1.
Ottersberg
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Ottersberg is a municipality in the district of Verden, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated approximately 20 km north of Verden, and 28 km east of Bremen, Ottersberg belonged - as to its government - to the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, established in 1180. In 1648 the Prince-Archbishopric was transformed into the Duchy of Bremen - Verden, which was first ruled in personal union by the Swedish Crown - interrupted by a Danish occupation - and from 1715 on by the Hanoverian Crown. The Kingdom of Hanover incorporated the Duchy in a real union, Ottersberg lies on a sandy ridge, part of a glacial moraine in the valley of the Wümme. In winter the lowland areas are often water for weeks at a time. It lies on the A1 road between Bremen and Hamburg, the Bremen - Hamburg railway line originally passed south the village. After the second war the district around the station developed to the south of the railway line. The station is called Ottersberg, because it lies in the country of Hanover. The full-time mayor is directly elected, the crest is a rising up from the water of an otter with fish in its mouth) on a blue background. The otter is not presented naturalistically, but as an otter with a heraldic lions head. Ottersberg is the seat of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Ottersberg which offers bachelors and masters degrees in art, Art Therapy, theater, social studies. Since 1946 the Free Rudolf Steiner School of Ottersberg has occupied the site of the former castle, the embankments and ditch of the castle remain in evidence. The artist Otto Modersohn lived in Ottersberg and is buried in the churchyard at Quelkhorn, a Jewish Cemetery lies on the road between Otterstedt and Ottersberg, which has 27 Tombstones of Jews from the Ottersberg region who died between the years 1835 and 1920. The cemetery is a protected Cultural relic, municipal website accessed February 2010 Freie-Rudolf-Steiner-Schule accessed February 2010 Hochschule für Künste im Sozialen Ottersberg accessed May 2013
2.
Achim
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Achim is a municipality and the largest town in the district of Verden, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the bank of the Weser, approx. 17 km northwest of Verden, and 16 km southeast of Bremen, Achim lies in the Weser Depression, an Urstromtal. The area surrounding Achim is primarily moorland in its natural state and it has an elevation between 12 and 40 metres above sea level, and an area of 65.1 km2. For the Badener mountains and Oil Camp, see Baden, Lower Saxony, the first recorded mention of Achim came in 1091 as Arahem. The controlling heights of the Linden Mountains, south of Bremen, on which the old Arahem leaned, was a cult-, Achim was a meeting place of old Saxon courts. The court met three times annually, the Christian missionaries erected a baptismal church in Achim in the 12th century, it was the predecessor of St. Laurentius Church in Achim, built in 1257. Then it belonged to the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, from 1626 Achim was controlled alternately by Danes and Swedes. During the Third Silesian or Seven Years War it was controlled by France, in 1807 the ephemeric Kingdom of Westphalia annexed the Duchy of Bremen, including Achim, before France annexed it in 1810. Achim became the capital of a canton within the Département des Bouches-du-Weser. In 1813 the Duchy was restored to the Electorate of Hanover, in 1814 the Electorate was upgraded to the Kingdom of Hanover at the Congress of Vienna. In 1823 Hanover incorporated the Duchy in a union and the ducal territory, including Achim, became part of the Stade Region. A train station has existed in Achim since 1847, Achim lies on the track between Bremen and Hannover. Achim is home to international companies including Vitakraft and Daybridge International Achim is twinned with, Cēsis
3.
Bremen
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The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany, which belongs to the state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. As a commercial and industrial city with a port on the River Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen/Oldenburg Metropolitan Region. Bremen is the second most populous city in Northern Germany and eleventh in Germany, Bremen is a major cultural and economic hub in the northern regions of Germany. Bremen is home to dozens of galleries and museums, ranging from historical sculptures to major art museums. Bremen has a reputation as a working class city, along with this, Bremen is home to a large number of multinational companies and manufacturing centers. Companies headquartered in Bremen include the Hachez chocolate company and Vector Foiltec, four-time German football champions Werder Bremen are also based in the city. Bremen is some 60 km south from the Weser mouth on the North Sea, with Bremerhaven right on the mouth the two comprise the state of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. The marshes and moraines near Bremen have been settled since about 12,000 BC, burial places and settlements in Bremen-Mahndorf and Bremen-Osterholz date back to the 7th century AD. Since The Renaissance, some scientists have believed that the entry Fabiranum or Phabiranon in Ptolemys Fourth Map of Europe, written in 150 AD, but Ptolemy gives geographic coordinates, and by these dates Phabiranon is situated northeast of the mouth of river Visurgis. At that time the Chauci lived in the now called north-western Germany or Lower Saxony. By the end of the 3rd century, they had merged with the Saxons, during the Saxon Wars the Saxons, led by Widukind, fought against the West Germanic Franks, the founders of the Carolingian Empire, and lost the war. Charlemagne, the King of the Franks, made a new law, the Lex Saxonum which stated that Saxons were not allowed to worship Odin, in 787 Willehad of Bremen became the first Bishop of Bremen. The citys first stone walls were built in 1032, around this time trade with Norway, England and the northern Netherlands began to grow, thus increasing the importance of the city. The city was recognised as an entity with its own laws. Property was to be inherited without feudal claims for reversion to its original owner. This privilege laid the foundation for Bremens later status of imperial immediacy, since the city was the major taxpayer, its consent was generally sought. In this way the city wielded fiscal and political power within the Prince-Archbishopric, in 1260 Bremen joined the Hanseatic League. In 1350, the number of inhabitants reached 20,000, around this time the Hansekogge became a unique product of Bremen
4.
Verden an der Aller
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Verden an der Aller, also called Verden or simply Verden, is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, on the river Aller. It is the centre of the district of Verden. Verden is famous for a massacre of Saxons in 782, committed on the orders of Charlemagne, for its cathedral, in the Middle Ages there was a massacre of allegedly 4,500 Saxons, by order of Charlemagne because of their involvement in a preceding uprising. Verden was then within the Duchy of Saxony, after in 1180 a coalition of Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa and his allies had defeated the then Saxo-Bavarian Duke Henry the Lion. He was subsequently stripped of his duchies, on 12 March 1259 Prince-Bishop Gerhard of Verden granted the place town privileges following the Bremian version of German town law. The northern city and the town were then united to form one city. In the wake of the Treaty of Saint-Germain in 1679, Verden was returned to Sweden, the Principality of Verden was first ruled in personal union by the Swedish Crown – interrupted by a Danish occupation – and from 1715 on by the Hanoverian Crown. The Kingdom of Hanover incorporated the principality in a real union, until the Second World War, Verden was renowned for its trade and crafts and also its mounted division. During the Nazi regime forced-labourers were used in a factory in Verden. Between 1945 and 1949 Verden was part of the British zone of occupation, refugees from the former Prussian provinces of East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia, settled in and around the town. With the labour immigration from the East German Democratic Republic inhibited by the Berlin Wall foreign workers started to arrive from southern Europe, after the fall of Communism more immigrants arrived from Eastern Europe. From 1945 until 1993 the 1st Armoured Division of the British Army of the Rhine was stationed in Verden, one of the former British barracks is now used to house the Kreisverwaltung and a new sporting stadium has been erected opposite. The second barracks has been demolished to make way for a new residential estate, Verden is located in the German state of Lower Saxony, on the river Aller. It is the centre of the district of Verden. The nearest large cities are Bremen and Hannover, Verden is twinned with, Górowo Ilaweckie, Poland Havelberg, Germany Bagrationovsk, Russia Saumur, France Warwick, England Zielona Góra, Poland The old town lies east of the Aller. The Lutheran cathedral is known as the Dom zu Verden and towers above the high street, with its cafés. Mary and Cecilia, served the former Catholic Diocese of Verden as episcopal church and was built between the 12th and 15th centuries, other noteworthy buildings include the Lutheran churches of St. John and of St. Andrew, as well as the town hall and the Domherrenhaus. Verden is further renowned for horse racing and sport horse auctions and is also called the riding town
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Kirchlinteln
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Kirchlinteln is a municipality in the district of Verden, in Lower Saxony, Germany. Its central village is situated approximately 6 km east of Verden and it is surrounded by the Linteln Geest which is dominated by woods, hills, heath and small villages. Kirchlinteln belonged to the Prince-Bishopric of Verden, established in 1180, the Kingdom of Hanover incorporated the Principality in a real union and the Princely territory, including Kirchlinteln, became part of the new Stade Region, established in 1823. These villages each have a town provost
6.
Verden (district)
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Verden is a Kreis in the centre of Lower Saxony, Germany. Adjoining it are the districts of Osterholz, Rotenburg, Heidekreis, Nienburg and Diepholz, the Aller River enters the district in the east and joins the Weser in the centre of the district. In the north the Wümme River passes from west to the east across the districts territory, the western half of the district is occupied by suburbs in the Bremen metropolitan area, e. g. the town of Achim. The district dates back to the two Ämter of Verden and Achim, which were created in 1852 and 1859, after the Kingdom of Hanover became part of Prussia, they were recreated as districts, and merged in 1932. In 1939 two municipalities of the district were added to Bremen, in 1972 Thedinghausen was added, the city and rayon of Bagrationovsk The city and municipality of Górowo Ilaweckie Media related to Landkreis Verden at Wikimedia Commons Official homepage
7.
