Gunzelin, Margrave of Meissen

Gunzelin of Kuckenburg (* 965, † after 1017 ) was Margrave of Meissen from 1002 to 1010.

He was the son of Margrave Günther of Merseburg and brother of his predecessor Ekkehard I. After the death of the Margrave Ekkehard I. in 1002 King Henry II granted the Mark Meissen Gunzelin, in the autumn of 1004 to Gunzelin participated in the successful siege of the castle Budusin ( Bautzen ), the Duke of Poland Boleslaw I had occupied during his campaign against the Ekkehardiner. Budusin would burst into flames if this would not have prevented a command of the Marquis Gunzelin, reports the Bishop of Merseburg Thietmar in his chronicle. He agreed after negotiations with Boleslaw devastated the venting of the Polish crew, the wide during their retreat areas in the marrow. Gunzelin resided during the following years in Budusin, probably in Wallburg on the Lubasschanze near the river Spree. It was during this period of the Meissen Count Hermann and Ekkehard, the sons of former Margrave Ekkehard I, hostility and unlawful self-help and the sale of many well- Slavic- Christian families to Jewish Orient dealer accused these people as slaves in the Caliphate of Cordoba in Arabic purchasers sold. On a prince days of Merseburg in 1009 Gunzelin was finally discontinued at the behest of the king as Margrave and handed over to the custody of the Bishop Arnulf of Halberstadt. He is said to have spent eight years of his captivity in the farming village Ströbeck near Magdeburg and here found enough leisure to devote himself to his favorite pastime, the game of chess, which he taught the local villagers under the old rules. A proof of this but there is no. According to other reports Gunzelin spent part of his detention in Bamberg. Margrave Gunzelin only received his freedom in 1017, after him, by some miracle, the chains fell off his feet. His main property, the former royal Frose, however, he no longer got back. About his last years there is no information.