administration. The total revenue and expenditure are each about £650,000 annually. The grand-duchy had a debt in 1907 of £2,958,409.
History.—The earliest recorded inhabitants of the district now called Oldenburg were a Teutonic people, the Chauci, who were afterwards merged in the Frisians. The chroniclers delight in tracing the genealogy of the counts of Oldenburg to the Saxon hero, Widukind, the stubborn opponent of Charlemagne, but their first historical representative is one Elimar (d. 1108) who is described as comes in confinio Saxoniae et Frisiae. Ehmar’s descendants appear as vassals, although sometimes rebellious ones, of the dukes of Saxony; but they attained the dignity of princes of the empire when the emperor Frederick I. dismembered the Saxon duchy in 1180. At this time the county of Delmenhorst formed part of the dominions of the counts of Oldenburg, but afterwards it was on several occasions separated from them to form an apanage for younger branches of the family. This was the case between 1262 and 1447, between 1463 and 1547, and between 1577 and 1617. The northern and western parts of the present grand-duchy of Oldenburg were in the hands of independent, or semi-independent, Frisian princes, who were usually heathens, and during the early part of the 13th century the counts carried on a series of wars with these small potentates which resulted in a gradual expansion of their territory. The free city of Bremen and the bishop of Münster were also frequently at war with the counts of Oldenburg.
The successor of Count Dietrich (d. 1440), called Fortunatus, was his son Christian, who in 1448 was chosen king of Denmark as Christian I. In 1450 he became king of Norway and in 1457 king of Sweden; in 1460 he inherited the duchy of Schleswig and the county of Holstein, an event of high importance for the future history of Oldenburg. In 1454 he handed over Oldenburg to his brother Gerhard (c. 1430–1499) a turbulent prince, who was constantly at war with the bishop of Bremen and other neighbours. In 1483 Gerhard was compelled to abdicate in favour of his sons, and he died whilst on a pilgrimage in Spain. Early in the 16th century Oldenburg was again enlarged at the expense of the Frisians. Protestantism was introduced into the county by Count Anton I. (1505–1573), who also suppressed the monasteries; however, he remained loyal to Charles V. during the war of the league of Schmalkalden, and was able thus to increase his territories, obtaining Delmenhorst in 1547. One of Anton’s brothers, Count Christopher (c. 1506–1560), won some reputation as a soldier. Anton’s grandson, Anton Günther (1583–1667), who succeeded in 1603, proved himself the wisest prince who had yet ruled Oldenburg. Jever had been acquired before he became count, but in 1624 he added Knyphausen and Varel to his lands, with which in 1647 Delmenhorst was finally united. By his prudent neutrality during the Thirty Years’ War Anton Günther secured for his dominions an immunity from the terrible devastations to which nearly all the other states of Germany were exposed. He also obtained from the emperor the right to levy tolls on vessels passing along the Weser, a lucrative grant which soon formed a material addition to his resources.
When Count Anton Günther died in June 1667 Oldenburg was inherited by virtue of a compact made in 1649 by Frederick III., king of Denmark, and Christian Albert, duke of Holstein-Gottorp. Some difficulties, however, arose from this joint ownership, but eventually these were satisfactorily settled, and from 1702 to 1773 the county was ruled by the kings of Denmark only, this period being on the whole one of peaceful development. Then in 1773 another change took place. Christian VII. of Denmark surrendered Oldenburg to Paul, duke of Holstein-Gottorp, afterwards the emperor Paul of Russia,[1] and in return Paul gave up to Christian his duchy of Holstein-Gottorp and his claims on the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. At once Paul handed over Oldenburg to his kinsman, Frederick Augustus, bishop of Lübeck, the representative of a younger branch of the family,[2] and in 1777 the county was raised to the rank of a duchy. The bishop’s son William, who succeeded his father as duke in 1785, was a man of weak intellect, and his cousin Peter Frederick, bishop of Lübeck, acted as administrator and eventually, in 1823, inherited the duchy. This prince is the direct ancestor of the present grand duke.