Lower Saxony
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Lower Saxony is a German state situated in northwestern Germany and is second in area, with 47,624 square kilometres, and fourth in population among the sixteen Länder of Germany. In rural areas Northern Low Saxon, a dialect of Low German, and Saterland Frisian, a variety of Frisian, are still spoken, but the number of speakers is declining. Lower Saxony borders on the North Sea, the states of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia, and the Netherlands. Furthermore, the state of Bremen forms two enclaves within Lower Saxony, one being the city of Bremen, the other, its city of Bremerhaven. In fact, Lower Saxony borders more neighbours than any other single Bundesland, the states principal cities include the state capital Hanover, Braunschweig, Lüneburg, Osnabrück, Oldenburg, Hildesheim, Wolfenbüttel, Wolfsburg and Göttingen. The northwestern area of Lower Saxony, which lies on the coast of the North Sea, is called East Frisia, in the extreme west of Lower Saxony is the Emsland, a traditionally poor and sparsely populated area, once dominated by inaccessible swamps. The northern half of Lower Saxony, also known as the North German Plains, is almost invariably flat except for the hills around the Bremen geestland. Towards the south and southwest lie the northern parts of the German Central Uplands, the Weser Uplands, between these two lie the Lower Saxon Hills, a range of low ridges. Thus, Lower Saxony is the only Bundesland that encompasses both maritime and mountainous areas, Lower Saxonys major cities and economic centres are mainly situated in its central and southern parts, namely Hanover, Braunschweig, Osnabrück, Wolfsburg, Salzgitter, Hildesheim and Göttingen. Oldenburg, near the coastline, is another economic centre. To the north, the Elbe river separates Lower Saxony from Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the banks just south of the Elbe are known as Altes Land. Due to its local climate and fertile soil, it is the states largest area of fruit farming. Most of the territory was part of the historic Kingdom of Hanover. It was created by the merger of the State of Hanover with several states in 1946. Lower Saxony has a boundary in the north in the North Sea. The state and city of Bremen is an enclave surrounded by Lower Saxony. The Bremen/Oldenburg Metropolitan Region is a body for the enclave area. To the southeast the state border runs through the Harz, low mountains that are part of the German Central Uplands, in northeast Lower Saxony is Lüneburg Heath
8.
Diepholz (district)
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Diepholz is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is bounded by the districts of Verden, Nienburg, Minden-Lübbecke, Osnabrück, Vechta and Oldenburg, and by the cities of Delmenhorst and Bremen. From the 12th century to 1585 Diepholz was a sovereign Noble Lordship, later County, within the Holy Roman Empire that was ruled over by the Noble Lords, later Counts, of Diepholz. At the beginning of the 16th century there was pressure from the powerful duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg. By forming an alliance with the neighbouring County of Hoya and asking for help from the emperor himself the state of Diepholz managed to some more decades. In 1585 the ruling family became extinct, and Diepholz was eventually annexed by Brunswick-Lüneburg, in 1932, the district of Grafschaft Diepholz was established by merging the former districts of Diepholz and Sulingen. The former district of Diepholz was roughly identical to the medieval state, the present district of Diepholz was formed in 1977 by merging the former districts of Grafschaft Diepholz and Grafschaft Hoya. The district extends from the outskirts of Bremen to the border of North Rhine-Westphalia. In the south there is the Dümmer, a lake with an area of 16 km², many rare bird species breed in the reeds around the lake. The northern portions of the district are occupied by forests and agricultural lands, the lion is taken from the original arms of the Count of Diepholz. The bear claws are from the arms of Count of Hoya and this combination symbolizes the merger of County of Diepholz and County of Hoya in 1977. Official website Pictures from Diepholz Lake Dümmer historical pictures of Diepholz
9.
Nienburg (district)
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Nienburg is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is bounded by the districts of Diepholz, Verden, Heidekreis, Hanover and Schaumburg, from the early Middle Ages to the end of the 16th century this region was the heart of the County of Hoya. The ruling family became extinct in 1582, and the central, in 1705 the area of Nienburg and Hoya became subordinate to Hanover. In 1866 the Kingdom of Hanover was annexed by Prussia, the Prussian government established the districts of Nienburg and Stolzenau, which were merged in 1932. The earliest official mention of Nienburg/Weser dates from the year 1025, when Milo, since this early mention spoke of Nienburg, some kind sort of fortress must already have existed there for some time, perhaps in order to protect the crossing of the Weser. Under the protection of this fortress the initially insecure settlement became permanent, the castle and the town of Nienburg were the seat of the Counts of Hoya, from whom the citizenry and guilds managed to extract many privileges. When the line of the Counts of Hoya died out in 1582, Nienburg then remained under the Guelphs until 1866, with a short interruption from 1803 to 1813, when it was annexed by the French. The emblem of the war - like Counts of Hoya - a black bear-paw - still appears today in certificates and documents, the 16th century was the time of the Reformation, which was concluded in the year 1581 by the decree of the Hoya Church. During the 30 Years War the town was besieged and destroyed, in 1625 the town was successfully defended by the Reformed forces against the army of General Tilly. From those times the legend of the Wähligen Rott derives, a band of defenders who sortied from the town, the banner and the tents are still displayed today at the annual Scheibenschießen, a local festival with a tradition of over 600 years. By the end of the 30 Years War, two-thirds of the town were in ruins, Years of rapid reconstruction now took place, during the Seven Years War, however, the town again suffered substantial damage, when the French army occupied it in 1757. At the beginning of the 19th century the town of Nienburg had to look after the accommodation of Napoleonic troops, at that time, an important event for the future development of the town took place, the demolition of the Middle-Ages fortifications. The years of peace after 1815 compried a period of growth, with its population of around 33,000 people, the town of Nienburg/Weser is today the economic and cultural centre of the area between the two major conurbations of Hannover and Bremen. The district is located between Bremen and Hanover. The Weser River enters the district in the south, coming from North Rhine-Westphalia, and runs north towards Bremen
10.
Heidekreis
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Heidekreis is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is bounded by the districts of Harburg, Lüneburg, Uelzen, Celle, Hanover, Nienburg, Verden, historically the region belonged to the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg and its successor states. The district was established in 1977 by merging the districts of Soltau. On 1 August 2011 it was renamed to Heidekreis, the district includes the western half of the Lüneburg Heath. Since this landscape is so characteristic for the district, it itself the Heath District. The capital is Bad Fallingbostel, although it has only 11,800 inhabitants and is only the fifth largest town in the district, there are es 26 nature reserves in the county of Soltau-Fallingbostel. The largest one has an area of 13,222 ha in the territory of the county of Soltau-Fallingbostel, there are four Jewish cemeteries in Soltau-Fallingbostel, in Ahlden, Rethem, Soltau und Walsrode. There are protected cultural monuments – stone witnesses to former Jewish communities, the cemeteries are mainly on the edge of parishes. Hannover–Braunschweig–Göttingen–Wolfsburg Metropolitan Region Media related to Landkreis Soltau-Fallingbostel at Wikimedia Commons Official website
11.
Osterholz
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Osterholz is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is bounded by the districts of Wesermarsch, Cuxhaven, Rotenburg and Verden, originally the prince-archbishops of Bremen ruled the area comprising todays district. In 1648 the Prince-Archbishopric was transformed into the Duchy of Bremen, in 1807 the ephemeral Kingdom of Westphalia annexed the Duchy, before France annexed it in 1810, there comprising a part of the département Bouches-du-Weser. In 1866 the Kingdom of Hanover fell to Prussia, forming the Province of Hanover, the Prussian administration established districts in 1885, among them the district of Osterholz. The southern part of the district is part of the Bremen metropolitan area, in the north there is the Teufelsmoor, one of the largest existing fens in Germany. Large marshes extend on both sides of the River Hamme, which runs through the district north to south to join the River Wümme. The Wümme forms the border and is a tributary of the Weser. Media related to Landkreis Osterholz at Wikimedia Commons Official website
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Rotenburg (district)
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Rotenburg is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is landlocked by the districts of Stade, Harburg, Heidekreis, Verden, Osterholz, in medieval times the region was part of the bishoprics of Bremen and Verden. After the Protestant Reformation the bishoprics became secular principalities, colloquially called Bremen-Verden, the present district was established in 1977 by merging the former districts of Rotenburg and Bremervörde. The Wümme River runs through the district from east to west, the marshy area to both sides of the river is called the Wümmeniederung
13.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
14.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
15.
