Margraviate of Meissen
Encyclopedia
Marches
A march or mark refers to a border region similar to a frontier, such as the Welsh Marches, the borderland between England and Wales. During the Frankish Carolingian Dynasty, the word spread throughout Europe....
, of the Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
in the area of the modern German state of Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
. Created out of the Marca Geronis
Marca Geronis
The Marca Geronis was a vast super-march in the middle of the tenth century. It was created probably for Thietmar and passed to his two sons consecutively: Siegfried and Gero...
in 965, it merged to the Saxon Electorate
Electorate of Saxony
The Electorate of Saxony , sometimes referred to as Upper Saxony, was a State of the Holy Roman Empire. It was established when Emperor Charles IV raised the Ascanian duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg to the status of an Electorate by the Golden Bull of 1356...
in 1423.
The March of Meissen was sometimes called the Thuringian March or March of Thuringia. Usually, however, this was a term for the eastern part of the Meissen march, that is, the land east of the Elbe
Elbe
The Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia , then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg...
as far as the Saale
Saale
The Saale, also known as the Saxon Saale and Thuringian Saale , is a river in Germany and a left-bank tributary of the Elbe. It is not to be confused with the smaller Franconian Saale, a right-bank tributary of the Main, or the Saale in Lower Saxony, a tributary of the Leine.-Course:The Saale...
, a land inhabited by Slavs
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
. Formerly, the "Thuringian march" was called the "Sorbian march
Sorbian March
The Sorb March was a frontier district on the eastern border of East Francia in the 9th through 11th centuries. It was composed of several counties bordering the Sorbs. The Sorbian march seems to have comprised the eastern part of Thuringia....
".
Founding
In 928 or 929, during a campaign against the Slavic GlomaczeGlomacze
The Glomacze, also Golomacze or Dolomici - were Polabian Slavs inhabiting areas in the middle Elbe valley. Other West Slavic tribes such as the Milceni settled east of them. About 850 the Bavarian Geographer located their settlement area east of the Sorbs...
tribe, King Henry the Fowler built a castle on a hill above the Elbe. The later Albrechtsburg
Albrechtsburg
The Albrechtsburg is a Late Gothic castle that dominates the town centre of Meissen in the German state of Saxony.-History:By 929 King Henry I of Germany had finally subdued the Slavic Glomacze tribe and built a fortress within their settlement area, situated on a rock high above the Elbe river...
was then named Meissen
Meissen
Meissen is a town of approximately 30,000 about northwest of Dresden on both banks of the Elbe river in the Free State of Saxony, in eastern Germany. Meissen is the home of Meissen porcelain, the Albrechtsburg castle, the Gothic Meissen Cathedral and the Meissen Frauenkirche...
after the nearby stream of Meisa
Meisa
Meisa is a Japanese feminine given name. It may refer to:* Meisa Hanai , Japanese AV idol* Meisa Kuroki , Japanese singer...
. A town soon developed at the foot of the fortress. Henry, however, made no attempts to Germanise
Germanisation
Germanisation is both the spread of the German language, people and culture either by force or assimilation, and the adaptation of a foreign word to the German language in linguistics, much like the Romanisation of many languages which do not use the Latin alphabet...
the Slavs or to create a chain of supporting burgward
Burgward
A burgward was a form of settlement used for the organisation of the northeastern marches of the Kingdom of Germany in the mid-10th century. Based on earlier organisations within the Frankish Empire and among the Slavs, the burgwards were composed of a central fortification with a number of...
s for his new fortress, rather Meissen sat alone, like Brandenburg, with little organisation around it. That did not last, however. The town grew, eventually becoming one of the most important cities in the large marca Geronis
Marca Geronis
The Marca Geronis was a vast super-march in the middle of the tenth century. It was created probably for Thietmar and passed to his two sons consecutively: Siegfried and Gero...
which covered the lands east of the Duchy of Saxony
Duchy of Saxony
The medieval Duchy of Saxony was a late Early Middle Ages "Carolingian stem duchy" covering the greater part of Northern Germany. It covered the area of the modern German states of Bremen, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Saxony-Anhalt and most of Schleswig-Holstein...
