Archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen

Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen
Erzstift Bremen
Active
1180–1648
Coat of arms
Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen within the Holy Roman Empire (as of 1648), the episcopal residence (in Vörde) shown by a red spot.
Capital		Bremen (seat of chapter) Vörde (seat of govt from 1219) Basdahl (venue of Diets)
Languages		Northern Low Saxon, Frisian
Religion		Roman Catholic
Government		Principality
Ruler: Prince-archbishop, administrator, or chapter (in vacancy)
•	1180–1184	Prince-Archbishop Siegfried
•	1185–1190	Prince-Archbishop Hartwig II
•	1596–1634	Admin. John Frederick
•	1635–1645	Administrator Frederick II
Legislature		Estates of the Realm (Stiftsstände) convening at Diets (Tohopesaten or Landtage) in Basdahl
Historical era		Middle Ages
•	Break-up of stem     duchy of Saxony	1180
•	Bremen city de facto     independent	1186, especially from the 1360s
•	Conquered by     Catholic League	Summer 1627
•	Conquered by     Sweden, Bremen     and Lübeck	10 May 1632
•	Seized by Sweden	13 August 1645
•	Secularised as the     Duchy of Bremen	15 May 1648
Currency		Reichsthaler, Bremen mark
Preceded by Succeeded by Duchy of Saxony Bremen-Verden Free Hanseatic City of Bremen Dithmarschen

Coat of arms

The Archdiocese of Bremen (also Archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen, German: Erzbistum Bremen, not to be confused with the modern Archdiocese of Hamburg, founded in 1994) is a historical Roman Catholic diocese (787–1566/1648) and formed from 1180 to 1648 an ecclesiastical state (continued under other names until 1823), named Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen (German: Erzstift Bremen) within the Holy Roman Empire. The prince-archbishopric consisted of about a third of the diocesan territory. The city of Bremen was de facto (since 1186) and de jure (since 1646) not part of the prince-archbishopric but belonged to the archdiocese. Most of the prince-archbishopric lay rather in the area to the north of the city of Bremen, between the Weser and Elbe rivers. Even more confusingly, parts of the prince-archbishopric belonged in religious respect to the neighbouring diocese of Verden, making up 10% of its diocesan territory.

Verden (German pronun­cia­tion: [ˈfeːɐ̯dən]) itself had a double identity too—as the diocese of Verden (German: Bistum Verden) and the Prince-Bishopric of Verden (German: Hochstift Verden). Each prince-bishopric had the status of an Imperial Estate (German: Reichsstand, plural: Reichsstände), each of which were represented in the Diet (German: Reichstag) of the Holy Roman Empire. From 1500 on the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen belonged to the Saxon Circle (later the Lower Saxon Circle; German: Sächsischer or, later. Niedersächsischer Kreis), an administrative substructure of the Empire. The Prince-Bishopric of Verden, on the other hand, belonged to the Lower Rhenish–Westphalian Circle (German: Niederrheinisch-Westfälischer Kreis, colloquially Westphalian Circle) and sent its own representative to the Diet. Even when the two prince-bishoprics were ruled in personal union, in order to maintain the two seats in the Diet they were never formally united in a real union. The same is true for the collectively governed Duchies of Bremen and Verden (German: Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden colloquially, but Herzogtum Bremen und Fürstentum Verden formally) which emerged in 1648 from the secularised two prince-bishoprics.