Halberstadt

Halberstadt was a prince-bishopric of the Holy Roman Empire, centred on the city of Halberstadt. In 1337 Bishop Albert of the Welf house of Brunswick ruled its lands, which included Aschersleben.

The territory turned Lutheran in 1540 and was thereafter governed by Protestant administrators. The Peace of Westphalia secularised the bishopric in 1648 and granted it as a principality to the Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg-Prussia. In 1815 the Congress of Vienna placed it in the Prussian province of Saxony.