States of Germany
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Germany is a federal republic consisting of sixteen federal states. Since todays Germany was formed from a collection of several states, it has a federal constitution. The remaining 13 states are called Flächenländer, the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 was through the unification of the western states created in the aftermath of World War II. West Berlin, while not part of the Federal Republic, was largely integrated and considered as a de facto state. In 1952, following a referendum, Baden, Württemberg-Baden, in 1957, the Saar Protectorate rejoined the Federal Republic as the Saarland. Federalism is one of the constitutional principles of Germany. After 1945, new states were constituted in all four zones of occupation, in 1949, the states in the three western zones formed the Federal Republic of Germany. This is in contrast to the development in Austria, where the Bund was constituted first. The use of the term Länder dates back to the Weimar Constitution of 1919, before this time, the constituent states of the German Empire were called Staaten. Today, it is common to use the term Bundesland. However, this term is not used officially, neither by the constitution of 1919 nor by the Basic Law of 1949, three Länder call themselves Freistaaten, Bavaria, Saxony, and Thuringia. He summarizes the arguments for boundary reform in Germany. The German system of dual federalism requires strong Länder that have the administrative and fiscal capacity to implement legislation, too many Länder also make coordination among them and with the federation more complicated. But several proposals have failed so far, territorial reform remains a topic in German politics. Federalism has a tradition in German history. The Holy Roman Empire comprised many petty states numbering more than 300 around 1796, the number of territories was greatly reduced during the Napoleonic Wars. After the Congress of Vienna,39 states formed the German Confederation, the new German Empire included 25 states and the imperial territory of Alsace-Lorraine. The empire was dominated by Prussia, which controlled 65% of the territory, after the territorial losses of the Treaty of Versailles, the remaining states continued as republics of a new German federation
16.
Districts of Germany
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A German district is an administrative subdivision known as Landkreis, except in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein where it is known simply as Kreis. Most major cities in Germany are not part of a rural district, in this context, those cities are referred to as Kreisfreie Stadt or Stadtkreis. Rural districts are at a level of administration between the German states and the municipal governments. They correspond to level 3 administrative units of the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics, previously, the similar title Reichskreis was given to groups of states in the Holy Roman Empire. The related term Landeskommissariat was used for administrative divisions in some German territories until the 19th century. The majority of German districts are rural districts of which there are 295, cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants do not usually belong to a district, but take over district responsibilities themselves, similar to the concept of independent cities. These are known as urban districts —cities which constitute a district in their own there are currently 107 of them. As of 2011, approximately 25 million people live in these 107 urban districts, in North Rhine-Westphalia, there are some cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants which are not urban districts, for example Recklinghausen, Siegen, Paderborn, Bergisch Gladbach, Neuss and Moers. Nevertheless, these cities take over many district responsibilities themselves, although they are part of a larger rural district. Midsize towns can perform particular administrative functions of the district as well, the classification as midsize town is usually based on a towns registered population, but varies from state to state. Aachen, Hanover and Göttingen retain certain rights of an urban district, urban districts have these responsibilities and also those of the municipalities. The district council is the highest institution of a district and is responsible for all fundamental guidelines of regional self-administration. This council is elected every five years, except in Bavaria where it is elected every six years. Usually the administrative seat of a district is located in one of its largest towns. However, district council and administrative seat of rural districts are not situated within the district proper. Most of those districts are named after this central city as well. Moers is the biggest city in Germany that is neither an urban district, in parts of northern Germany, Landrat is also the name of the entire district administration, which in southern Germany is known as Kreisverwaltung or Landratsamt. In urban districts similar administrative functions are performed by a mayor, rural districts in some German states have an additional administrative commission called Kreisausschuss
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Burgomaster
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The name in English was derived from the Dutch burgemeester. In some cases, Burgomaster was the title of the head of state and head of government of a sovereign city-state, contemporary titles are commonly translated into English as mayor. Bürgermeister, in German, in Germany, Austria, and formerly in Switzerland, in Switzerland, the title was abolished mid-19th century, various current titles for roughly equivalent offices include Gemeindepräsident, Stadtpräsident, Gemeindeamtmann, and Stadtamtmann. Oberbürgermeister is the most common version for a mayor in a big city in Germany, the Ober- prefix is used in many ranking systems for the next level up including military designations. The mayors of cities, which comprise one of Germanys 112 urban districts usually bear this title. Urban districts are comparable to independent cities in the English-speaking world, however, also the mayors of some cities, which do not comprise an urban district, but often used to comprise one until the territorial reforms in the 1970s, bear the title Oberbürgermeister. In the Netherlands nominated by the council but appointed by the crown. In theory above the parties, in practice a high-profile party-political post, bourgmestre in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Democratic Republic of the Congo Bürgermeister Burmistras, derived from German. Burmistrz, a title, derived from German. The German form Oberbürgermeister is often translated as Nadburmistrz, the German-derived terminology reflects the involvement of German settlers in the early history of many Polish towns. Borgmästare, kommunalborgmästare, the title is not used in Sweden in present times, boargemaster Pormestari In history in many free imperial cities the function of burgomaster was usually held simultaneously by three persons, serving as an executive college. One of the three being burgomaster in chief for a year, the second being the prior burgomaster in chief, präsidierender Bürgermeister is now an obsolete formulation sometimes found in historic texts
18.
Social Democratic Party of Germany
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The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany. The party, led by Chairman Martin Schulz since 2017, has one of the two major contemporary political parties in Germany, along with the Christian Democratic Union. The SPD has governed at the level in Germany as part of a grand coalition with the CDU. The SPD participates in 14 state governments, nine of them governed by SPD Minister-Presidents, the SPD is a member of the Party of European Socialists and of the Socialist International, and became a founding member of the Progressive Alliance on 22 May 2013. Established in 1863, the SPD is the oldest extant political party represented in the German Parliament and was one of the first Marxist-influenced parties in the world. The General German Workers Association, founded in 1863, and the Social Democratic Workers Party, founded in 1869, merged in 1875, under the name Socialist Workers Party of Germany. From 1878 to 1890, any grouping or meeting that aimed at spreading socialist principles was banned under the Anti-Socialist Laws, in 1890, when the ban was lifted and it could again present electoral lists, the party adopted its current name. In the years leading up to World War I, the party remained ideologically radical in official principle, by 1912, the party claimed the most votes of any German party. Despite the agreement of the Second International to oppose the First World War, after 1918 the SPD played an important role in the political system of the Weimar Republic, although it took part in coalition governments only in few years. Adolf Hitler prohibited the party in 1933 under the Enabling Act – party officials were imprisoned, killed or went into exile, in exile, the party used the name Sopade. In the Soviet Zone of Occupation, the Soviets forced the Social Democrats to form a party with the Communists. In the Western zones, the Communist Party was later banned by West Germanys Federal Constitutional Court, since 1949, in the Federal Republic of Germany, the SPD has been one of the two major parties, with the other being the Christian Democratic Union. From 1969 to 1982 and 1998 to 2005 the Chancellors of Germany were Social Democrats whereas the other years the Chancellors were Christian Democrats, the SPD was established as a Marxist party in 1875. After World War II, under the leadership of Kurt Schumacher, the SPD re-established itself as a socialist party, representing the interests of the working class and the trade unions. With the Godesberg Program of 1959, however, the party evolved from a socialist working-class party to a modern social-democratic party working within capitalism. The current party platform of the SPD espouses the goal of social democracy, according to the party platform, freedom, justice, and social solidarity, form the basis of social democracy. The coordinated social market economy should be strengthened, and its output should be distributed fairly, the party sees that economic system as necessary in order to ensure the affluence of the entire population. The SPD also tries to protect the poor with a welfare state
19.
Central European Summer Time
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It corresponds to UTC + two hours. Other names which have been applied to Central European Summer Time are Middle European Summer Time, Central European Daylight Saving Time, and Bravo Time. Since 1996 European Summer Time has been observed between 1,00 UTC on the last Sunday of March and 1,00 on the last Sunday of October, the following countries and territories use Central European Summer Time. In addition, Libya used CEST during the years 1951–1959, 1982–1989, 1996–1997, European Summer Time Other countries and territories in UTC+2 time zone Other names of UTC+2 time zone
20.
Vehicle registration plate
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A vehicle registration plate, also known as a number plate or a license plate, is metal or plastic plate attached to a motor vehicle or trailer for official identification purposes. The registration identifier is a numeric or alphanumeric ID that uniquely identifies the owner within the issuing regions database. The first two letters indicate the state to which the vehicle is registered, the next two digit numbers are the sequential number of a district. Due to heavy volume of vehicle registration, the numbers were given to the RTO offices of registration as well, the third part indicates the year of registration of the vehicle and is a 4 digit number unique to each plate. In some countries, the identifier is unique within the entire country, whether the identifier is associated with a vehicle or a person also varies by issuing agency. In the vast majority of jurisdictions, the government holds a monopoly on the manufacturing of vehicle registration plates for that jurisdiction. Thus, it is illegal for private citizens to make and affix their own plates. Alternately, the government will merely assign plate numbers, and it is the owners responsibility to find an approved private supplier to make a plate with that number. In some jurisdictions, plates will be assigned to that particular vehicle for its lifetime. If the vehicle is destroyed or exported to a different country. Other jurisdictions follow a policy, meaning that when a vehicle is sold the seller removes the current plate from the vehicle. Buyers must either obtain new plates or attach plates they already hold, as well as register their vehicles under the buyers name, a person who sells a car and then purchases a new one can apply to have the old plates put onto the new car. One who sells a car and does not buy a new one may, depending on the laws involved, have to turn the old plates in or destroy them. Some jurisdictions permit the registration of the vehicle with personal plates, in some jurisdictions, plates require periodic replacement, often associated with a design change of the plate itself. Vehicle owners may or may not have the option to keep their original plate number, alternately, or additionally, vehicle owners have to replace a small decal on the plate or use a decal on the windshield to indicate the expiration date of the vehicle registration. Plates are usually fixed directly to a vehicle or to a frame that is fixed to the vehicle. Sometimes, the plate frames contain advertisements inserted by the service centre or the dealership from which the vehicle was purchased. Vehicle owners can also purchase customized frames to replace the original frames, in some jurisdictions licence plate frames are illegal
21.
