1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Stade
STADE, a town of Germany in the Prussian province of Hanover, situated on the navigable Schwinge, 35 m. above its confluence with the Elbe, 20 m. N.W. of Hamburg on the railway to Cuxhaven. Pop. (1905), 10,837. It carries on a number of small manufactures and has some shipping trade, chiefly with Hamburg, but the rise of Harburg has deposed it from its former position as the chief port of Hanover. In the neighbourhood are deposits of gypsum and salt. The fortifications, erected in 1755 and strengthened in 1816, were demolished in 1882.
According to the legend, Stade was the oldest town of the Saxons and was built in 321 B.C. Historically it cannot be traced farther back than the 10th century, when it was the capital of a line of counts. In the 13th century it passed to the archbishopric of Bremen. Subsequently entering the Hanseatic League, it rose to some commercial importance.[1] In 1648 Stade became the capital of the principality of Bremen under the Swedes; and in 1719 it was ceded to Hanover, the fate of which it has since shared. The Prussians occupied it without resistance in 1866.
See Jobelmann and Wittpennig, Geschichte der Stadt Stade (Stade, 1898).
- ↑ The Stade Elbe-dues (Stader Elbezoll) were an ancient impost upon all goods carried up the Elbe, and were levied at the village of Brunshausen, at the mouth of the Schwinge. The tax was abolished in 1267 by the Hanseatic League, but it was revived by the Swedes in 1688, and confirmed by Hanover. The dues were fostered by the growing trade of Hamburg, and in 1861, when they were redeemed (for £427,600) by the nations trading in the Elbe, the exchequer of Hanover was in the yearly receipt of about £45,000 from this source. Hamburg and Great Britain each paid more than a third of the redemption money.