jahrbuch für Heimatkunde Eutin 41 (2007), pp. 53–91.
• Wolfgang Prange : Change of rulers in the Lübeck bishopric. In: ders .: Contributions to the history of Schleswig-Holstein . Neumünster 2002, pp. 487-508.
• Ernst-Günther Prühs: On the emergence of the early modern state in the Principality of Lübeck. In: Jahrbuch für Heimatkunde Eutin 29 (1995) pp. 10-16.

Web links

• Search for Hochstift Lübeck in the catalog of the German National Library
• Search for Hochstift Lübeck in the German Digital Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Eduard Vehse: History of the small German courts since the Reformation. Part 14: The spiritual courts , Volume 4, Hamburg: Hoffmann & Campe 1860, p. 85.
2. ↑ The older line of the House of Holstein-Gottorp ruled in Russia as House Romanow-Holstein-Gottorp from 1762 .