Margraviate of Meissen

The Margraviate of Meissen was a medieval principality on the territory of the federal state of Saxony, the actual Upper Saxony or the Meissen district, which was created in the wake of the German eastern settlement.

History

During a campaign against the Slavic Daleminzier King Henry I had 928/929 built on a hill on the Elbe a castle, which was named after the flowing creek below Meisa. At the foot of the castle developed in the same century, the town of the same name ( Meissen ). By 965, the area was part of the Saxon Ostmark under the Margrave Gero, and only 968 from an inserted here Margrave of Meissen is attested. The castle hill was the same year seat for the bishop of the new diocese of Meissen. Since 1068 also a viscount is detectable. Over time, a castle county Meissen, which was able to expand the family of My Heringer further developed.

The sway of the Margrave of Meissen, however, expanded over the course of the 11th century up to the Neisse from, and later in the south to in the Erzgebirge into it. For the year 983 a certain Rikdag is occupied as Margrave, since 985 the family of Ekkehard Inger. However, by the Peace of Bautzen there have been incidents from 1018 to 1031 to the first temporary and later permanent separation of the Milzenerlandes, the later Upper Lusatia, from the Margraviate.

1046 came the Margraviate of the family of the Weimar Orlamünder counts, 1067 to the Brunonen whose representatives Ekbert II was deposed in the Investiture Controversy 1089. He was followed in the same year Henry I of haste Castle (1089-1103) from the family of Wettin, under whose rule the Margraviate should remain from now on. Especially under the Margrave Konrad (1123-1156), Otto (1156-1190) and Dietrich (1190/1197-1221) was extended and expanded the Margraviate. Trying Emperor Henry VI. , The Margraviate of Meissen in 1195 to be recovered for the empire, was thwarted after his death.

1264 Henry the Illustrious ( 1221-1288 ) was able to prevail in the inheritance dispute over land county Thuringia, where his uncle Henry Raspe died in 1247 was childless, and thus Thuringia add the Wettin possessions. 1243/1255 acquired Heinrich the Illustrious first mortgage as the Pleissenland to Altenburg, so he could join the Wettin possessions in the Margraviate of Meissen with the possession in Thuringia and older Wettin counties. An attempt of the king to draw the Margraviate of Meissen as fiefs back against him, failed in 1307 with the Battle of Lucka.

In the following years there were common regencies of several male relatives of the Wettin dynasty, in the years 1382 and 1445 even to the division of the territories belonging to the Margraviate of Meissen, the Landgraviate Thuringia and the Pleissenland. After extinction of individual family lines these areas but fell together again. At the same time the territory was expanded by marriage, money or military force (eg in the Dohnaischen feud ), again in 1426 the rights to the castle county of Meissen. End of the 15th century, the territory of the Wettin dynasty extended over more or less contiguous areas between the Werra and Or.

1423 the Margrave of Meissen Friedrich was the Belligerent transfer the Duchy of Saxe -Wittenberg. Thus, the Margraviate of Meissen went on in the Electorate of Saxony and lost its status as an independent principality. The Leipzig 1485 division between the brothers Ernst and Albrecht also established the permanent separation between Saxony and Thuringia.

Scope

Originally, the Margraviate of Meissen included only the Altsiedelland Castle County ( roughly equivalent to the later district Meißen). In the 12th and 13th centuries, more parts were added, so that the Margraviate of Meissen eventually extended to the Ore Mountains and the Leipziger Land. 1547 Affiliate Elector Moritz his territory into five districts: the Kurkreis, the Thuringian district, the Leipzig district, the Meissen district and the Erzgebirge circle. The Leipzig circle Meißnische circle and the circle Erzgebirgische emerged from the old Margraviate of Meissen.