Siegfried was the Count and Margrave

Margrave

A margrave or margravine was a medieval hereditary nobleman with military responsibilities in a border province of a kingdom. Border provinces usually had more exposure to military incursions from the outside, compared to interior provinces, and thus a margrave usually had larger and more active...

 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....

 from an unknown date before 934 until his death. He does not appear with the title of margrave in contemporary royal charters and diplomas, so the title was informal and never official.

Siegfried was probably the son of Thietmar

Thietmar, Count of Merseburg

Thietmar , Count and Margrave, was the military tutor of Henry the Fowler while he was the heir and then duke of the Duchy of Saxony...

, the tutor of Henry I of Germany

Henry I of Germany

Henry I the Fowler was the Duke of Saxony from 912 and German king from 919 until his death. First of the Ottonian Dynasty of German kings and emperors, he is generally considered to be the founder and first king of the medieval German state, known until then as East Francia...

. He was made procurator 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...

 in 936. Otto I

Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor

Otto I the Great , son of Henry I the Fowler and Matilda of Ringelheim, was Duke of Saxony, King of Germany, King of Italy, and "the first of the Germans to be called the emperor of Italy" according to Arnulf of Milan...

 put his younger brother Henry under the "protective custory" of Siegfried (or perhaps in Bavaria) during his coronation festivities. At that time, Siegfried was "second after the king," according to Widukind of Corvey

Widukind of Corvey

Widukind of Corvey was a Saxon historical chronicler, named after the Saxon duke and national hero Widukind who had battled Charlemagne. Widukind the chronicler was born in 925 and died after 973 at the Benedictine abbey of Corvey in East Westphalia...

.

When Siegfried died, his march was disputed between Thankmar

Thankmar

Thankmar was the eldest son of Henry I of Germany by his first wife, Hatheburg . His mother had been previously married and widowed, after which she entered a convent. Because she left the convent to marry Henry, her second marriage was considered invalid and the couple split...

, his cousin (through their mothers) and the king's brother, and Gero

Gero

Gero I , called the Great , ruled an initially modest march centred on Merseburg, which he expanded into a vast territory named after him: the marca Geronis. During the mid-10th century, he was the leader of the Saxon Drang nach Osten.-Succession and early conflicts:Gero was the son of Count...

, his own brother and the king's appointee.

Siegfried's first wife was Ermenburg (Irminburg), daughter of Otto I, Duke of Saxony

Otto I, Duke of Saxony

Otto , called the Illustrious by later authors, was the Duke of Saxony from 880 to his death. He was the younger son of Duke Liudolf of Saxony and his wife Oda of Billung, and succeeded his brother Bruno as duke after the latter's death in battle in 880...

, and Hathui. His second wife (936) was Guthia (Guhtiu), who as a widow became the foundress and first abbess of Gröningen

Gröningen Priory

Gröningen Priory was a house of the Benedictine Order located west of Gröningen in Saxony-Anhalt in Germany.The monastery was founded in 936 from Corvey Abbey, of which it was a priory, on initiative of Saxon Count Siegfried of Merseburg and his second wife Guthia upon the death of King Henry I...

.

Sources

• Reuter, Timothy
  Timothy Reuter
  Timothy Alan Reuter , grandson of the former mayor of Berlin Ernst Reuter, was a German-British historian who specialized in the study of medieval Germany, particularly the social, military and ecclesiastical institutions of the Ottonian and Salian periods .Reuter received his D.phil from Oxford in...
  
  . Germany in the Early Middle Ages 800–1056. New York: Longman, 1991.
• Bernhardt, John W. Itinerant Kingship and Royal Monasteries in Early Medieval Germany, c. 936–1075. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.