Brunswick-Lüneburg

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Brunswick-Lüneburg (German: Braunschweig-Lüneburg, also English: Brunswick-Lunenburg) was a historical ducal state during the period from the late middle ages through the late Early Modern era within the north-westeran demenses of the venerable Holy Roman Empire (Which consisted essentially most of modern Germany, and which included parts of Italy, parts of the Low Countries, Switzerland, Hungary and Austria).

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As the name implies, the main cities of this feudal state were Brunswick and Lüneburg through much of the late middle ages. Eventually Hanover, currently the capital of the federal state (or colloquially, Bundesländer) of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), grew into a city that economically dominated the region and later dukes made it their main administrative seat while keeping the family seat in the historic demense, hence giving one reason of the change to the title when the family ascended to the more recent and more prestigious "Elector" dignity.

As a latter day development, the eventual Electorate of Hanover was initially called the Elector of Brunswick-Lunenberg when the Holy Roman Emperor appointed Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Lunenberg an elector in 1696 (two years before his death) in a somewhat controversial move to increase the number of protestant electors—thereby offending the entrenched interests of the extant prince-electors who would no longer be so few—but with most matters in Europe during the times, it was part of the several-centuries-long running religious unrest and outright warfare (See Thirty years' war) triggered by the zealous advocates on either side of the protestant reformation and counter-reformation that masked dynastic ambitions of grasping noblemen feathering their own interests.

After a bit over a decade, the matter of the disputed electorate was settled upon the heir, and the new duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (ascended as duke 23 January 1698), George Louis I was able to style himself the elector of Hanover (or as is called by some using a family-seat engendered root, the "Elector of Calenberg") from 1708. It was not just happenstance but similar religious driven politics that brought about the circumstance that he was also been put into line of succession for the British crown by the Settlement Act of 1701— which was written to ensure a protestant succession to the thrones of Scotland and England in a day when anti-catholic sentiment ran high in much of Europe and through most of the island of Great Britain. In the event, George I succeeded his second cousin Queen Anne of Great Britain — the last reigning member of the House of Stuart, and subsequently formed a personal union from 1 August of 1714 between that crown and the duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg (electorate of Hanover) which would last until well after the end of the Napoleonic wars more than a century later—including even through the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and the rise of a new successor kingdom. In that manner, the "Electorate of Hanover" (the core duchy) was enlarged with the addition of other lands and became the kingdom of Hanover in 1814 at the peace conferences (Congress of Vienna) settling the future shape of Europe in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars.

[edit] Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg

The state emerged from the inheritance of the first Saxon state of Henry the Lion in the late 12th century. Henry was deposed by the Emperor as Duke of Saxony, but retained various Lower Saxon lands which were inherited by his children as the Duchies of Brunswick and Lüneburg.

The first duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg was Otto the Child, who reigned from 1235 on. After 1267 the duchy was split into two partial states, the lines of Lüneburg and of Wolfenbüttel (which later became a multitude of partial states), but all of them were ruled by the Welf dynasty and maintained close relations—not infrequently by the practice of marrying cousins—a practice far more common than one might think, even among the peasantry of the Holy Roman Empire, for the salic inheritance laws in effect, encouraged the practice to retain control of lands and benefits. The centres of power moved in the meantime from Brunswick and Lüneburg to Celle and Wolfenbüttel.

While there is a total of about a dozen subdivisions that existed, some of them were only dynastic and were not recognised as states of the Empire, which at one time had over 1500 such legally recognized entities. In the List of Reichstag participants (1792), the following four subdivisions of Brunswick-Lüneburg had recognized representation:

By 1705, outside of the Hanovarian dynasty ruling England, only two Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg survived, one ruling Calenberg, Celle, and other possessions, and the other ruling Wolfenbüttel.

[edit] From Lüneburg to Hanover

Main article: History of Hanover

One of the dynastic lines was the that of the dukes of Lüneburg-Celle, who in 1635 acquired Calenberg for a junior member of the family who set up residence in the city of Hanover. His sons inherited Celle in 1648 and thereafter shared it and Calenberg between themselves; a closely related branch of the family ruled separately in Wolfenbüttel. The territories of Calenberg and Celle were made an Electorate by the Holy Roman Emperor in 1692 in expectation of the imminent inheritance of Celle by the Duke of Calenberg, though the actual dynastic union of the territories did not occur until 1705 under his son George I, and the Electorate was not officially approved by the Imperial Diet until 1708.