Free imperial city
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The evolution of some German cities into self-ruling constitutional entities of the Empire was slower than that of the secular and ecclesiastical princes. In the course of the 13th and 14th centuries, some cities were promoted by the emperor to the status of Imperial Cities, essentially for fiscal reasons. The Free Cities were those, such as Basel, Augsburg, Cologne or Strasbourg, like the other Imperial Estates, they could wage war, make peace, and control their own trade, and they permitted little interference from outside. In the later Middle Ages, a number of Free Cities formed City Leagues, such as the Hanseatic League or the Alsatian Décapole, to promote and defend their interests. In the course of the Middle Ages, cities gained, and sometimes — if rarely — lost, some favored cities gained a charter by gift. Others purchased one from a prince in need of funds, some won it by force of arms during the troubled 13th and 14th centuries and other lost their privileges during the same period by the same way. Some cities became free through the created by the extinction of dominant families. Some voluntarily placed themselves under the protection of a territorial ruler, a few, like Protestant Donauwörth, which in 1607 was annexed to the Catholic Duchy of Bavaria, were stripped by the Emperor of their status as a Free City — for genuine or trumped-up reasons. There were approximately four thousand towns and cities in the Empire, during the late Middle Ages, fewer than two hundred of these places ever enjoyed the status of Free Imperial Cities, and some of those did so only for a few decades. The military tax register of 1521 listed eighty-five such cities, from the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 to 1803, their number oscillated at around fifty. These cities were located in small territories where the ruler was weak. They were nevertheless the exception among the multitude of territorial towns, Cities of both latter categories normally had representation in territorial diets, but not in the Imperial Diet. The cities divided themselves into two groups, or benches, in the Imperial Diet, the Rhenish and the Swabian Bench. To avoid the possibility that they would have the vote in case of a tie between the Electors and the Princes, it was decided that these should decide first and consult the cities afterward. Constitutionally, if in no way, the diminutive Free Imperial City of Isny was the equal of the Margraviate of Brandenburg. Instead, many found it more profitable to maintain agents at the Aulic Council in Vienna. At the opposite end, the authority of Cologne, Aachen, Worms, Goslar, Wetzlar and they were the most economically significant burgher families who had asserted themselves politically over time. The burgher status was usually a privilege renewed pro-forma in each generation of the family concerned
22.
Holy Roman Empire
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The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in central Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806. On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne as Emperor, reviving the title in Western Europe, more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The title was revived in 962 when Otto I was crowned emperor, fashioning himself as the successor of Charlemagne, some historians refer to the coronation of Charlemagne as the origin of the empire, while others prefer the coronation of Otto I as its beginning. Scholars generally concur, however, in relating an evolution of the institutions and principles constituting the empire, the office of Holy Roman Emperor was traditionally elective, although frequently controlled by dynasties. Emperor Francis II dissolved the empire on 6 August 1806, after the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine by Napoleon, before 1157, the realm was merely referred to as the Roman Empire. In a decree following the 1512 Diet of Cologne, the name was changed to Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, by the end of the 18th century, the term Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation had fallen out of official use. As Roman power in Gaul declined during the 5th century, local Germanic tribes assumed control, by the middle of the 8th century, however, the Merovingians had been reduced to figureheads, and the Carolingians, led by Charles Martel, had become the de facto rulers. In 751, Martel’s son Pepin became King of the Franks, the Carolingians would maintain a close alliance with the Papacy. In 768 Pepin’s son Charlemagne became King of the Franks and began an expansion of the realm. He eventually incorporated the territories of present-day France, Germany, northern Italy, on Christmas Day of 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor, restoring the title in the west for the first time in over three centuries. After the death of Charles the Fat in 888, however, the Carolingian Empire broke apart, according to Regino of Prüm, the parts of the realm spewed forth kinglets, and each part elected a kinglet from its own bowels. After the death of Charles the Fat, those crowned emperor by the pope controlled only territories in Italy, the last such emperor was Berengar I of Italy, who died in 924. Around 900, autonomous stem duchies reemerged in East Francia, on his deathbed, Conrad yielded the crown to his main rival, Henry the Fowler of Saxony, who was elected king at the Diet of Fritzlar in 919. Henry reached a truce with the raiding Magyars, and in 933 he won a first victory against them in the Battle of Riade, Henry died in 936, but his descendants, the Liudolfing dynasty, would continue to rule the Eastern kingdom for roughly a century. Upon Henry the Fowlers death, Otto, his son and designated successor, was elected King in Aachen in 936 and he overcame a series of revolts from an elder brother and from several dukes. After that, the managed to control the appointment of dukes. In 951, Otto came to the aid of Adelaide, the queen of Italy, defeating her enemies, marrying her. In 955, Otto won a victory over the Magyars in the Battle of Lechfeld
23.
Republic
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It is a government where the head of state is not a monarch. Both modern and ancient republics vary widely in their ideology, composition, in the classical and medieval period of Europe, many states were fashioned on the Roman Republic, which referred to the governance of the city of Rome, between it having kings and emperors. The Italian medieval and Renaissance political tradition, today referred to as humanism, is sometimes considered to derive directly from Roman republicans such as Sallust. Republics were not equated with classical democracies such as Athens, but had a democratic aspect, Republics became more common in the Western world starting in the late 18th century, eventually displacing absolute monarchy as the most common form of government in Europe. In modern republics, the executive is legitimized both by a constitution and by popular suffrage, for instance, Article IV of the United States Constitution guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government. The term originates as the Latin translation of Greek word politeia, cicero, among other Latin writers, translated politeia as res publica and it was in turn translated by Renaissance scholars as republic. The term politeia can be translated as form of government, polity, or regime, and is therefore not always a word for a specific type of regime as the modern word republic is. And also amongst classical Latin, the term republic can be used in a way to refer to any regime. In medieval Northern Italy, a number of city states had commune or signoria based governments, in the late Middle Ages, writers, such as Giovanni Villani, began writing about the nature of these states and the differences from other types of regime. They used terms such as libertas populi, a free people, the terminology changed in the 15th century as the renewed interest in the writings of Ancient Rome caused writers to prefer using classical terminology. To describe non-monarchical states writers, most importantly Leonardo Bruni, adopted the Latin phrase res publica. While Bruni and Machiavelli used the term to describe the states of Northern Italy, which were not monarchies, the term can quite literally be translated as public matter. It was most often used by Roman writers to refer to the state and government, in subsequent centuries, the English word commonwealth came to be used as a translation of res publica, and its use in English was comparable to how the Romans used the term res publica. Notably, during The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell the word commonwealth was the most common term to call the new monarchless state, likewise, in Polish, the term was translated as rzeczpospolita, although the translation is now only used with respect to Poland. Presently, the term republic commonly means a system of government which derives its power from the rather than from another basis. After the classical period, during the Middle Ages, many cities developed again. The modern type of itself is different from any type of state found in the classical world. Nevertheless, there are a number of states of the era that are today still called republics
24.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
25.
Imperial immediacy
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As confirmed by the Peace of Westphalia, the possession of imperial immediacy came with a particular form of territorial authority known as territorial superiority. In todays terms, it would be understood as a form of sovereignty. They formed the Imperial Estates, together with roughly 100 immediate counts,40 Imperial prelates and 50 Imperial Cities who only enjoyed a collective vote. Additional advantages might include the rights to collect taxes and tolls, to hold a market, to mint coins, to bear arms, the last of these might include the so-called Blutgericht through which capital punishment could be administered. These rights varied according to the patents granted by the emperor. Immediate rights might be lost if the Emperor and/or the Imperial Diet could not defend them against external aggression, as occurred in the French Revolutionary wars and the Napoleonic Wars. The Treaty of Lunéville in 1801 required the emperor to renounce all claims to the portions of the Holy Roman Empire west of the Rhine. The practical application of the rights of immediacy was complex, this makes the history of the Holy Roman Empire particularly difficult to understand, even such contemporaries as Goethe and Fichte called the Empire a monstrosity. Prussian historian Heinrich von Treitschke described it in the 19th century as having become a mess of rotted imperial forms. Pointing out that people like Goethe meant monster as a compliment in modern understanding, free Imperial City German mediatization Imperial Abbey Imperial Estate Imperial Village List of states of the Holy Roman Empire Braun, B. Reichsunmittelbarkeit in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, 2005-05-03
26.
