www.newadvent.org Open in urlscan Pro
2400:52e0:1a00::1207:2  Public Scan

Form analysis
1 forms found in the DOM

../utility/search.htm

<form id="searchbox_000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0" action="../utility/search.htm">
  <!-- Hidden Inputs -->
  <input type="hidden" name="safe" value="active">
  <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0">
  <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="FORID:9">
  <!-- Search Box -->
  <label for="searchQuery" id="searchQueryLabel">Search:</label>
  <input id="searchQuery" name="q" type="text" size="25" aria-labelledby="searchQueryLabel">
  <!-- Submit Button -->
  <label for="submitButton" id="submitButtonLabel" class="visually-hidden">Submit Search</label>
  <input id="submitButton" type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" aria-labelledby="submitButtonLabel">
</form>

Text Content

 

Search: Submit Search



 Home   Encyclopedia   Summa   Fathers   Bible   Library 

 A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z 


Home > Catholic Encyclopedia > H > Hanover


HANOVER

Please help support the mission of New Advent and get the full contents of this
website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church
Fathers, Summa, Bible and more — all for only $19.99...

The former Kingdom of Hanover has been a province of the Prussian monarchy since
20 September, 1866. Its nucleus was a region inhabited, when its history began,
by Saxon tribes, which subsequently formed part of the old Duchy of Saxony. From
the year 1137, under the name of the Guelphic Lands (Welfissche Lande), it was
under the Dukes of Brunswick. In 1692 this country was raised to the dignity of
the ninth electorate, as Hanover (or Bruswick-Lüneburg). As such it consisted of
the Principalities of Lüneburg (Celle), Calenberg, Göttingen, and Grubenhagen.

After the partition of the Guelphic Lands (1569) it was extended to include the
County of Hoya in 1582, the County of Diepholz in 1585, parts of the County of
Schaumburg in 1640, the Duchy of Lauenburg in 1689, the Duchies of Bremen and
Verden in 1719, the Principality of Osnabrück in 1802, the Principality of
Hildesheim, Goslar, the Lower Eichsfeld, Eastern Friesland, the Duchy of
Aremberg-Meppen, the district of Emsbüren, the Sub-county of Lingen, and the
County of Bentheim in 1814, the Dominion of Plesse together with the Abbey of
Höckelheim and the Bailiwick of Neuengleichen in 1816. In 1714 Hanover was
connected with Great Britain through the personal union of its rulers.
Thereafter it was under a peculiar regime, ruled over at times by a
governor-general or viceroy. During the Napoleonic wars it was annexed now to
one and then to another state. By the Congress of Vienna it was raised to the
dignity of a kingdom, after the separation of Saxe-Lauenburg. A new constitution
was conferred upon the kingdom in 1819; this was amended in 1833, in 1840, again
in 1848, and, by the annexation to Prussia in 1866, was annulled.



The beginnings of Christianity in Hanover date from the time of the Emperor
Charlemagne. This monarch having conquered the Saxons under their chieftain,
Wittekind, after a war that lasted for thirty years, marked by unparalleled
stubbornness, opened the way (785) for the conversion of this contumacious race.
It was not until a comparatively late date that they were won over to
civilization, and even after their nominal conversion they cherished heathen
superstitions and customs for a long time. For centuries the Christian Church
continued to exert all its might and power in the effort to eradicate the relics
of paganism from the minds of this people. In this, however, she did not
completely succeed. Until far into the Middle Ages they continued obstinate,
notwithstanding the rigour with which the State and Church punished any relapse
into heathen customs. In a certain sense, these customs are not quite extinct
even at the present day. Various attempts to convert the Saxons were made, even
before Charlemagne, by St. Boniface and other apostles. Apparently they
succeeded in implanting Christianity in the Hanoverian Province of Eichsfeld and
the region directly north of it. The next foothold secured by the Faith was in
the North Thuringian counties of Eastphalia, where Charlemagne, as early as A.D.
777, bestowed churches at Allstedt, Riestedt, and Osterhausen in the
Friesenfeld, on the Abbey of St. Wigbert at Hersfeld. St. Liafwin, a Briton, at
Marklo, and Abbot Sturm of Fulda were less successful in their missionary
preaching, from 760 to 770. Thanks to the zealous co-operation of the Emperor
Charlemagne, the scattered missions were built up into bishoprics, but not until
the supremacy of the Franks over the Saxons had been firmly secured. The first
of these bishoprics was at Osnabrück, where a church had been in existence
before the year 787; Wiho appears to have been the first bishop, in 803. Another
bishopric was established, about the same time, at Mimigardeford (afterwards
Münster), where St. Liudger, a Frieslander, laboured successfully; and others at
Paderborn, Minden, and Verden. The Bishopric of Bremen, under St Willehad, was
added to the number in the year 787. The two bishoprics for Eastphalia proper
and Northern Thuringia, Hildesheim and Halberstadt, were created with the help
of Charlemagne's son and successor, Louis the Pious. In addition to this, the
Archdioceses of Cologne and Mainz extended their influence into the western and
southern portions of the Saxon country.