The resulting state was known under many different names (Brunswick-Lüneburg, Calenberg, Calenberg-Celle, Electorate of Hanover); its ruler was often known as the "Elector of Hanover". Coincidentally, in 1701 the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg found himself in the line of succession for the British crown later confirmed in 1707, by the Act of Union, and inherited that creating a personal union of the two crowns in 20 October 1714.

[edit] History of the relationship to the British crown

The first Hanoverian King of England, George I of Great Britain was the reigning Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Herzog von Braunschweig und Lüneburg), and had finally been made an official and recognized prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire in 1708. His possessions were enlarged in 1706 from the dynastic division of Calenberg branch of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg when it was merged with Lüneburg-Celle branch to form the state of Hanover. Subsequently, George I took the name as Elector of Hanover. In 1700 and 1701, when the English Parliament had addressed the question of an orderly succession, with a particular religious bias toward a protestant ruler, from the childless ruling Roman Catholic Queen Anne (house of Stuart), it passed the Act of Settlement 1701 which put Duke George I, Elector of Hanover's mother, Sophia of Hanover and Grand-daughter of James I, into the line of succession after Anne of Great Britain. Sophia actually predeceased Queen Anne by a few weeks, but her heir was George I, who became king of Great Britain when his second cousin Anne died in August of 1714. As an interesting footnote, the consort of his cousin Queen Anne was the Duke of Cumberland, who's heirs later inherited the successor state, the Kingdom of Hanover in 1837, when the personal union could not continue under salic law via Queen Victoria (see below history).

His posterity, George II of Great Britain and George III of Great Britain retained the position of elector until the Holy Roman Empire was abolished by its last emperor in 1806, least Napoleon install enough puppets as electors to achieve his election as the Holy Roman Emperor. As one key belligerent to the war, the British king George III, contested the validity of the dissolution of the Empire and maintained separate consular offices and staff for the Electorate of Hanover until the peace conferences at the wars end. After the fall of Napoleon, George III regained his lands plus lands from Prussia as King of Hanover, whilst giving up some other smaller scattered territories. The day of small pocket states in Europe had closed. Thereafter, consolidation of larger blocks of territory in part drove European politics, and the modern states of Germany, Italy, and Belgium emerged.

[edit] After the Congress of Vienna

After the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, Calenberg-Celle and its possessions were added to by the Congress of Vienna ending the Napoleonic war being born anew under the name of Kingdom of Hanover (including Brunswick-Lüneburg). During the first half of the nineteenth century, the Kingdom of Hanover was ruled as personal union by the British crown from its creation under George III of the United Kingdom, the last elector of Hanover until the death of William IV in 1837. At that point, the crown of Hanover went to Williams younger brother, Ernest, Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale under the Salic laws requiring the next male heir to inherit, whereas the British throne was inherited by his first cousin, Queen Victoria.

Subsequently, the province was lost in 1866 by his son George V of Hanover during the Austro-Prussian War when it was annexed by Prussia, and became the Prussian province of Hanover.

[edit] Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel

Main article: Duchy of Brunswick

The Wolfenbüttel line retained its independence, except for the period from 1807 to 1813, when both it and Hanover were merged into the Napoleonic Kingdom of Westphalia. The Congress of Vienna of 1815 turned it into an independent country under the name Duchy of Brunswick. The Duchy of Brunswick remained independent and joined first the North German Confederation and in 1871 then the German Empire.


Today both polities are part of the federal state of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), Germany.

[edit] Dukes of Brunswick and Lüneburg 1235-1428

[edit] See also

For later rulers see:

See further:

[edit] External links

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Banner of the Holy Roman Emperor (after 1400) Holy Roman Empire – Lower Saxon Circle (1500–1806)
Ecclesiastical princes
Secular princes
Bremen† | Brunswick: Blankenburg (until 1731), Calenberg‡, Celle, Grubenhagen‡, Lüneburg‡, Wolfenbüttel | Hanover (from 1708)| Holstein: Glückstadt, Gottorp | Mecklenburg: Güstrow (until 1695), Schwerin, Strelitz | Rantzau (until 1734) | Regenstein | Saxe-Lauenburg‡
Imperial cities
* until 1648     † from 1648     ‡ until 1708