VERDEN  , a

town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hanover, on the navigable Aller, 3 M. above its confluence with the Weser, 22 M . S.E. of Bremen by the railway to Hanover . Pop . (Igoo) 9842 . The most noticeable edifices are the beautiful Gothic cathedral, the churches of St Andrew and St John, a new Roman Catholic church (1894), and the celebrated cathedral school . Its industries embrace the manufacture of agricultural machinery, cigar-making, brewing and distilling . Verden was the see of a bishopric founded in the first quarter of the 9th century, or earlier, and secularized in 1648 . The duchy of Verden was then ceded to Sweden, passed in 1719 to Hanover and in 1810 to the kingdom of Westphalia . It was restored to Hanover in 1814, and was, with Hanover, annexed by Prussia in 1866 . See Ostenberg, Aus Verden's Vergangenheil (Stade, 1876) .