Aside from the episcopal sees, the abbeys took an exceedingly important part in
the work of converting and civilizing the Saxons, in the country that later
became Brunswick-Lüneburg territory. The most important of all was the Abbey of
Corvey, founded by Louis the Pious at the beginning of his reign. This developed
into not merely the chief source of Christian civilization and learning for its
immediate neighbourhood, but became the centre of an active and self-denying
missionary movement which carried its teachings as far north as Scandinavia. It
was from this place that St. Ansgar, the Apostle of the North, directed his
great campaign of conversion. Next in importance were the Abbeys of Bücken and
Bassum in the County of Hoya, Wunstorf, Lamspringe, and Gandersheim. The most
eloquent and brilliant testimony to the fervour and depth of religious feeling
that already inspired large sections of the Saxon people at the period is given
by the Old Saxon poem "Heliand" (Evangelienharmonie), the only monument in
German philology that has survived from the early days of Christianity in
Saxony. This poem is unique in its simplicity and grandeur.

It was not long before the ecclesiastical dignitaries, bishops and abbots,
became as powerful as the temporal lords, the dukes, margraves, and counts, even
in the Saxon country. They were supported by the rest of the clergy, then, and
for a long time afterwards, almost the sole custodians of culture and learning,
and exponents of business methods. The princes of the Church in Saxony during
the Othonian and Salic era included many men of rare intellectual endowments,
men, moreover, of extensive learning and of moral excellence. Their names will
always reflect honour on the German episcopate: names such as those of Bishop
Bernward and Bishop Godehard of Hildesheim; of Liemar and Adalbert, Archbishops
of Bremen; of Benno II of Osnabrück; of Meinwerk of Paderborn, and others.
Besides Benno II (died 1088), Drogo, (952-968) and Detmar (1003-1022) stand
pre-eminent among the Bishops of Osnabrück in the early Middle Ages. Benno II
was as illustrious on account of his knowledge and efficiency in building and
husband ry as because of his ecclesiastical and political ability. Detmar,
according to contemporary accounts, was one of the most learned men of his day.
Of the later bishops, Adolf (1216-1224), who was venerated as a saint, was
especially notable. Most of them had to fight against the encroachments of their
temporal and spiritual neighbours, and the nobility in general, so that the
entire period prior to the sixteenth century was taken up with endless,
devastating feuds, both internal and external. Little can be reported of the See
of Verden, for its history is enveloped in obscurity because of its limited
extent, and the bishops were, for the most part, insignificant or unfit men;
moreover, they frequently were changed so rapidly that even the really strong
characters among them had scarcely time enough to achieve anything noteworthy.
The Bishoprics of Paderborn, Münster, Minden, and Halberstadt, though larger
than Verden, had little influence on Hanover.



