The
March or
Margraviate of Meissen was a mediæval principality, a
marchMark and march refer to a border region similar to a frontier, such as the Welsh Marches, the borderland between England and Wales.In contrast to a buffer zone, a march could be dominated by a single given country, and rather than being demilitarized, it could be strongly fortified for defence...
, of the
Holy Roman EmpireThe Holy Roman Empire was a union of territories in Central Europe during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period under a Holy Roman Emperor. The first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was Otto I, crowned in 962. The last was Francis II, who abdicated and dissolved the Empire in 1806 during...
in the area of the modern German state of
SaxonyThe Free State of Saxony is a federal state of Germany, located in the southeastern part of present-day Germany. It is the tenth-largest German state in area and the sixth largest in population , of Germany's sixteen states.Long in the heart of German-speaking Europe, Saxony became one of the new...
.
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
ElbeThe River Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It originates in the Krkonose Mountains of 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
SaaleThe 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
SlavsThe Slavic Peoples are an ethnic and linguistic branch of Indo-European peoples, living mainly in eastern and central Europe. From the early 6th century they spread from their original homeland to inhabit most of eastern Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Balkans...
.
The
March or
Margraviate of Meissen was a mediæval principality, a
marchMark and march refer to a border region similar to a frontier, such as the Welsh Marches, the borderland between England and Wales.In contrast to a buffer zone, a march could be dominated by a single given country, and rather than being demilitarized, it could be strongly fortified for defence...
, of the
Holy Roman EmpireThe Holy Roman Empire was a union of territories in Central Europe during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period under a Holy Roman Emperor. The first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was Otto I, crowned in 962. The last was Francis II, who abdicated and dissolved the Empire in 1806 during...
in the area of the modern German state of
SaxonyThe Free State of Saxony is a federal state of Germany, located in the southeastern part of present-day Germany. It is the tenth-largest German state in area and the sixth largest in population , of Germany's sixteen states.Long in the heart of German-speaking Europe, Saxony became one of the new...
.
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
ElbeThe River Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It originates in the Krkonose Mountains of 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
SaaleThe 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
SlavsThe Slavic Peoples are an ethnic and linguistic branch of Indo-European peoples, living mainly in eastern and central Europe. From the early 6th century they spread from their original homeland to inhabit most of eastern Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Balkans...
. Formerly, the "Thuringian march" was called the "
Sorbian marchThe 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.The Sorbian march was sometimes referred to as the...
".
Founding
In 928 or 929, during a campaign against the Slavs,
Henry the FowlerHenry I the Fowler was the duke of Saxony from 912 and king of the Germans 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...
built a castle on a hill on the Elbe. This castle he named
MeissenMeissen 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. A town soon developed at the foot of the fortress. Henry, however, made no attempts to
GermaniseGermanisation is either the spread of the German language, people and culture either by force or assimilation, or 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
burgwardA 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
BrandenburgBrandenburg is one of the sixteen states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam...
, 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 GeronisThe 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 eastern part of the
Duchy of SaxonyThe mediæval 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 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 Sorabians. The first mention of a margrave in Meissen comes in 968. That same year, the castle became the seat of the Diocese of Meissen.
By 982, the territory of the march had extended as far as the
NeisseThe Lusatian Neisse is a river in the Czech Republic and along the Polish-German border , in total 252 km long. It is a left tributary of the Oder River, into which it flows near Gubin...
to the east and in southern direction the Erzgebirge. In 983, following word of the defeat of the Emperor Otto II at the
Battle of StiloThe 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 tribes bordering eastern Saxony rebelled.
HavelbergHavelberg is a town in the district of Stendal, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the Havel, and part of the town is built on an island in the centre of the river. The two parts were incorporated as a town in 1875...
and Brandenburg were destroyed and the
March of ZeitzThe 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...
devastated. The margraves of Meissen,
LusatiaThe March or Margraviate of Lusatia was a march of the Kingdom of Germany at the border with Poland from the 10th until the 14th century....
, and the
NordmarkThe 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...
joined with the troops of the Bishops of Halberstadt and Magdeburg and defeated the Slavs at Belkesheim, near
StendalStendal 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 125 km west of Berlin and around 170 km east of Hanover...
. Nevertheless, the Germans were once again limited to the land west of the Elbe.
Wettin rule
In 983, a certain
RikdagRikdag, 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 the margrave, and, from 985 on, the title was held by the Ekkehardinger family. In 1002, Boleslaus I of Poland conquered the Thuringian March. In 1046, the margraviate went to the Weimar-Orlamünder family and, in 1067, to the
BrunonenThe Brunonen were a Saxon noble family in the 10th and 11th centuries, who owned property in Eastphalia and Frisia....
, whose representative,
Egbert IIEgbert II was Count of Brunswick and Margrave of Meissen. He was the eldest son of the Margrave Egbert I of the Brunonen family....
, was deposed during the
Investiture ControversyThe 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. Henry of Eilenburg, of the
WettinThe House of Wettin is a dynasty of German counts, dukes, prince-electors and kings that once ruled the area of today's German states of Saxony, the Saxon part of Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia for more than 800 years as well as holding at times the kingship of Poland...
dynasty, under whose rule the margraviate would remain for the rest of its existence, succeeded him to the title later that year. Under Wiprecht von Groitzsch in the 1120s, the Germanisation of the Meissen finally began. Following him were
Conrad the GreatConrad 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...
(1123–56),
Otto the RichOtto 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....
(1156–91), and
Dietrich the Hard-PressedDietrich 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 von Brandenburg.-Biography:...
(1191–1221), under whom the march was expanded and developed.
In 1264,
Henry IIIHenry III, der Erlauchte or Henry the Illustrious , Margrave of Meissen; the last Margrave of Lusatia as Henry IV; and Landgrave of Thuringia, son of Dietrich, Margrave of Meissen and Jutta of Thuringia.Henry was the youngest son of Dietrich of Meissen and Jutta of Thuringia...
asserted himself in the
war of the successionThe 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
PleisselandPleissnerland, Pleissenland or the Imperial Territory of Pleissenland was a of the Holy Roman Empire directly possessed by the emperor...
around
AltenburgAltenburg 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. The Emperor Henry VII's attempt to force the Margraves of Meissen back into submission, failed in 1307 with his defeat in the
Battle of LuckaThe Battle of Lucka occurred on 31 May 1307 near the village of Lucka. The village 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 of in 1426. At the end of 15th century, the ruling area of the Wettin dynasty was spread between the
WerraThe 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 Fulda River in Hann. Münden, forming the Weser....
and the
OderThe Oder is a river in Central Europe. It begins 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 MilitantFrederick IV, Margrave 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
electorateThe 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 Holy Roman Emperors....
of Saxony and lost its status as an independent principality. In 1485, the Leipzig Partition divided Saxony and Thuringia between the brothers
ErnestErnst, 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
AlbertAlbert 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.
Burggraviate
Around 1068, Meissen received its own
burgraveA 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...
. In time the Meinheringer family would come to control the burggraviate.