. When the marca was divided in 965 on the death of the margrave Gero the Great, Meissen formed the centre of a new march primarily against the Sorbs
Sorbs
Sorbs are a Western Slavic people of Central Europe living predominantly in Lusatia, a region on the territory of Germany and Poland. In Germany they live in the states of Brandenburg and Saxony. They speak the Sorbian languages - closely related to Polish and Czech - officially recognized and...
. The first mention of a margrave in Meissen comes in 968. That same year, the castle became also the see of the newly created Bishopric of Meissen
Roman Catholic Diocese of Dresden-Meissen
The Diocese of Dresden-Meissen is a Diocese of Catholic Church in Germany. Founded as the Bishopric of Meissen in 968, it was dissolved in 1539 during the Protestant Reformation. The diocese was reestablished in 1921 and renamed Dresden-Meissen in 1980. The seat of the diocese is in Dresden and...
.
In 979, a certain Count Rikdag
Rikdag
Rikdag, Ricdag, Riddag, or Rihdag was the Margrave of Meissen from 979 until his death. In 982, he acquired the marches of Merseburg and Zeitz. In 985, he was made count in the Schwabengau. He temporarily reunited all of the southern marca Geronis under his command...
became Margrave of Meissen, who also acquired the lands of the marches of Merseburg
Merseburg
Merseburg is a town in the south of the German state of Saxony-Anhalt on the river Saale, approx. 14 km south of Halle . It is the capital of the Saalekreis district. It had a diocese founded by Archbishop Adalbert of Magdeburg....
and March of Zeitz
March of Zeitz
The March of Zeitz was a frontier county of the Holy Roman Empire, created through the division of the marca Geronis in 965, when the Emperor Otto I, on the death of Gero the Great. Its capital was Zeitz. Its first and only margrave was Wigger...
. By 982, the territory of the march had extended as far as the Neisse
Lusatian Neisse
The Lusatian Neisse is a long river in Central Europe. The river has its source in the Jizera Mountains near Nová Ves nad Nisou, Czech Republic, reaching the tripoint with Poland and Germany at Zittau after , and later forms the Polish-German border on a length of...
to the east and in southern direction the Erzgebirge. In 983, following word of the defeat of Emperor Otto II
Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor
Otto II , called the Red, was the third ruler of the Saxon or Ottonian dynasty, the son of Otto the Great and Adelaide of Italy.-Early years and co-ruler with Otto I:...
at the Battle of Stilo
Battle of Stilo
The Battle of Stilo or Cape Colonna was fought on 13 or 14 July 982 near Crotone in Calabria between the forces of the Emperor Otto II and his Italo-Lombard allies and those of the Kalbid emir of Sicily, Abu al-Qasim...
, the Slavic Veleti
Veleti
The Veleti or Wilzi were a group of medieval Lechites tribes within the territory of modern northeastern Germany; see Polabian Slavs. In common with other Slavic groups between the Elbe and Oder Rivers, they were often described by Germanic sources as Wends. In the late 10th century, they were...
tribes bordering eastern Saxony rebelled. The bishoprics of Havelberg
Bishopric of Havelberg
The Bishopric of Havelberg was a Roman Catholic diocese founded by King Otto I, King of the Germans, in 946. The diocese was suffragan to the Archbishopric of Magdeburg. Its most famous bishop was Anselm of Havelberg. Its seat was in Havelberg in the Northern March and it roughly covered the...
and Brandenburg were destroyed and the March of Zeitz devastated. Margrave Rikdag joined forces with the margraves of Lusatia and the Northern March
Northern March
The Northern March or North March was created out of the division of the vast Marca Geronis in 965. It initially comprised the northern third of the Marca and was part of the territorial organisation of areas conquered from the Wends...
as well as with the Bishop of Halberstadt
Bishopric of Halberstadt
The Bishopric of Halberstadt was a Roman Catholic diocese from 804 until 1648 and an ecclesiastical state of the Holy Roman Empire from the late Middle Ages...
and the Archbishop of Magdeburg
Archbishopric of Magdeburg
The Archbishopric of Magdeburg was a Roman Catholic archdiocese and Prince-Bishopric of the Holy Roman Empire centered on the city of Magdeburg on the Elbe River....
and defeated the Slavs at Belkesheim, near Stendal
Stendal
Stendal is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is the capital of Stendal District and unofficial capital of the Altmark. Its population in 2001 was 38,900. It is located some west of Berlin and around east of Hanover...