Much more important was the part played by the Church of Hildesheim and her
rulers, above all by Bishop Bernward (d. 1022), an exceptionally pious, learned,
and art-loving prelate, one of the most influential men of this period. The
Church canonized him in the year 1193, but even during his lifetime he looms up
a venerable and saintly figure, in the midst of wild excitement, wars, and
strife. Rarely do we meet with a prince of the Church who at the same time held
so brilliant a position in the world and was yet a man of such touching modesty,
of such learning and love of art, and so solicitous a father of the lowly and
the poor. He was the tutor, friend, and counsellor of his emperor; he conducted
negotiations for him and followed him into battle. He governed his diocese,
founded churches and abbeys, and also built strong fortresses for a protection
against foreign marauders, and raised the fortifications around his metropolitan
city. He took care of the needy and the sick and adjusted legal disputes. He was
not only a liberal patron of art and science, but was himself a scholar and an
artist and the foremost educator of his day. In the history of art his
importance is even greater than in political history or in legend. In his time
began the religious movement which, starting in Cluny, about the year 1007,
leavened the entire religious life of the Church; which, in the monasteries,
preferred asceticism to the practical work of the old Benedictine rule and the
confined views of the cloister, to freedom of motion; but which, moreover,
gradually infused its spirit into bishops and secular clergy and forced them to
take a political attitude fundamentally different from that which they had
hitherto held. The literary and artistic activity of this time was purely
religious and was notably conspicuous in monasteries and episcopal cities.
Widukind, a monk of the Abbey of Corvey, published, in 967, an historical work
on the fortunes and achievements of the Saxon race from its origin down to the
days of Otto the Great. Hroswitha, the nun of Gandersheim (d. about 1002), wrote
several dramatic and other poems. Much more brilliant and many-sided were the
achievements of Christian art, especially of architecture, calligraphy, and
metal work, whose grandest creations were inspired by Bernward of Hildesheim,
and bear the impress of royal magnificence and deep religious sentiment. They
may be looked upon as the finest products of the truly Christian spirit which in
the tenth and eleventh centuries pervaded Europe.

The steady growth of power and wealth in the Church, since the beginning of the
twelfth century, introduced an ever increasing spirit of worldliness. Even the
austerity that emanated from Cluny did not suffice to check it, inasmuch as it
was fostered by the Crusades. However, both spiritual and temporal powers sought
to stop this decay. The monastic orders themselves repeatedly attempted to
reform the monastic and ecclesiastical abuses, and this was done especially by
the newly founded Premonstratensian and Cistercian Orders in the twelfth
century. The former founded in Hanover two excellent centres for their
activities at Pöhlde and Ilfeld; but the latter established more than eighteen:
at Walkenried, Amelungsborn, Mariental near Helmstedt, Rigsdagshausen,
Michnelstein near Halberstadt, Lokkum, St. Mary's Convent at Osterode,
Wibrechtshausen, Bischofsrode, Mariensee or Isensee, Wöltingerode, Neuwerk zu
Goslar, Heiligkreuz near Brunswick, Wienhausen and Isenhagen, Altenmedingen, and
several other places. From these points of vantage monks and nuns most
efficiently promoted education and culture. Besides introducing rational methods
of husbandry, they fostered learning and the minor arts, erected churches, and
produced liturgical vessels and vestments that challenge our admiration to this
day. To the progress due to these causes the Church in Hanover owed the dominant
position it held since the fourteenth century, which had its sure material
foundations in the donations and gifts, both of money and property of every
kind, offered to the Church by the laity. As pre-eminent examples of wealth thus
bestowed, as well as of its wise administration, we may cite the cathedral of
Hildeshelin, the Abbey of Walkenried, St. Michael's Convent near Lüneburg, and
even such less prominent institutions as the Martinikirche in Brunswick, the
hospital of the Holy Ghost at Hanover; and there were others.

The Church now attained the summit of her power, influence, and prestige. While
the disintegration of the Empire was affecting all its ancient institutions,
while the administrative affairs of the State were bordering on anarchy, the
Church was the sole immovable bulwark of the country, the only thing permanent
amid the changes and revolution of the time. In the Hartz country, throughout
the valley of the Ecker, near the Brocken, over Elend and Hohegeiss, then down
and along the valley of the Zorge, were found her chapels of succour, her
hospices for travellers, her hospitals, infirmaries, and houses of worship,
where the wretched could find shelter and safety, where the sick and the maimed
were taken in and nursed. To the persecuted she afforded protection against the
rich and the powerful, against the despotism of princes and the aggressions of
the nobility, by using the numerous and effective means of punishment at her
disposal. When the abuse of her temporal power and wealth threatened to destroy
her, the Church twice reformed herself before the Lutheran revolt. The first
time was during the thirteenth century, through the instrumentality of the
Dominicans and Franciscans; and again, during the fifteenth century, by means of
the reform movement led by the Brethren of the Common Life under Johannes Busch
of Zwolle (1437-79), which had its origin in the Dutch Abbey of Windesheim.
Busch, one of the chief champions of the internal reform movement, laboured with
most signal success in Hanover, first in Wittenburg and Neuwerk, and then in the
Sültenkloster near Hildesheim. With the help of friends sympathizing with his
aims he thoroughly reorganized, from this place, most of the monasteries of
Lower Saxony, and revived their discipline and religious zeal.

