Talk:Henry Julius, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg

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Heinrich Julius was Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, not Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Wikipedia is the only place I ran across that makes this mistake. The Catholic Encyclopedia even gets it right.

The page "House Of Brunswick" at http://www.class.uh.edu/gbrown/philosophers/leibniz/Brunswick/Brunswick.html makes it clear that the houses of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and Brunswick-Lüneburg were separated during the entire lifetime of Duke Heinrich Julius, and were not re-joined until 1634, 21 years after his death.

From that page: "His sons, however, Bernhard I. (d. 1434) and Heinrich the Mild (d. 1416), succeeded in incorporating Lüneburg with Brunswick -  Wolfenbüttel: Bernhard inherited Lüneburg (founder of the Middle House of Lüneburg) and Heinrich inherited  Brunswick (founder of the Middle House of Brunswick).  In 1428 the only surviving son of Magnus II.,  Bernhard, was forced to partition the duchy, retaining Lüneburg for himself and ceding Brunswick to his  nephews, Wilhelm the Victorious (1400-1482) and Heinrich, who in 1432 divided Brunswick into Calenberg  and Wolfenbüttel.  In1473, however, Wilhelm, who had acquired Göttingen in 1463, united Calenberg,  Wolfenbüttel, and Göttingen; but they were divided again from 1495 to 1584.  The son of Wilhelm the  Victorious, Wilhelm II. (d. 1503), had two sons, Heinrich the Elder (1463-1514), who inherited Brunswick -  Wolfenbüttel in 1491, and Erich I. (1470-1540), who inherited Calenberg in the same year. With the death of duke Erich II. (1528-1584), who was the son of duke Erich I. and the great grandson of Wilhelm the Victorious, Julius (1528-1589), the third son of Heinrich the Younger (1489-1568),  inherited the principality  of Calenberg - Göttingen. Julius had already inherited Brunswick - Wolfenbüttel upon the death of his father in 1568, so Brunswick - Wolfenbüttel and Calenberg - Göttingen were once again united under his rule in  1584. In 1596, under the rule of his son, Heinrich Julius (1564-1613), Grubenhagen was added to it. However, his grandson, duke Friedrich Ulrich (1529-1634), was forced to cede this territory to Lüneburg in 1617."

It is clear from this that the houses of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and Brunswick-Lüneburg were separate during the entire lifetime of Heinrich Julius.


 * True, the territories were separated (as the article clearly implies), but his title was still "Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg". Confusing as it it is, all the subdivisions of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Wolfenbüttel, Calenberg, Celle...) used the same title, since this was the title Otto the Child had originally received, and they all considered themselves equal to each other. Chl 01:25, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

So everywhere besides this page refers to him as the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel to "unconfuse" us moderns, rather than because that is what he actually called himself?