. Nevertheless, large territories were lost and the Germans were once again limited to the land west of the Elbe.
With the accession of Margrave Eckard I
Eckard I, Margrave of Meissen
Eckard I was Margrave of Meissen from 985 until his death, the first margrave of the Ekkehardinger family that dominated Meissen until the extinction of the line in 1046.-Life:...
in 985, the title was held by the Ekkeharding noble family. In 1002, King Bolesław I Chrobry of Poland conquered the Thuringian March and by the 1018 Peace of Bautzen
Peace of Bautzen
The Peace of Bautzen or the Peace of Budziszyn was a treaty concluded on January 30, 1018 between the Ottonian Holy Roman Emperor Henry II and the Piast ruler of Poland Boleslaw I which ended a series of Polish-German wars over the control of Lusatia and Upper Lusatia as well as Bohemia,...
the Meissen margraves had to cede the Milceni
Milceni
The Milceni or Milzeni were a West Slavic tribe, who settled in the present-day Upper Lusatia region. They were first mentioned in the middle of the 9th century AD by the Bavarian Geographer, who wrote of 30 civitates which possibly had fortifications. They were gradually conquered by Germans...
territory of later Upper Lusatia
Upper Lusatia
Upper Lusatia is a region a biggest part of which belongs to Saxony, a small eastern part belongs to Poland, the northern part to Brandenburg. In Saxony, Upper Lusatia comprises roughly the districts of Bautzen and Görlitz , in Brandenburg the southern part of district Oberspreewald-Lausitz...
to Poland. In 1046, the margraviate went to Count Otto of Weimar-Orlamünde
Otto I, Margrave of Meissen
Otto I was the Margrave of Meissen from 1062 until his death, the second margrave of the family of the counts of Weimar and Orlamünde. He was a younger son of Weimar III of Weimar and Oda, daughter of Thietmar, Margrave of the Saxon Ostmark. He inherited Orlamünde from his father in 1039 and...
and, in 1067, to the Brunonen
Brunonen
The Brunonen were a Saxon noble family in the 10th and 11th centuries, who owned property in Eastphalia and Frisia....
, whose representative, Egbert II
Egbert II, Margrave of Meissen
Egbert II was Count of Brunswick and Margrave of Meissen. He was the eldest son of the Margrave Egbert I of the Brunonen family.Still a minor, he succeeded his father on the latter's death 11 January 1068 in Brunswick and Meissen...
, was deposed during the Investiture Controversy
Investiture Controversy
The Investiture Controversy or Investiture Contest was the most significant conflict between Church and state in medieval Europe. In the 11th and 12th centuries, a series of Popes challenged the authority of European monarchies over control of appointments, or investitures, of church officials such...
in 1089.
Wettin rule
Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor
Henry IV was King of the Romans from 1056 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1084 until his forced abdication in 1105. He was the third emperor of the Salian dynasty and one of the most powerful and important figures of the 11th century...
then granted Meissen to Count Henry of Eilenburg, of the Wettin dynasty under whose rule the margraviate would remain for the rest of its existence. Under Wiprecht von Groitzsch in the 1120s, Meissen ultimately underwent Germanisation. He was followed by Conrad the Great
Conrad, Margrave of Meissen
Conrad the Great was the Margrave of Meissen from 1123 until his retirement in 1156. He was the son of Thimo, Count of Brehna, of the House of Wettin and Ida, daughter of Otto of Nordheim. He was also Count of Wettin, Brehna, and Camburg from before 1116.In 1123, he became Count of Eilenburg...
(1123–56), Otto the Rich
Otto II, Margrave of Meissen
Otto II was the Margrave of Meissen from 1157 until his death in 1190. His father was Conrad the Great and his son was Dietrich I, Margrave of Meissen. He is a direct patrilineal ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, King Albert II of Belgium and Simeon II of Bulgaria....
(1156–91), and Dietrich the Hard-Pressed
Dietrich, Margrave of Meissen
Dietrich I , called the Oppressed, was the Margrave of Meissen from 1198 until his death. He was the second son of Otto II, Margrave of Meissen and Hedwig of Brandenburg.-Biography:...
