The town was one of the oldest emporia of the German trade for the
Wends who dwelt on the right bank of the Elbe. In 805 it is first mentioned in history. In 806 Charlemagne built a fortress on the eastern bank of the river opposite Magdeburg. The oldest church is also credited to this time. Magdeburg first played an important part in the history of Germany during the reign of
Otto the Great (936-73). In 929 King Otto I granted the city to his English-born wife
Edith as dower. She had a particular love for the town and often lived there. The emperor also continually returned to it. In September 937, Otto and his wife founded a Benedictine monastery at Magdeburg, which was dedicated to Sts. Peter, Maurice, and the Holy Innocents. The first abbots and monks came from
St. Maximin's Abbey, Trier. Otto immediately set to work to establish an archbishopric in Magdeburg, for the stabilisation through
Christianisation of the eastern territories. He wished to transfer the capital of the diocese from
Halberstadt to Magdeburg, and make it an archdiocese. But this was strenuously opposed by the
Archbishop of Mainz, who was the metropolitan of Halberstadt. afterwards a missionary bishop to the
Ruthenians (
Ruthenia), and Abbot of
Weissenburg in
Alsace. He was elected in the autumn of 968, received the pallium at Rome, and at the end of the year was solemnly enthroned in Magdeburg. The archdiocesan area of Magdeburg was rather small; it comprised the Slavonic districts of Serimunt,
Nudizi,
Neletici,
Nizizi, and half of northern
Thuringia, which Halberstadt resigned. The cathedral school especially gained in importance under Adalbert's efficient administration. The scholastic Othrich was considered the most learned man of his times. Many eminent men were educated at Magdeburg. Othrich was chosen archbishop after Adalbert's death (981).
Gisiler of Merseburg obtained possession of the
See of Magdeburg by bribery and fraud. Upon his death in 1004, there followed a brief conflict between
King Henry II and the cathedral canons before
Tagino was installed as archbishop. Tagino and his suffragans were relied upon heavily for military service in the
eastern marches. Among successors worthy of mention are the zealous Gero (1012–23) and
St. Norbert, prominent in the 12th century (1126–34), the founder of the
Premonstratensian order. exclave) by 1648, over present-day Saxony-Anhalt Archbishop
Wichmann (1152–92) was more important as a sovereign and prince of the
Holy Roman Empire than as a bishop. Wichmann sided with the emperor in the Great Saxon Revolt and was rewarded by recognising the archepiscopal and the cathedral capitular
temporalities as a state of imperial immediacy within the Holy Roman Empire, thus Wichmann was the first to add the title secular prince to his ecclesiastical archbishop. Albrecht II (1205–32) quarrelled with
Otto II, Margrave of Brandenburg (1198–1215), because he had pronounced the pope's ban against the latter and this war greatly damaged the archbishopric. In 1208 he began to build the present
Cathedral of Magdeburg, which was only consecrated in 1263, and never entirely finished;
Günther I (1277–79) hardly escaped a serious war with the Margrave
Otto IV, who was incensed because his brother
Eric of Brandenburg had not been elected archbishop. The Brandenburgers succeeded in forcing Günther I and
Bernard III (1279–1281) to resign and in making Eric archbishop (1283–1295). Cardinal
Albert of Brandenburg (1513–45), on account of his insecure position, as well as being crippled by a perpetual lack of funds, gave some occasion for the spread of
Lutheranism in his diocese, although himself opposing the
Reformation. It is not true that he became a Lutheran and wished to retain his see as a secular principality, and just as untrue that in the Kalbe Parliament in 1541 he consented to the introduction of the Reformation in order to have his debts paid. His successors were the zealous Catholics
John Albert of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1545–1550), who however could accomplish very little, and
Frederick IV of Brandenburg, who died in 1552.
Administrators who were secular princes now took the place of the archbishop, and they, as well as the majority of the cathedral chapter and the inhabitants of the archdiocese, were usually Protestant. They belonged to the Hohenzollern
House of Brandenburg, which had adopted Calvinism in 1613.
Christian William was taken prisoner in 1631 after the
sack of Magdeburg, and went over to the Catholic Church in
Vienna. At the time of the
Peace of Prague (1635), the Archbishopric of Magdeburg fell to
August, Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels. In the
Treaty of Westphalia (1648), the expectancy to the archbishopric was promised to
Brandenburg-Prussia upon the death of August. When the Saxon prince died in 1680, the archbishopric was secularised by Brandenburg and transformed into the
Duchy of Magdeburg. The remaining Catholics in the area were under the jurisdiction of the
Apostolic Vicariate of the Northern Missions between 1670 and 1709, and again from 1780 to 1821. Between 1709 and 1780 the
Apostolic Vicariate of Upper and Lower Saxony was the competent Catholic jurisdiction. In 1821, the area was transferred in Catholic respect to the
Diocese of Paderborn. In 1994, the
Diocese of Magdeburg was founded in the area. == Archbishops and administrators ==