Verden

Verden an der Aller additionally referred to as Verden or sincerely Verden, is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, on the river Aller. It is the executive centre of the district of Verden. Verden is well-known for a massacre of Saxons in 782, committed at the orders of Charlemagne for its cathedral, and for its horse breeding. In the middle Ages there has been a bloodbath of allegedly 4,500 Saxons, by means of order of Charlemagne because of their involvement in a preceding uprising.

Verden became then in the Duchy of Saxony. After in 1180 a coalition of Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa and his allies had defeated the then Saxo Bavarian Duke Henry the Lion. He turned into eventually stripped of his duchies. Saxony become divided many of the imperial coalitionaries and so the Catholic Bishop of Verden won for components of his diocesan territory imperial immediacy, therefore organising the Prince Bishopric of Verden. On 12 March 1259 Prince Bishop Gerhard of Verden granted the area city privileges following the Bremian version of German town law.