This revival, however, was confined almost entirely to the religious orders,
while the secular clergy, especially the high dignitaries, became more and more
corrupt. This paved the way for the revolt against the Church, which convulsed
Germany under the lead of Martin Luther in the sixteenth century, resulting in a
lasting schism and the division of the country into two hostile camps. Favoured
by the internal dissensions called the Stiftsfehde and supported by the
burghers, Luther's innovations found ready entrance at first among the lower
classes, then spread through the larger cities amid more or less tumultuous
rioting, and finally gained the ascendancy even in the country, when the
reigning house in all its branches embraced the new doctrines. Duke Ernest of
Brunswick-Lüneburg, in 1529 and Duke Julius of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, in 1545,
reorganized ecclesiastical affairs along Lutheran lines. In this they were not
actuated by religious motives but by a desire to extend their possessions. The
establishment of the Protestant Church administration threw a great part of the
possessions and the revenue of ecclesiastical property and of the abbeys into
the princely exchequer. This, of course, increased their influence on the
religious views of their Church. Hanover had become almost entirely Protestant
by about the middle of the sixteenth century. Only the episcopal chapter of
Hildesheim and a few abbeys held out against the Reformation in that diocese,
until Bishop Ernest II of Bavaria (1573-1612) improved the situation somewhat by
inviting the Jesuits to Hildesheim. In Osnabrück the see was even occupied by
Protestant sympathizers, until here also the Jesuits, who were summoned in 1624
by Eitel Frederick of Hohenzollern, effected a tardy improvement.



The conversion, in 1651, of John Frederick, who was Duke of
Calenherg-Grubenhagen from 1665 to 1679, and resided at Hanover, led to the
establishment of several new mission parishes in the electorate. He organized
the Catholic congregations in Hanover, Hameln, and Göttingen, from Catholic
newcomers and numerous converts. Ernest Augustus I, his successor (1679-1698),
who annexed Celle, made a compact with the emperor, guaranteeing to Catholics
the right to practice their religion in the aforesaid places and in Celle. But
it was only when liberty of worship was accorded at the beginning of the
eighteenth century, and freedom of settlement was permitted towards its middle,
that numerous new Catholic parishes were established. Until the reorganization
of church affairs after the secularization of 1803 the country belonged to the
Vicariate Apostolic of Lower Saxony and the North. By the circumscription Bull
of Pope Leo XII, "Impensa Romanorum", 26 August 1824, the Kingdom of Hanover was
divided between the Bishoprics of Hildesheim and Osnabrück, the revenues of the
church regulated, the rules laid down for the election of bishops, and the
limits of parishes and succursals fixed. The agreement arrived at was not
carried out until 1928. Since then the Catholic Church in Hanover has grown
visibly stronger and the Catholic population has markedly increased. In a total
population of 2,500,000 in 1905, the Catholics numbered more than 325,000.




SOURCES

LAUENSTEIN. Hildesheim. Kirehen- u. Reinmationsgesch. (Hildesheim, 1736);
SPLITTLER, Gesch. d. Fürstent. Hannover seit d. Reformation (Hanover, 1798);
HÜNE, Getch. d. Königr. Hannover (Hanover, 1824-30); HAVEMANN, Gesch. d. Lande
Braunachweig u. Lüneburg (Lüneburg, 1837-38); LUNTZEL, Die ältere Diözese
Hildesheim (Hildesheim, 1837); IDEM, Gesch. d. Diözese u. Stadt Hildesheim
(Hildesheim, 1858); VON MANN, Gesch. von Braunschaeig u. Hannover (Gotha,
3884-92); WOKER, Gesch. d. kathol. Kirche in Hannover u. Celle (Paderborn,
1889); IDEM, Der Bonifatius-Verein 1849-1899, II (Paderborn, 1899), 84-97.


ABOUT THIS PAGE

APA citation. Albert, P.P. (1910). Hanover. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New
York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07127c.htm

MLA citation. Albert, Peter Paul. "Hanover." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 7.
New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910.
<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07127c.htm>.

Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Peter Flanagan.

Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D.,
Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.

Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address
is webmaster at newadvent.org. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I
greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical
errors and inappropriate ads.

Copyright © 2023 by New Advent LLC. Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

CONTACT US | ADVERTISE WITH NEW ADVENT