Duchy of Magdeburg

The Duchy of Magdeburg was a province of the Margraviate of Brandenburg from 1680 to 1701 and a province of the German Kingdom of Prussia from 1701 to 1807. It replaced the Archbishopric of Magdeburg after its secularization by Brandenburg, giving to the Elector another influential seat to the Reichstag’s College of Princes. The duchy's capitals were Magdeburg and Halle, while Burg was another important town. Dissolved during the Napoleonic Wars in 1807, its territory was made part of the Province of Saxony in 1815. History The Archbishopric of Magdeburg began to be administered by secular princes, mostly Lutheran, in 1545 during the Protestant Reformation. In the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, the archbishopric was promised to the House of Hohenzollern of the Margraviate of Brandenburg upon the death of its incumbent administrator, August, Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels. The city of Magdeburg was also required to pay homage to the prince-electors of Brandenburg. In 1666, Elector Frederick William used his developing army to install a permanent Brandenburger garrison in the city. Brandenburg-Prussia inherited the Archbishopric of Magdeburg upon the death of August of Saxe-Weissenfels in 1680 and reorganized the secularized territory as the Duchy of Magdeburg, with the electors of Brandenburg as hereditary dukes. The Halle region (Saalkreis), an exclave of the province, was surrounded by the Principality of Anhalt, the County of Mansfeld (acquired by Prussia in 1790), and the Electorate of Saxony. Against the wishes of the duchy's Lutheran nobility, a Calvinist chancellor was appointed to govern the duchy. Through the leadership of August Hermann Francke, Halle became the center of Pietism in Brandenburg-Prussia.