To Peter fell the onerous task of governing the duchy during the time of the Napoleonic wars. In 1806 Oldenburg was occupied by the French and the Dutch, the duke and the regent being put to flight; but in 1807 William was restored, and in 1808 he joined the Confederation of the Rhine. However, in 1810 his lands were forcibly seized by Napoleon because he refused to exchange them for Erfurt. This drove him to join the Allies, and at the congress of Vienna his services were rewarded by the grant of the principality of Birkenfeld, an addition to his lands due to the good offices of the tsar Alexander I. At this time Oldenburg was made a grand duchy, but the title of grand-duke was not formally assumed until 1829, when Augustus succeeded his father Peter as rulec Under Peter’s rule the area of Oldenburg had been increased, not only by Birkenfeld, but by the bishopric of Lübeck (secularized in 1802) and some smaller pieces of territory.
Oldenburg did not entirely escape from the revolutionary movement which swept across Europe in 1848, but no serious disturbances took place therein. In 1849 the grand-duke granted a constitution of a very liberal character to his subjects. Hitherto his country had been ruled in the spirit of enlightened despotism, which was strengthened by the absence of a privileged class of nobles, by the comparative independence of the peasantry, and by the unimportance of the towns; and thus a certain amount of friction was inevitable in the working of the new order. In 1852 some modifications were introduced into the constitution, which, nevertheless, remained one of the most liberal in Germany. Important alterations were made in the administrative system in 1855, and again in 1868, and church affairs were ordered by a law of 1853. In 1863 the grand-duke Peter II. (1827–1900), who had ruled Oldenburg since the death of his father Augustus in 1853, seemed inclined to press a claim to the vacant duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, but ultimately in 1867 he abandoned this in favour of Prussia, and received some slight compensation. In 1866 he had sided with this power against Austria and had joined the North German Confederation; in 1871 Oldenburg became a state of the new German empire. In June 1900 Frederick Augustus (b. 1852) succeeded his father Peter as grand duke. By a law passed in 1904 the succession to Oldenburg was vested in Frederick Ferdinand, duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, and his family, after the extinction of the present ruling house. This arrangement was rendered advisable because the grand-duke Frederick Augustus had only one son Nicholas (b. 1897), and his only brother George Louis (1855) was unmarried.
For the history of Oldenburg see Runde, Oldenburgische Chronik (Oldenburg, 1863); E. Pleitner, Oldenburg im 19 Jahrhundert (Oldenburg, 1899–1900); and Oldenburgisches Quellenbuch (Oldenburg, 1903). See also the Jahrbuch für die Geschichte des Herzogtums Oldenburg (1892 seq.).
OLDENBURG, a town of Germany, and capital of the grand duchy of Oldenburg. It is a quiet and pleasant-looking town, situated 27 m. by rail W. of Bremen, on the navigable Hunte and the Hunte-Ems canal. Pop. (1905), including the suburbs, 28,565. The inner or old town, with its somewhat narrow streets, is surrounded by avenues laid out on the site of the former ramparts, beyond which are the villas, promenades and gardens of the modern quarters. Oldenburg has almost nothing to show in the shape of interesting old buildings. The
- ↑ His father, Charles Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp (1700–1739), a descendant of Christian I. of Denmark, married Anne, daughter of Peter the Great, and became tsar as Peter III. in 1762.
- ↑ To this branch belonged Adolphus Frederick, son of Christian Augustus bishop of Lübeck (d. 1726), who in 1751 became king of Sweden.
Another branch of the Oldenburg family, descended from John, son of Christian III. of Denmark, is that of Holstein-Sonderburg. This was subdivided into the lines of Sonderburg-Augustenburg and Sonderburg-Glücksburg. Prince Christian, who married Princess Helena of Great Britain, belongs to the former of them. To the latter belong the kings of Denmark, Greece and Norway.
