The
Bishopric of Lübeck was a
Roman-Catholic and, later,
Protestant diocese, as well as a state of the
Holy Roman Empire.
History
thumb|left|Lübeck Cathedral.
The original diocese was founded about 970 by
Emperor Otto I in the
Billung March at
Oldenburg in Holstein (Aldinborg or
Starigard), the former capital of the pagan
Wagri tribe. Oldenburg was then a
suffragan diocese of the
Archbishopric of Bremen, meant to missionize the
Obotrites. However in the course of the 983 Slavic uprising the Wagri shook off Imperial supremacy and in 1038, the bishops were barred from entering their diocese. In 1052, the dioceses of
Ratzeburg and
Schwerin were split off from Oldenburg and no bishop was appointed after 1066.
After the
Saxon count
Henry of Badewide had campaigned the Wagrian lands east of the
Limes Saxoniae in 1138/39, a new Bishop of Oldenburg,
Vicelinus was appointed in 1149.
Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, moved the seat of the diocese from Oldenburg to
Lübeck in 1160. When the
Duchy of Saxony was dissolved with Henry's deposition in 1180, the Bishopric gained
Imperial State (
reichsunmittelbar). Quarrels arose after the City of Lübeck gained
imperial immediacy in 1226 and as the territory of the state was centered around
Eutin, the town in 1309 became the residence of the bishops.
The Bishopric did not attempt to fight the
Protestant Reformation. In 1531 the
Free City of Lübeck, instanced by
Johannes Bugenhagen, had turned Protestant, and in 1535 the Lübeck
cathedral chapter and subsequent all its territories adopted the
Lutheran confession. The
Prince-Bishop was elected by the chapter; since 1586, all bishops were members of the
Holstein-Gottorp line of the
House of Oldenburg. After the 1648
Peace of Westphalia, Lübeck was one of only two Protestant prince-bishoprics in the Empire (together with
Osnabrück, which however was alternately led by Protestant and Catholic bishops).
With the
Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803, the Bishopric was
secularized. It became the
Principality of Lübeck and was given to the
Duchy of Oldenburg, since the last bishop
Peter I of Holstein-Gottorp was also prince regent of Oldenburg. The area remained an exclave of the
Free State of Oldenburg until it was incorporated into the Prussian
Province of Schleswig-Holstein in the course of the 1937
Greater Hamburg Act. The Duchy of Oldenburg shared its name with the town of Oldenburg in Holstein, the original seat of the Bishopric, only by coincidence.
Geography
The state had an area of 541 km²; as the
imperial city of Lübeck was not incorporated, its only city was
Eutin.
Notable bishops of Oldenburg and Lübeck
- Vicelinus (1149-1154), first bishop after the second Christianization
