Qualla: Lordship of Gödens https://qualla.com/lordship-of-godens en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:35 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/t/8/lordship-of-godens-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Lordship of Gödens https://qualla.com/lordship-of-godens Lordship of Gödens: Introduction https://qualla.com/lordship-of-godens/ Photo credit ~, CC BY-SA 4.0. Five churches. Eight hundred residents. That is the arithmetic of Neustadtgödens in the second half of the 17th century, a small market town inside a small feudal lordship on the eastern edge of the East Frisian peninsula. Most German towns this size had one church. Some had two if the Reformation had drawn a line through them. Neustadtgödens had Reformed, Lutheran, Catholic, Mennonite, and Jewish congregations - five communities of faith, each with their own house of worship, all crammed into a settlement you can walk across in fifteen minutes. The lords of Gödens were not running this experiment out of any deep belief in pluralism. They were running it for cash.

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/t/8/lordship-of-godens-wp/u1t8-lordship-of-g-dens-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Lordship of Gödens: The Chieftain Who Switched Sides https://qualla.com/lordship-of-godens/ Photo credit TotaFrisia, CC0. The story begins in 1451 with a North Frisian chieftain named Edo Boing, the first to sign documents as Hovetling of Gödens. He held his land under the nominal rule of Jever, but he and the Jever chieftains spent most of their time in open hostility. When Edo died in 1481, the lo...

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/t/8/lordship-of-godens-wp/u1t8-lordship-of-g-dens-the-chieftain-who-switched-sides.mp3 0:06 2 full Lordship of Gödens: Building a Town for Profit https://qualla.com/lordship-of-godens/ Photo credit Rabanus Flavus, CC0. In 1517 the family built a new two-winged moated castle to replace the original keep, which had been wrecked in 1514 during the Saxon Feud. By 1544 the lord's wife, Hebrich von Inn- und Kniphausen, had organised the founding of Neustadtgödens - new town Gödens - on reclaimed mars...

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/t/8/lordship-of-godens-wp/u1t8-lordship-of-g-dens-building-a-town-for-profit.mp3 0:06 3 full Lordship of Gödens: The Dam That Killed Trade https://qualla.com/lordship-of-godens/ Photo credit TotaFrisia, CC0. Then in 1597 the Counts of Oldenburg started building the Ellenser Damm, a coastal dyke that cut Neustadtgödens off from direct access to the Jade Bight. The town's sluice harbour was now an inland canal-port, reached only by working through Oldenburg-controlled waterways. The lo...

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/t/8/lordship-of-godens-wp/u1t8-lordship-of-g-dens-the-dam-that-killed-trade.mp3 0:06 4 full Lordship of Gödens: Five Faiths, Five Churches https://qualla.com/lordship-of-godens/ Photo credit TotaFrisia, CC0. The architectural consequence is what makes Neustadtgödens unusual even today. The Reformed community built first, joined within a year by a Catholic congregation - the Catholic St. Joseph's Church was the first post-Reformation Catholic church built anywhere on the East Frisian ...

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/t/8/lordship-of-godens-wp/u1t8-lordship-of-g-dens-five-faiths-five-churches.mp3 0:06 5 full Lordship of Gödens: What Stayed Behind https://qualla.com/lordship-of-godens/ Photo credit TotaFrisia, CC0. In 1692 the Frydag family - which had inherited the lordship through marriage - was raised to the rank of count by Emperor Leopold I. The line later died out and the lordship passed to the Wedel-Jarlsberg family of Westphalia, who still own Gödens Castle today. The political lord...

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/t/8/lordship-of-godens-wp/u1t8-lordship-of-g-dens-what-stayed-behind.mp3 0:06 6 full