It had its origins in a small lordship on the Lippe river, first attested in 1123, and lands leased from the Bishopric of Paderborn from 1173.

In the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, the lords of Lippe founded several cities (Lippstadt, Lemgo, Horn, Blomberg, and Detmold), the earliest city-foundations in Westphalia.

Lippe was a centre of conflict during the Reformation as Count Simon V attempted to prevent Protestantism from spreading within his territory by force.

Simon VI converted to Calvinism in 1605, leading to a prolonged conflict with Lemgo, which eventually remained Lutheran.

The Counts' efforts to centralise the state and expand its military and bureaucracy in the eighteenth century were stymied by the power of the junior lines and the nobility.

Between 1332 and 1358, the lords of Lippe acquired large parts of the County of Schwalenberg [de] in the southeast and extended their possessions northwards up to the Weser river, through the acquisition of Varenholz and Langenholzhausen.

However Count Otto VI of Tecklenburg also claimed the legacy as the son-in-law of Bernhard V, leading to a long-running feud over Rheda and Lipperode that only concluded in 1401.

[3] In addition, he had to surrender part of his lordship to Hesse, receiving them back as hereditary fiefs and becoming a vassal of the Hessian Landgraves.

However, Simon V was vassal to two liege lords: the Prince-Bishops of Paderborn, who were Catholic, and Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, who had been Lutheran since 1524.

The first contact with Lutheranism was probably the reading of Martin Luther's 95 Theses in Lemgo in 1518 - only a year after their original publication.

Following a series of five assemblies at Cappel, the cities and nobility decided to introduce a Protestant church order for Lippe, which was completed on 15 September 1538.

Multifaceted and curious, he probably mastered most aspects of contemporary scholarship, as shown by Tycho Brahe's gift to him of a magnificent copy of his star catalogue, Astronomiae instauratae mechanica.

"The... methods by which the general resistance was broken were good debating, instruction, admonition, removal from office, and employment of Reformed priests.

"[4] The conversion of Lippe to Calvinism is generally dated to 1605, when Simon VI first took the reformed eucharist (with wine and bread rather than wafers).

This led to a long, bitter conflict, which continued under Simon's successors and even saw Lemgo attack the county's castle at Brake.

Although he had adopted primogeniture in 1593, he provided substantial compensation for his younger sons through paréage (recognition of joint sovereignty).

The Alverissen line gained control of part of the County of Schaumburg in 1644 and founded Schaumburg-Lippe, which had Imperial immediacy like Lippe itself.

At the beginning of the war, Christian "the Cool" of Brunswick marched through Lippe on his way to attack Paderborn, as did the Imperial army under Tilly, which was sent to stop him.

In the following years, Lippe suffered from heavy war taxes, the occasional passage of armies, and increasing brigandage.

Until 1709, the main conflicts were with the Brake line, which opposed Count Frederick Adolphus' aspirations to an absolute monarchy.

In 1705, Lippe-Brake even concluded a protection treaty with Prussia and attempted to separate Brake's administration off from Lippe altogether.

In Lippe this mainly meant the right of the nobles to participate not just in the approval of laws, but also in levying, raising, and even spending taxes.

They sought to replace regular parliaments with the so-called Kommunikationstage ("communication days"), at which real conclusions could not be reached.