prince bishopric · Germany and Central Europe

Archbishopric of Magdeburg

968 CE – 1680 CE · capital Magdeburg

Otto the Great's favoured archbishopric on the Elbe, head of the church in the Slavic east, which became a Protestant territory and then part of Brandenburg-Prussia.

Origins

Otto I founded a monastery at Magdeburg in 937 and, after years of negotiation with the Pope and the Archbishop of Mainz, raised it to an archbishopric in 968, with suffragans at Merseburg, Meissen, Zeitz (later Naumburg), Brandenburg and Havelberg. Otto and his first wife, Edith of England, are buried in the cathedral.

Rule and society

The archbishops ruled a territory along the middle Elbe and Saale. Archbishop Wichmann granted Magdeburg its town law around 1188, a model copied across central and eastern Europe. The Gothic cathedral, begun in 1209, was the first in Germany. Albert of Brandenburg's sale of indulgences as archbishop prompted Luther's theses in 1517.

Decline and legacy

Magdeburg became Lutheran, ruled by Protestant administrators, and the city was sacked by imperial troops in 1631. The Peace of Westphalia assigned the archbishopric to Brandenburg on the death of its administrator, which happened in 1680, when it became the Duchy of Magdeburg within Brandenburg-Prussia.

Lineage

Archbishopric of MagdeburgDuchy of Magdeburg 1680 CE – 1807 CE

Connections (1)

Archbishopric of Magdeburg was part of Holy Roman Empire968 CE – 1680 CE

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Cite this page

APA: The Epoch Institute. (2026). Archbishopric of Magdeburg. In The Epoch Institute States Register. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/archbishopric-of-magdeburg
MLA: “Archbishopric of Magdeburg.” The Epoch Institute States Register, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/archbishopric-of-magdeburg. Accessed .
Chicago: The Epoch Institute. “Archbishopric of Magdeburg.” The Epoch Institute States Register. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/archbishopric-of-magdeburg.
Harvard: The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Archbishopric of Magdeburg’, The Epoch Institute States Register. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/archbishopric-of-magdeburg (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random state ↻