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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: BOS-BRI |
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BREMEN , a city of Germany, capital of the free state of Bremen, and one of the Hanseatic towns. It lies on a sandy plain on both banks of the Weser, 46 m. from the North Sea and 71 m. S.W. from Hamburg by rail, on the main line to Cologne. Pop. (1905) 214,953. It has also direct railway communication with Berlin via Uelzen, Hanover and Bremerhaven. The city consists of four quarters,the old town (Altstadt) and its suburban extensions (Vorstadt) being on the right bank of the river, and the new town (Neustadt) with its southern suburb (Siidervorstadt) on the left bank. The river is crossed by three bridges, the old, the new (18721875) Kaiserbriicke, and the railway bridge, with a gangway for foot passengers. The ramparts of the old town have long been converted into beautiful promenades and gardens, the moats forming a chain of lakes.The romantic old town, with its winding streets and lanes, flanked by massive gabled houses, dates from the medieval days of Hanseatic prosperity. On the market square stands the fine town hall
hall
house
The industries and manufactures of Bremen are of considerable variety and extent, but are more particularly developed in such branches as are closely allied to navigation, such as shipbuilding, founding, engine
trade, mainly imports. By the completion of the engineering works on the Weser in 18871899, whereby, among other improvements, the river was straightened and deepened. to 18 ft., large ocean-going vessels are able to steam right up to the city itself. It has excellent railway connexions with the chief
cotton
chief
History.According to Brandes, quoting Martin Luther in the Lexicon Philologicum, the name is derived from Bram, Bram, i.e. hem = the river-bank, or confine of the land on which it was built. In 787 Bremen was chosen by St Willehad, whom Charlemagne had established as bishop in the pagi of the lower Weser, as his see. In 848 the destruction of Hamburg by the Normans led to the transference of the archiepiscopal see of Hamburg to Bremen, which became the seat of the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen. In 965 the emperor Otto I. granted to Archbishop Adaldag " in the place called Bremen " (in loco Bremun nuncupato) the right to establish a market, and the full administrative, fiscal and judicial powers of a count, no one but the bishop or his advocatus being allowed to exercise authority in the city. This privilege, by which the archbishop was lord of the city and his Vogt its judge, was frequently confirmed by subsequent emperors, ending under Frederick I. in 1158. Though, however, there is no direct evidence of the existence of any communal organization during this period, it is clear from the vigorous part taken by the burghers in the struggle of the emperor Frederick with Henry the Lion of Saxony that some such organization very early existed. Yet in the privilegium granted to the townspeople by Frederick I. in 1186 the emperor had done no more than guarantee them their personal liberties. The earliest recognition of any civic organization they may have possessed they owed to Archbishop Hartwig II. (11841207), who had succeeded in uniting against him his chapter, the nobles and the citizens; and the first mention of the city council occurs in a charter of Arch-bishop Gerhard II. in 1225, though the consules here named doubtless represented a considerably older institution. In the 13th century, however, whatever the civic organization of the townsfolk may have been, it was still strictly subordinate to the archbishop and his Vogt; the council could issue regulations only with the consent of the former, while in the judicial work of the latter, save . in small questions of commercial dishonesty, its sole function was advisory. By the middle of the 14th century this situation was exactly reversed; the elected town council was the supreme legislative power in all criminal and civil causes, and in the court of the advocatus two Ratsmanner sat as assessors. The victory had been won over the archbishop; but a fresh peril had developed in the course of the 13th century in the growth of a patrician class, which, as in so many other cities, threatened to absorb all power into the hands of a close oligarchy. In 1304 the commonalty rose against the patricians and drove them from the city, and in the following year gained a victory over the exiles and their allies, the knights, which was long celebrated by an annual service of thanksgiving. This was the beginning of troubles that lasted intermittently throughout the century. Bremen had been admitted to the Hanseatic league in 1283, but was excluded in 1285, and not readmitted until 1358. Owing to the continued civic unrest it was again excluded in 1427, and only readmitted in 1433 when the old aristocratic constitution was definitively restored. But though in Bremen the efforts of the craftsmen's " arts " to secure a share of power had been held in check and the gilds never gained any importance, the city government did not, as at Cologne and elsewhere, develop into a close patrician oligarchy. Power was in the hands of the wealthy, but the avenues to power were open to those who knew how to acquire the necessary qualification. There was thus no artificial restraint put upon individual enterprise, and the question of the government having been settled, Bremen rapidly developed in wealth and influence. The Reformation was introduced into Bremen in 1522 by Heinrich von Zutphen. Archbishop Christopher of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel (14871558), a brutal libertine, hated for his lusts and avarice, looked on the reforming movement
capital of the department of the Mouths of the Weser. Restored to independence by the congress of Vienna in 1815, it subsequently became a member of the German Confederation, and in 1867 joined the new North German Confederation, with which it was merged in the new German empire.See Buchenau, Die freie Hansestadt Bremen (3rd ed., Bremen, 1900, 5 vols.) ; Bremisches Urkundenbuch, edited by R. Ehmck and W. von Bippen (1863, fol.); W. von Bippen, Geschichte der Stadt Bremen (Bremen, 18921898) ; F. Donandt, Versuch einer Geschichte des bremischen Stadtrechts (Bremen, 1830, 2 vols.) ; Bremisches Jahrbuch (historical, 19 vols., 18641900) ; and Karl Hegel , Stadee and Gilden, vol. ii. p. 461 (Leipzig
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