The Bishopric of Halberstadt () was a Roman Catholic diocese from 804 until 1648 and an ecclesiastical state of the Holy Roman Empire from the late Middle Ages. Its capital was Halberstadt in present-day Saxony-Anhalt north of the Harz mountain range.

History

thumb|left|Halberstadt Cathedral
In the aftermath of the Saxon Wars, Emperor Charlemagne in 804 established a missionary diocese at Osterwieck (then called Seligenstadt) in the course of the Christianization of the pagan Saxons and Polabian Slavs. Under its (supposed) first bishop Hildegrim of Châlons the capital was moved to Halberstadt, confirmed by Charles' son Louis the Pious in a 814 deed. The bishopric's boundaries originally reached the Elbe and Saale rivers in the east, nevertheless, when Emperor Otto I founded the Archbishopric of Magdeburg in 968, Halberstadt lost the eastern half of its district to it.

The bishopric rivalled with Magdeburg to gain political influence in the days of the Ottonian and Salian dynasty. In 1062 Bishop Burchard II was sent to Rome as an Imperial mediator in the conflict between Pope Alexander II and Antipope Honorius II. The former favourite of Dowager Empress Agnes of Poitou and her son Henry IV in 1073 allied with Pope Gregory VII in the Investiture Controversy and became one of the leading figures of the Great Saxon Revolt.

In 1479 Elector Ernest of Saxony pushed the election of his 13-year-old son Ernest II, Archbishop of Magdeburg since 1476, as administrator in place of the resigned Bishop Gebhard von Hoym. The Magdeburg archbishops remained administrators, while in 1540 the Halberstadt territories became Lutheran during the Protestant Reformation. In 1566 Duke Henry Julius of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel became the first Protestant administrator.

In the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, it was secularized as the Principality of Halberstadt, and given to the electors of Brandenburg.

Bishops of Halberstadt

Category:States and territories established in 804Category:804 establishmentsCategory:1648 disestablishmentsCategory:HalberstadtHalberstadtHalberstadtCategory:Dioceses established in the 9th centuryCategory:History of Saxony-AnhaltCategory:Articles lacking sources (Erik9bot)
de:Bistum Halberstadtit:Vescovato di Halberstadtnl:Bisdom Halberstadtru:Хальберштадт (епископство)