Peace of Westphalia
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The Peace of Westphalia was a series of peace treaties signed between May and October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster, effectively ending the European wars of religion. The Treaty of Osnabrück, involving the Holy Roman Empire, Sweden, the treaties did not restore peace throughout Europe, but they did create a basis for national self-determination. Inter-state aggression was to be held in check by a balance of power, a norm was established against interference in another states domestic affairs. As European influence spread across the globe, these Westphalian principles, especially the concept of states, became central to international law. Peace negotiations between France and the Habsburgs, provided by the Holy Roman Emperor and the Spanish King, were started in Cologne in 1641 and these negotiations were initially blocked by France. Cardinal Richelieu of France desired the inclusion of all its allies, in Hamburg and Lübeck, Sweden and the Holy Roman Empire negotiated the Treaty of Hamburg. This was done with the intervention of Richelieu, the Holy Roman Empire and Sweden declared the preparations of Cologne and the Treaty of Hamburg to be preliminaries of an overall peace agreement. This larger agreement was negotiated in Westphalia, in the cities of Münster. Both cities were maintained as neutral and demilitarized zones for the negotiations, Münster was, since its re-Catholization in 1535, a strictly mono-denominational community. It housed the Chapter of the Prince-Bishopric of Münster, only Roman Catholic worship was permitted. No places of worship were provided for Calvinists and Lutherans, in the years of 1628–1633 Osnabrück had been subjugated by troops of the Catholic League. The Catholic Prince-Bishop Franz Wilhelm, Count of Wartenberg then imposed the Counter-Reformation onto the city with many Lutheran burgher families being exiled, while under Swedish occupation Osnabrückss Catholics were not expelled, but the city severely suffered from Swedish war contributions. Therefore, Osnabrück hoped for a great relief becoming neutralised and demilitarised, since Lutheran Sweden preferred Osnabrück as a conference venue, its peace negotiations with the Empire, including the allies of both sides, took place in Osnabrück. The Empire and its opponent France, including the allies of each, as well as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, between January 1646 and July 1647 probably the largest number of diplomats were present. The French delegation was headed by Henri II dOrléans, duc de Longueville and further comprised the diplomats Claude dAvaux, the Swedish delegation was headed by Count Johan Oxenstierna and was assisted by Baron Johan Adler Salvius. Philip IV of Spain was represented by a double delegation, the Spanish delegation was headed by Gaspar de Bracamonte y Guzmán, and notably included the diplomats and writers Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, and Bernardino de Rebolledo. The Burgundian lawyer Antoine Brun represented Philip as hereditary ruler of the Franche Comté, the papal nuncio in Cologne, Fabio Chigi, and the Venetian envoy Alvise Contarini acted as mediators. Various Imperial States of the Holy Roman Empire also sent delegations, Brandenburg sent several representatives, including Vollmar
27.
Verden (state)
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The historic territory of Verden emerged from the Monarchs of the Frankish Diocese of Verden in the area of present-day central and northeastern Lower Saxony and existed as such until 1648. The territory managed by secular lords for the bishops was not identical with that of the bishopric, the territory was referred to at the time as Stift Verden or Hochstift Verden, roughly equating to Prince-Bishopric of Verden. This territory described in local sources today incorrectly as Bistum Verden and, in 1648, was given the title Principality of Verden, sometimes referred to as the Duchy of Verden. The territory of Verden covered the part of the present district of Verden, the southern part of the district of Rotenburg and parts of the districts of Harburg. The Diocese of Verden was founded around 800 in Verden upon Aller as an episcopal see, originally held in personal union with Amorbach Abbey in the Odenwald, by the 9th century the bishopric had become a political football for the regional nobility. For example, the Amelungs promoted their favourite monks from Corvey Abbey to the episcopal throne and these privileges formed the basis of a future prince-bishopric, which materialised with the carve-up of the old Duchy of Saxony in 1180. In 1195 Prince-Bishop Rudolph I founded the castle of Rotenburg upon Wümme as a stronghold against the neighbouring Bremen prince-archbishops, later the castle took on the function of a prince-episcopal Residenz. Since the Investiture Controversy in the 11th and 12th century the cathedral used to elect the Catholic bishops in the Holy Roman Empire. Papally confirmed bishops were invested by the emperor with the princely regalia. In the early 13th century the Pope was increasingly involved by the local prince-bishops in regional affairs, from the early 16th century the prince-bishopric belonged to the Lower Rhenish–Westphalian Circle, a fiscal and military subsection of the empire. Verden sent its representatives to the diets of the empire and the Imperial Circle, at times the prince-bishops ruled in personal union the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen. In order to maintain the two seats in the diets the sees of Bremen and Verden were never united in a real union. The same is true for the collectively governed Duchies of Bremen and Verden which emerged in 1648 from the secularised two prince-bishoprics, around 890 AD the cathedral chapter was able to effect a separation of their estate from that of the bishop, under the law of property. The provost of St. Johns in Lüneburg was the 16th member and, several of the eight archdeacons were incorporated into the cathedral chapter. Verdens secualar territory in those days roughly covered what is now the part of the county of Verden. From 1558, a change of confession to Lutheranism took place across the Verden diocesan area at different speeds depending on whether its secular rulers promoted or inhibited the Reformation. Within Verdens secular territory, the actual Hochstift, the Reformation was concluded with the enactment of an ordinance by Administrator Eberhard von Holle. In 1630, during the Thirty Years War, a Roman Catholic bishop, Francis of Wartenberg, took over again as a consequence of the Edict of Restitution, thereafter, the Roman Catholic church was only represented there by the Apostolic Vicariate of Northern Missions
28.
Swedish Empire
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The Swedish Empire refers to the Kingdom of Swedens territorial control of much of the Baltic region during the 17th and early 18th centuries, a time when Sweden was one of the great European powers. The beginning of the Empire is usually taken as the reign of Gustavus Adolphus, who ascended the throne in 1611, in Swedish history, the period is referred to as stormaktstiden, literally meaning the Great Power era. The interests of the high nobility contrasted with the uniformity policy, in territories acquired during the periods of de facto noble rule, serfdom was not abolished, and there was also a trend to set up respective estates in Sweden proper. The Great Reduction of 1680 put an end to efforts of the nobility. However, in the course of this war as well as in the subsequent Scanian War, Sweden was able to maintain her empire only with support of her closest ally. Charles XI of Sweden consolidated the empire and ensured a period of peace, before Russia, Saxony and Denmark started an attack on his successor. Sweden emerged as a great European power under Axel Oxenstierna and King Gustavus Adolphus, during the Thirty Years War, Sweden managed to conquer approximately half of the member states of the Holy Roman Empire. After France had intervened on the side as Sweden, the fortunes would shift again. As the war continued, it turned more and more grim, although exact population estimates do not exist, historians estimate that as many as one-third of the people in the Holy Roman Empire may have died as a result of the war. At the same time, Sweden joined the other important northern European nations in founding overseas colonies, New Sweden was founded in the valley of the Delaware River in 1638, and Sweden later laid claim to a number of Caribbean islands. A string of Swedish forts and trading posts was constructed along the coast of West Africa as well, at the conclusion of the Thirty Years War, the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 granted Sweden territories as war reparations. Sweden demanded Silesia, Pomerania pay a sum of 200,000 Riksdaler out of the lands they would receive, or 2) surrender a fourth of the property itself. Against this, the over-taxed lower estates protested, and the Diet had to be suspended, the king intervened, not to quell the commons, as the senate insisted, but to compel the nobility to give way. He proposed a committee to investigate the matter before the meeting of the next Riksdag. Charles X Gustav had done his best to recover from the extravagance of Christina. However, his own desire for military glory may have caused problems for his country, in three days, he persuaded the Swedish estates of the potential of his attack on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. However, when he left Stockholm for Warsaw on July 10,1654, the Polish-Swedish War expanded into a general European war. He achieved passage over the Belts and emerged triumphant, only to die of sheer exhaustion, immediately after his death, a regency was appointed to govern Sweden during the minority of his only son and successor, Charles XI of Sweden, who was four years old
29.
