ambit. The Advocacy of Amelinghausen appears in the fiscal register with the note: Uppe der Tecche, which Hammerstein Loxten suspects, is a description from the time before the destruction of the castle on the Lüneburg Kalkberg in which, in his opinion, the collection office for the income from the villages in this region was located. In the 15th century the following 39 villages belonged to the Advocacy of Amelinghausen: Munster, Ilster, Kohlenbissen, Schmarbeck, Trauen, Creutzen, Bispingen, Behringen, Haverbeck, Ehrhorn, Wilsede, Evendorf, Hörpel, Volkwardingen, Borstel, Hützel, Steinbeck, Garlstorf, Toppenstedt, Putensen, Südergellersen, Drögennindorf, Betzendorf, Diersbüttel, Rehlingen, Holtorf, Ehlbeck, Dehnsen, Etzen, Wohlenbüttel, Oldendorf, Marxen, Harlsem, Schwindebeck, Sottorf, Soderstorf, Rolfsen, Wetzen and Amelinghausen. The district advocacy of Amelinghausen The employment of district advocates (Amtsvögte) was the responsibility of the chancellery (Kanzlei) in Celle. The first six advocates were: Hans von Iburg, Harman Lucht, Joachim Brabandt, Fritz Eltze, Viktor Dolle and Peter Oberg. The names of the first six are known from a letter by the later district advocacy of Enckhausen dated 12 August 1646. The new administration of 1810–1866 The district administrative system, despite lasting until 1885, experience an interruption in the Napoleonic era. The French prefecture system was transferred to German territory in 1810. This system had four types of administrative and juridical levels. The largest was the département, that was headed by a prefecture, alongside whom worked a general secretary. In addition there was a prefecturate comprising three or four members, who exercised jurisdiction in the case of disputes in administrative matters. The département was divided into individual districts (Distrikte). The smallest units were the communes (Kommunen) or municipalities (Munizipalitäten). Twenty-five to thirty villages or communes were grouped into a mayoralty (mairie). At the head of a mairie was the mayor or Bürgermeister. Then there were the cantons (Kantone), that had about 5,000 inhabitants. The largest part of the Advocacy of Amelinghausen belonged from 4 July 1811 to the Mairie of Behringen. A new constitution of the then Hanoverian district constitution entered force on 1 October 1852. Since then, administration and justice have been separated. Development of administration under Prussian influence Despite the annexation of the region by Prussia, its administration and justice remained much as before. However, the Prussian state believed it necessary to have a special level of administration between the district office (Amt) and the state seneschal (Landdrostei). In Lüneburg, Prussia created seven such counties (Kreise). The resulting counties