(1191–1221), under whom the march was expanded and developed.
In 1264, Henry III
Henry III, Margrave of Meissen
Henry III, called Henry the Illustrious from the House of Wettin was Margrave of Meissen and last Margrave of Lusatia from 1221 until his death; from 1242 also Landgrave of Thuringia.-Life:Born probably at the Albrechtsburg residence in Meissen, Henry was the youngest son of Margrave Theodoric I...
asserted himself in the war of the succession
War of the Thuringian Succession
The War of the Thuringen Succession was a military battle over a successor to the last Landgrave of Thuringia in present-day Germany.- Source of the conflict :...
of the Landgraviate of Thuringia, where his uncle, Henry Raspe, had died childless. Between 1243 and 1255, Henry III acquired Pleisseland
Pleißeland
Pleissnerland, Pleissenland or the Imperial Territory of Pleissenland was a Reichsgut of the Holy Roman Empire, which meant that it was directly possessed by the respective elected King of the Romans or Emperor...
around Altenburg
Altenburg
Altenburg is a town in the German federal state of Thuringia, 45 km south of Leipzig. It is the capital of the Altenburger Land district.-Geography:...
as a security measure. In 1307, the attempt by Emperor Henry VII to once again subdue the Margraves of Meissen failed with his defeat at the Battle of Lucka
Battle of Lucka
The Battle of Lucka occurred on 31 May 1307 near the village of Lucka. The settlement was first mentioned in 1320, but had already existed for around 700 years before that...
. By that time the margraviate was de facto independent of any sovereign authority.
In the years following Lucka, there would be joint rule of the principality by multiple members of the Wettin dynasty at any given time. In the years 1382 and 1445, this even led to the division of the march. However, the cadet branches of the family frequently became extinct and the lands consequently reunited. At the same time, the territory could be extended by marriage, purchase, or conquest, which is how the margraviate gained the rights to the burgraviate in 1426. At the end of 15th century, the area ruled over by the Wettin dynasty covered the lands between the Werra
Werra
The Werra is a river in central Germany, the right-source river of the Weser. The Werra has its source near Eisfeld in southern Thuringia. After 293 km the Werra joins the river Fulda in the town of Hann. Münden, forming the Weser....
and the Oder
Oder
The Oder is a river in Central Europe. It rises in the Czech Republic and flows through western Poland, later forming of the border between Poland and Germany, part of the Oder-Neisse line...
.
In 1423, Frederick the Militant
Frederick I, Elector of Saxony
Frederick IV of Meissen and Elector of Saxony was Margrave of Meissen and Elector of Saxony from 1381 until his death. He is not to be confused with his cousin Frederick IV, Landgrave of Thuringia, the son of Balthasar, Landgrave of Thuringia...
became Margrave and was assigned the Duchy of Saxony-Wittenberg. With it the Margraviate of Meissen entered into the electorate
Prince-elector
The Prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire were the members of the electoral college of the Holy Roman Empire, having the function of electing the Roman king or, from the middle of the 16th century onwards, directly the Holy Roman Emperor.The heir-apparent to a prince-elector was known as an...
of Saxony and lost its status as an independent principality. In 1485, the Leipzig Partition divided Saxony and Thuringia between the brothers Ernest
Ernest, Elector of Saxony
Ernst, Elector of Saxony was Elector of Saxony from 1464 to 1486.-Biography:Ernst was founder of the Ernestine line of Saxon princes, ancestor of George I of Great Britain, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, as well as his wife and cousin Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, and their...
and Albert
Albert, Duke of Saxony
Albert III was a Duke of Saxony. He was nicknamed Albert the Bold or Albert the Courageous and founded the Albertine line of the House of Wettin....
, which marked the beginning of the permanent separation of the two states.
Burgraviate
Around 1068, Meissen received its own burgraveBurgrave
A burgrave is literally the count of a castle or fortified town. The English form is derived through the French from the German Burggraf and Dutch burg- or burch-graeve .* The title is originally equivalent to that of castellan or châtelain, meaning keeper of a castle and/or fortified town...
. In time the Meinheringer family would come to control the burgraviate.