Fief
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The fees were often lands or revenue-producing real property held in feudal land tenure, these are typically known as fiefs or fiefdoms. However, not only land but anything of value could be held in fee, including office, rights of exploitation such as hunting or fishing, monopolies in trade. In ancient Rome a benefice was a gift of land for life as a reward for services rendered, originally, in medieval Latin European documents, a land grant in exchange for service continued to be called a beneficium. Later, the term feudum, or feodum, began to replace beneficium in the documents, the first attested instance of this is from 984, although more primitive forms were seen up to one hundred years earlier. The origin of the feudum and why it replaced beneficium has not been well established, but there are multiple theories, described below. The most widely held theory is put forth by Marc Bloch that it is related to the Frankish term *fehu-ôd, in which means cattle and -ôd means goods. When land replaced currency as the store of value, the Germanic word *fehu-ôd replaced the Latin word beneficium. This Germanic origin theory was also shared by William Stubbs in the nineteenth century, a theory put forward by Archibald R. Lewis that the origin of fief is not feudum, but rather foderum, the earliest attested use being in Astronomuss Vita Hludovici. In that text is a passage about Louis the Pious which says annona militaris quas vulgo foderum vocant, a theory by Alauddin Samarrai suggests an Arabic origin, from fuyū. Samarrais theory is that early forms of fief include feo, feu, feuz, feuum and others, Samarrai, however, also advises medieval and early modern Muslim scribes often used etymologically fanciful roots in order to claim the most outlandish things to be of Arabian or Muslim origin. It lacked a precise meaning until the middle of the 12th century, in English usage, the word fee is first attested around 1250–1300, the word fief from around 1605–15. In French, the fief is found from the middle of the 13th century. In French, one also finds seigneurie, which rise to the expression seigneurial system to describe feudalism. Originally, vassalage did not imply the giving or receiving of landholdings, by the middle of the 10th century, fee had largely become hereditary. The eldest son of a deceased vassal would inherit, but first he had to do homage and fealty to the lord, historically, the fees of the 11th and the 12th century derived from two separate sources. The first was land carved out of the estates of the upper nobility, the second source was allodial land transformed into dependent tenures. The process occurred later in Germany, and was going on in the 13th century. In England, Henry II transformed them into important sources of royal income, the discontent of barons with royal claims to arbitrarily assessed reliefs and other feudal payments under Henrys son King John resulted in Magna Carta of 1215
30.
Aller
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The Aller is a 211-kilometre long river in the states of Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony in Germany. It is a right-hand, and hence eastern, tributary of the River Weser and is also its largest tributary and its last 117 kilometres form the Lower Aller federal waterway. The Aller was extensively straightened, widened and, in places, dyked, in a 20-kilometre long section near Gifhorn, the river meanders in its natural river bed. The name of the tree passed into Low German as Eller, Aller would therefore mean something like Erlenwasser i. e. alder water, which was probably due to the river banks being largely covered in alder trees that prefer wet locations. Similarly related would be such as the Alster, Iller. Krahes hypothesis is, however, hotly disputed in language circles, theo Vennemann used a modified version of Krahes model in his Vasconic substratum theory. The Aller rises in the state of Saxony-Anhalt in the west of the known as the Magdeburg Börde near Seehausen. It has several streams that run down the northeastern side of the Hohes Holz within the municipal boundaries of Wormsdorf, Ovelgünne. The Eggenstedt tributary is the most southerly of the source streams, the nearest large centres of population in the source region are Helmstedt, about 20 kilometres northwest, and Magdeburg around 25 kilometres east. Initially, the Aller flows rather like a canalised brook in a direction through low hills. As it does, it passes the Flechtingen Hills to the east, the river passes the villages of Eilsleben and Weferlingen. After about 60 river kilometres, it reaches Oebisfelde and the edge of the Drömling. After crossing the border between Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony, the Aller bends sharply southwest near Grafhorst. Here, the terrain is only about 55 metres above sea level. Between here and its mouth,150 kilometres away, its elevation drops by only about 40 metres, near Grafhorst, the Aller meets the Breslau-Magdeburg-Bremen glacial valley and then, for the most part, follows it. From here on, the river runs through grassland. Near Wolfsburg-Wendschott, the Aller passes under the Mittelland Canal in a culvert where there is a barrier that is impassable to fish, the Aller swings northwest again from Wolfsburg. In the area of the town it crosses the Allerpark and flows past the Allersee before flowing past the Barnbruch, south of Weyhausen, the Aller Canal branches off the Aller
31.
Saxons
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The Saxons were a group of Germanic tribes first mentioned as living near the North Sea coast of what is now Germany, in the late Roman empire. They were soon mentioned as raiding and settling in many North Sea areas, as well as pushing south inland towards the Franks. Significant numbers settled in parts of Great Britain in the early Middle Ages. Many Saxons however remained in Germania, where they resisted the expanding Frankish Empire through the leadership of the semi-legendary Saxon hero, the Saxons earliest area of settlement is believed to have been Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein. This general area also included the probable homeland of the Angles, Saxons, along with the Angles and other continental Germanic tribes, participated in the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain during and after the 5th century. The British-Celtic inhabitants of the isles tended to refer to all of these collectively as Saxons. It is unknown how many Saxons migrated from the Continent to Britain, the Saxons may have derived their name from seax, a kind of knife for which they were known. The seax has a symbolic impact in the English counties of Essex and Middlesex. Their names, along with those of Sussex and Wessex, contain a remnant of the word Saxon. The Elizabethan era play Edmund Ironside suggests the Saxon name derives from the Latin saxa, Their names discover what their natures are, More hard than stones, in the Celtic languages, the words designating English nationality derive from the Latin word Saxones. The most prominent example, a loanword in English, is the Scottish Gaelic Sassenach and it derives from the Scottish Gaelic Sasunnach meaning, originally, Saxon, from the Latin Saxones. Scots- or Scottish English-speakers in the 21st century usually use it as a term for an English person. The Oxford English Dictionary gives 1771 as the date of the earliest written use of the word in English. Sasanach, the Irish word for an Englishman, has the same derivation, as do the words used in Welsh to describe the English people, Cornish terms the English Sawsnek, from the same derivation. In the 16th century Cornish-speakers used the phrase Meea navidna cowza sawzneck to feign ignorance of the English language, England in Scottish Gaelic is Sasainn. Other examples include the Welsh Saesneg, Irish Sasana, Breton saoz, and Cornish Sowson, Sowsnek, the label Saxons was also applied to German settlers who migrated during the 13th century to southeastern Transylvania. From Transylvania, some Saxons migrated to neighbouring Moldavia, as the name of the town, Sas-cut, sascut is located in the part of Moldavia that is today part of Romania. The Finns and Estonians have changed their usage of the term Saxony over the centuries to denote now the country of Germany
32.
Charlemagne
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Charlemagne or Charles the Great, numbered Charles I, was the King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774 and Emperor of the Romans from 800. He united much of Europe during the early Middle Ages and he was the first recognised emperor in western Europe since the fall of the Western Roman Empire three centuries earlier. The expanded Frankish state which Charlemagne founded was called the Carolingian Empire, Charlemagne was the oldest son of Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon. He became king in 768 following his fathers death, initially as co-ruler with his brother Carloman I, carlomans sudden death in 771 in unexplained circumstances left Charlemagne as the undisputed ruler of the Frankish Kingdom. He continued his fathers policy towards the papacy and became its protector, removing the Lombards from power in northern Italy and he campaigned against the Saxons to his east, Christianising them upon penalty of death and leading to events such as the Massacre of Verden. Charlemagne reached the height of his power in 800 when he was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day at Old St. Peters Basilica. Charlemagne has been called the Father of Europe, as he united most of Western Europe for the first time since the Roman Empire and his rule spurred the Carolingian Renaissance, a period of energetic cultural and intellectual activity within the Western Church. All Holy Roman Emperors considered their kingdoms to be descendants of Charlemagnes empire, up to the last Emperor Francis II and these and other machinations led to the eventual split of Rome and Constantinople in the Great Schism of 1054. Charlemagne died in 814, having ruled as emperor for thirteen years and he was laid to rest in his imperial capital of Aachen in what is today Germany. He married at least four times and had three sons, but only his son Louis the Pious survived to succeed him. By the 6th century, the western Germanic Franks had been Christianised, Francia, ruled by the Merovingians, was the most powerful of the kingdoms that succeeded the Western Roman Empire. Following the Battle of Tertry the Merovingians declined into powerlessness, for which they have dubbed the rois fainéants. Almost all government powers were exercised by their chief officer, the mayor of the palace, in 687, Pepin of Herstal, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, ended the strife between various kings and their mayors with his victory at Tertry. He became the governor of the entire Frankish kingdom. Pepin was the grandson of two important figures of the Austrasian Kingdom, Saint Arnulf of Metz and Pepin of Landen, Pepin of Herstal was eventually succeeded by his illegitimate son Charles, later known as Charles Martel. After 737, Charles governed the Franks in lieu of a king, Charles was succeeded in 741 by his sons Carloman and Pepin the Short, the father of Charlemagne. In 743, the brothers placed Childeric III on the throne to curb separatism in the periphery and he was the last Merovingian king. Carloman resigned office in 746, preferring to enter the church as a monk, Pepin brought the question of the kingship before Pope Zachary, asking whether it was logical for a king to have no royal power
33.
