Verden

Verden an der Aller, also called Verden or simply Verden, is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, on the river Aller. It is the administrative centre of the district of Verden.Verden is famous for a massacre of Saxons in 782, committed on the orders of Charlemagne, for its cathedral and for its horse breeding.HistoryIn the Middle Ages there was a massacre of allegedly 4,500 Saxons, by order of Charlemagne because of their involvement in a preceding uprising. Verden was then within 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 was subsequently stripped of his duchies. Saxony was divided among the imperial coalitionaries and so the Catholic Bishop of Verden gained for parts of his diocesan territory imperial immediacy, thus establishing the Prince-Bishopric of Verden.On 12 March 1259 Prince-Bishop Gerhard of Verden granted the place town privileges following the Bremian version of German town law. In the 15th century Verden gained considerable independence as a Free Imperial City, immediately under the emperors (imperial immediacy), circumventing its former overlords the prince-bishops, who still held the cathedral and pertaining premises in town as an cathedral immunity district.