Massacre of Verden
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The Massacre of Verden was a massacre of 4,500 Saxons under order of the Frankish king Charlemagne in October 782. The event took place during the Saxon Wars, an intermittent thirty-year conflict between the Franks and the Saxons, Charlemagne claimed suzerainty over Saxony and in 772 destroyed the Irminsul, an important object in Saxon paganism, during his campaign to Christianize the Saxons. The massacre occurred in Verden in what is now Lower Saxony, Germany, the event is attested in contemporary Frankish sources, including the Royal Frankish Annals. Charlemagnes massacre has been met with both disgust and approval throughout the modern period, beginning in the 1870s, some scholars have attempted to exonerate Charlemagne of the massacre by way of a proposed manuscript error but these attempts have since been generally rejected. While the figure of 4,500 victims has generally been accepted, the massacre became particularly significant and controversial among German nationalists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and in Nazi Germany. In 1935, landscape architect Wilhelm Hübotter designed a memorial, known as the Sachsenhain and this site functioned for a period as a meeting place for the Schutzstaffel. The king ordered the execution of 4,500 Saxons near the confluence of the Aller, Widukind was not among them since he had fled to Nordmannia. When he had finished business, the Lord King returned to Francia. There he called to his presence the chiefs of the Saxons and they all declared that Widukind was the author of the treason, but said that they could not produce him because after the deed was done he had fled to the Northmen. When he had wreaked vengeance after this fashion, the king withdrew to the town of Diedenhofen, for the year 782, the Annales Sangallenses Baluzii are more cryptic, this year the Lord King Charles killed many Saxons. Historian Alessandro Barbero says that, regarding Charlemagne, the massacre produced perhaps the greatest stain on his reputation. Thus the rebellion constituted an act of treason punishable by death, none of these attempts has proved credible. Roger Collins identifies the victims of the massacre as all Saxons held to have participated in the battle of the Süntel, Charlemagne may have found his precedent for mass execution in the Council of Cannstatt of 745/6, whereat his uncle Carloman I executed numerous leading Alemannic noblemen. The German historian Martin Lintzel argued that the figure of 4,500 was an exaggeration, on the other hand, Bernard Bachrach argues that the 4,500 captured warriors were but a small fraction of the able-bodied men in the region. The annalists figure of 4,500, he notes, is accepted by scholars. He puts it at less than the entire Saxon army that fought at the Süntel, and suggests that Widukinds personal retinue probably also escaped capture. He further argues that the Saxons were probably unable to mount another serious revolt for years after Verden. Matthias Becher, in his biography of Charlemagne, suggests that a smaller number of executions accompanied deportations in the year 782
34.
Duchy of Saxony
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Upon the 843 Treaty of Verdun, Saxony was one of the five German stem duchies of East Francia, Duke Henry the Fowler was elected German king in 919. In 1296 the remaining lands were divided between the Ascanian dukes of Saxe-Lauenburg and Saxe-Wittenberg, the obtaining the title of Electors of Saxony by the Golden Bull of 1356. In the late 12th century, Duke Henry the Lion also occupied the adjacent area of Mecklenburg, more probably, Saxon tribes from Land Hadeln under the leadership of legendary Hengist and Horsa in the late days of the Roman Empire had invaded Britannia. In 747 their rebellious brother Grifo allied with Saxon tribes and temporarily conquered the duchy of Bavaria. Pepin, Frankish king from 750, again invaded Saxony and subdued several Westphalian tribes until 758, in 772 Pepins son Charlemagne started the final conquest of the Saxon lands. Widukind finally had to pledge allegiance in 785, having himself baptised, Saxon uprisings continued until 804, when the whole stem duchy had been incorporated into the Carolingian Empire. Afterwards, Saxony was ruled by Carolingian officials, e. g, among the installed dukes were already nobles of Saxon descent, like Walas successor Count Ekbert, husband of Saint Ida of Herzfeld, a close relative of Charlemagne. Subdued only a few decades earlier, the Saxons rose to one of the tribes in East Francia, it is however uncertain. Liudolfs elder son Bruno, progenitor of the Brunswick cadet branch of the Brunonen, was killed in a battle with invading Vikings under Godfrid in 880. He was succeeded by his younger brother Otto the Illustrious, mentioned as dux in the annals of Hersfeld Abbey. His position was enough to wed Hedwiga of Babenberg, daughter of mighty Duke Henry of Franconia. One year later, Ottos son Henry the Fowler succeeded his father as Duke of Saxony, Henrys eastern campaigns to Brandenburg and Meissen, the establishment of Saxon marches as well as the surrender of Duke Wenceslaus of Bohemia marked the beginning of the German eastward expansion. Upon Henrys death in 936 at Memleben, his son Otto I succeeded him, according to Widukind, he was crowned king at Aachen Cathedral, with the other German dukes Gilbert of Lorraine, Eberhard of Franconia, Arnulf of Bavaria and Herman of Swabia paying homage to him. He thereby disregarded the claims of Hermans elder brother Wichmann, who in turn joined the revolt by Ottos half-brother Thankmar. In 953 and again in 961 King Otto elevated Hermann Billung to a viceduke in Saxony,973, Otto I dies in Memleben, Otto II becomes Emperor. Hermann Billung dies in Quedlinburg, Bernhard I Billung becomes duke of Saxony,1002, The death of Otto III marks the end of the Saxon emperors. 1011, Duke Bernhard I Billung dies, his son Bernhard II becomes duke,1042, Ordulf Billung, son of Bernhard II, marries Wulfhild, the half-sister of King Magnus of Denmark and Norway. Danes and Saxons fight against the Wends,1059, Ordulf Billung becomes Duke after the death of his father
35.
Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor
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Frederick I, also known as Frederick Barbarossa, was the Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 until his death. He was elected King of Germany at Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 and he became King of Italy in 1155 and was crowned Roman Emperor by Pope Adrian IV on 18 June 1155. Two years later, the term sacrum first appeared in a document in connection with his Empire and he was later formally crowned King of Burgundy, at Arles on 30 June 1178. He was named Barbarossa by the northern Italian cities which he attempted to rule, Barbarossa means red beard in Italian, in German, he was known as Kaiser Rotbart, before his imperial election, Frederick was by inheritance Duke of Swabia. He was the son of Duke Frederick II of the Hohenstaufen dynasty and Judith, daughter of Henry IX, Duke of Bavaria, Frederick therefore descended from the two leading families in Germany, making him an acceptable choice for the Empires prince-electors. Historians consider him among the Holy Roman Empires greatest medieval emperors, in 1147 he became Duke of the southern German region of Swabia, and shortly afterwards made his first trip to the East, accompanied by his uncle, the German king Conrad III, on the Second Crusade. The expedition proved to be a disaster, but Frederick distinguished himself, when Conrad died in February 1152, only Frederick and the prince-bishop of Bamberg were at his deathbed. Frederick energetically pursued the crown and at Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 the kingdoms princely electors designated him as the next German king and he was crowned King of the Romans at Aachen several days later, on 9 March 1152. Fredericks father was from the Hohenstaufen family, and his mother was from the Welf family, the Hohenstaufens were often called Ghibellines, which derives from the Italianized name for Waiblingen castle, the family seat in Swabia, the Welfs, in a similar Italianization, were called Guelfs. The reigns of Henry IV and Henry V left the status of the German empire in disarray, for a quarter of a century following the death of Henry V in 1125, the German monarchy was largely a nominal title with no real power. The king was chosen by the princes, was given no resources outside those of his own duchy, the royal title was furthermore passed from one family to another to preclude the development of any dynastic interest in the German crown. When Frederick I of Hohenstaufen was chosen as king in 1152, royal power had been in abeyance for over twenty-five years. The only real claim to lay in the rich cities of northern Italy. The Salian line had died out with the death of Henry V in 1125, one of the Hohenstaufens gained the throne as Conrad III of Germany. When Frederick Barbarossa succeeded his uncle in 1152, there seemed to be excellent prospects for ending the feud, the Welf duke of Saxony, Henry the Lion, would not be appeased, however, remaining an implacable enemy of the Hohenstaufen monarchy. Barbarossa had the duchies of Swabia and Franconia, the force of his own personality, the Germany that Frederick tried to unite was a patchwork of more than 1600 individual states, each with its own prince. A few of these, such as Bavaria and Saxony, were large, many were too small to pinpoint on a map. The titles afforded to the German king were Caesar, Augustus, by the time Frederick would assume these, they were little more than propaganda slogans with little other meaning
36.
Henry the Lion
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Henry the Lion was a member of the Welf dynasty and Duke of Saxony, as Henry III, from 1142, and Duke of Bavaria, as Henry XII, from 1156, the duchies of which he held until 1180. At the height of his reign, Henry ruled over a vast territory stretching from the coast of the North and Baltic Seas to the Alps, Henry achieved this great power in part by his political and military acumen and in part through the legacies of his four grandparents. Born in Ravensburg, in 1129 or 1131, he was the son of Henry the Proud, Duke of Bavaria and Saxony, who was the son of Duke Henry the Black, Henrys father died in 1139, aged 32, when Henry was still a child. King Conrad III had dispossessed Henry the Proud of his duchies in 1138 and 1139, handing Saxony to Albert the Bear and this was because Henry the Proud had been his rival for the crown in 1138. Henry III, however, did not relinquish his claims to his inheritance, a participant in the 1147 Wendish Crusade, Henry also reacquired Bavaria by a decision of the new Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1156. However, the East Mark was not returned, which became Austria, Henry is the founder of Munich and Lübeck, he also founded and developed numerous other cities in Northern Germany and Bavaria, a. o. Augsburg, Hildesheim, Stade, Kassel, Güstrow, Lüneburg, Salzwedel, Schwerin, in Brunswick, his capital, he had a bronze lion, his heraldic animal, erected in the yard of his castle Dankwarderode in 1166 — the first bronze statue north of the Alps. Later, he had Brunswick Cathedral built close to the statue, in 1147, Henry married Clementia of Zähringen, thereby gaining her hereditary territories in Swabia. In 1165, Henry married Matilda, the daughter of King Henry II of England and Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine, during Fredericks first invasion of northern Italy, Henry took part, among the others, in the victorious sieges of Crema and Milan. In 1172, Henry had taken a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, meeting with the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller, spending Easter of that year in Constantinople. By December 1172, he was back in Bavaria and in 1174 and he did not consider these Italian adventures worth the effort, unless Barbarossa presented Henry with the Saxon imperial city Goslar, a request Barbarossa refused. Barbarossas expedition into Lombardy ultimately ended in failure and he bitterly resented Henry for failing to support him. Declaring that Imperial law overruled traditional German law, the court had Henry stripped of his lands, Frederick then invaded Saxony with an Imperial army to bring his cousin to his knees. Henrys allies deserted him, and he finally had to submit in November 1181 at a Reichstag in Erfurt and he was exiled from Germany in 1182 for three years, stayed with his father-in-law, in Normandy before being allowed back into Germany in 1185. He was exiled again in 1188 and his wife Matilda died in 1189. When Frederick Barbarossa went on the Crusade of 1189, Henry returned to Saxony, mobilized an army of his faithful, only the churches were left standing. Henry the Lion remains a figure to this day. During World War I a nail man depicting Henry the Lion, nazi propaganda later declared Henry an antecessor of the Nazis Lebensraum policy and turned Brunswick Cathedral and Henrys tomb into a National Place of Consecration
37.
Town privileges
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Town privileges or borough rights were important features of European towns during most of the second millennium. Judicially, a borough was distinguished from the countryside by means of a charter from the monarch that defined its privileges. Common privileges involved trade and the establishment of guilds, some of these privileges were permanent and could imply that the town obtained the right to be called a borough, hence the term borough rights. Some degree of self-government, representation by diet, and tax-relief could also be granted, multiple tiers existed, for example, in Sweden, the basic royal charter establishing a borough enabled trade, but not foreign trade, which required a higher-tier charter granting staple right
38.
German town law
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The German town law or German municipal concerns was a set of early town privileges based on the Magdeburg rights developed by Otto I. The Magdeburg Law became the inspiration for regional town charters not only in Germany, the German town law was used in the founding of many German cities, towns, and villages beginning in the 13th century. As Germans began establishing towns throughout northern Europe as early as the 10th century, such privileges often included the right to self-governance, economic autonomy, criminal courts, and militia. Town laws were more or less copied from neighboring towns, such as the Westphalian towns of Soest, Dortmund, Minden. The granting of German city rights modelled after a town to a new town regarded the original model as a Rechtsvorort. For instance, Magdeburg became the sponsor of towns using Magdeburg Rights, as territorial borders changed through the passage of time, changes to German city rights were inevitable. During the course of the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, ultimately, the older towns laws, along with local autonomy and jurisdiction, gave way to landed territorial rulers. The only remnants of medieval town rights included in the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch of 1 January 1900 were single articles concerning family, the cities of Hamburg, Bremen, and Berlin are currently administered under Landesrechte, or laws of the federal states of Germany. Many towns granted German city rights had existed for some time. Many European localities date their foundation to their reception of a town charter, German town law was frequently applied during the Ostsiedlung of Central and Eastern Europe by German colonists beginning in the early 13th century. Because many areas were considered underpopulated or underdeveloped, local rulers offered urban privileges to peasants from German lands to them to immigrate eastward. Some towns which received a German town law charter were based on pre-existing settlements, many towns were formed in conjunction with the settlement of nearby rural communities, but the towns urban rights were jealously guarded. Initially German town law was applied only to ethnic Germans, but gradually in most localities all town-dwellers were regarded as citizens, regardless of ethnic origin. Lübeck law spread rapidly among the settlements along the southern shore of the Baltic Sea and was used in northern Mecklenburg, Western Pomerania. It formed the basis of Riga law in Riga, used in the lands of the Livonian Order in Livonia, Estonia, other variants included Brandenburg, Litoměřice, and Olomouc law. South German law, broadly referring to the codes of Nuremberg and Vienna, was used in Bavaria, Austria, and Slovenia, jihlava law was a variant used frequently by mining communities in Bohemia, Moravia, the mountains of Slovakia, and Transylvania. Other town laws were only suitable for or were modified to fit local conditions, such as Głubczyce, Görlitz, Goslar, Lüneburg, Lwówek Śląski, Nysa, Spiš, and Székesfehérvár laws. Many Transylvanian Saxon settlements in Transylvania, especially in the regions of Altland, Burzenland, in the 16th century Muscovy granted or reaffirmed Magdeburg rights to various towns along the Dnieper acquired from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
39.
Domfreiheit
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This area stretched only a few hundred metres from the outbuildings of the cathedral, at most, and was usually surrounded by a fortified wall. They belonged to the domain or Hochstift of the bishop. The area of the Domfreiheit was not part of the citys jurisdiction, but had its own jurisdiction. It contained the residences of the Domherren and their staff and this area was not subject to civic taxes - hence the term Freiheit. There were, thus, two distinct entities within the city walls. This led to ever greater tension in many cities over the centuries, as is clear, for example and he says, There have been many long and distinct quarrels between the citizenry and the clergy in the state. Therefore King Rudolph ordained by treaty that the council should be in charge of it. Where the Reformation found root, most cloisters were secularised and, as a rule and it did not last much longer in the cities which remained Catholic. With the secularisation of the Diocese of Bremen as Bremen-Verden in 1648, after almost eighty years as a Lutheran bishopric, from 1715 it belonged to Hanover and only in 1803 did it come under the control of the surrounding city. The rest of the city of Ratzeburg, however, belonged to the Duch of Lauenburg, relatively well preserved Domfreiheiten include those in Halberstadt, Hildesheim, Magdeburg, Merseburg, Münster, Meissen, Naumburg und Trier. Ernst Schubert und Jürgen Görlitz, Die Inschriften des Naumburger Doms und der Domfreiheit, Ursula Hoppe, Ursula, Die Paderborner Domfreiheit, Untersuchungen zu Topographie, Besitzgeschichte und Funktionen, München 1975
40.
Proto-cathedral
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A cathedral is a Christian church which contains the seat of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. The counterpart term for such a church in German is Dom from Latin domus ecclesiae or domus episcopalis, also Italian Duomo, Dutch Domkerk, when the church at which an archbishop or metropolitan presides is specifically intended, the term kathedrikos naos is used. In addition, both the Catholic Church and Orthodox churches have formed new dioceses within formerly Protestant lands for converts, consequently, it is not uncommon to find Christians in a single city being served by three or more cathedrals of differing denominations. In the Catholic tradition, the term cathedral correctly applies only to a church houses the seat of the bishop of a diocese. The abbey church of a territorial abbacy serves the same function, the Catholic Church also uses the following terms. A pro-cathedral is a parish or other church used temporarily as a cathedral, usually while the cathedral of a diocese is under construction, renovation and this designation applies only as long as the temporary use continues. A co-cathedral is a cathedral in a diocese that has two sees. A proto-cathedral is the cathedral of a transferred see. The cathedral church of a bishop is called the metropolitan cathedral. The term cathedral actually carries no implication as to the size or ornateness of the building, nevertheless, most cathedrals are particularly impressive edifices. The building is now under renovation and restoration for solemn dedication under the title Christ Cathedral in 2018, in the ancient world the chair, on a raised dais, was the distinctive mark of a teacher or rhetor and thus symbolises the bishops role as teacher. A raised throne within a hall was also definitive for a Late Antique presiding magistrate. The history of cathedrals starts in the year 313, when the emperor Constantine the Great personally adopted Christianity, in the third century, the phrase ascending the platform, ad pulpitum venire, becomes the standard term for Christian ordination. During the siege of Dura Europos in 256, a complete Christian house church, or domus ecclesiae was entombed in a bank, surviving when excavated. Otherwise the large room had no decoration or distinctive features at all, in 269, soon after Dura fell to the Persian army, a body of clerics assembled a charge sheet against the bishop of Antioch, Paul of Samosata, in the form of an open letter. Characteristically a Roman magistrate presided from a throne in a large, richly decorated and aisled rectangular hall called a basilica. The earliest of these new basilican cathedrals of which remains are still visible is below the Cathedral of Aquileia on the northern tip of the Adriatic sea. The three halls create a courtyard, in which was originally located a separate baptistery
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Górowo Ilaweckie, Poland
Havelberg, Germany
Bagrationovsk, Russia
Saumur, France
Warwick, England
Verden an der Aller travel guide from Wikivoyage
