The Eastphalian count Otto of Ballenstedt (d. 1123), ancestor of the House of Ascania, had married Eilika, a daughter of Duke Magnus of Saxony from the House of Billung. As the Billung male line became extinct upon Magnus's death in 1106, Otto hoped to succeed him, however King Henry V of Germany enfeoffed Count Lothair of Supplinburg. During the following long-term dispute between Henry and Lothair, Otto was able to gain the title of a Saxon (anti-)duke, though only for a short time in 1122.
Lothair was elected King of the Romans in 1125 and in 1134 he vested Otto's son Albert the Bear with the Saxon Northern March. Upon his death in 1137, Albert once again strived for the Saxon duchy, which however fell to Lothair's son-in-law Henry the Proud from the Bavarian House of Welf. Albert concluded a deal with the rising House of Hohenstaufen: He backed the succession of Conrad of Hohenstaufen as German king, who in turn deprived his Welf rival Henry the Proud of the Saxonian Duchy in 1138 and gave it to Albert. However, his rule was strongly contested by the local nobility and in 1142 Albert finally had to resign as duke in favour of Henry the Proud's son Henry the Lion. Albert later took part in the Wendish Crusade of 1147 and in 1157 established the Margraviate of Brandenburg. He died in 1170.
The third chance for the Ascanians came, when in 1180 ambitious Henry the Lion was deposed as Saxon Duke by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Frederick partitioned Saxony among his allies into more than a dozen immediate territories. Among the supporters, Archbishop Philip of Cologne received the largest share as the newly created Duchy of Westphalia. The Saxon ducal title at least passed to late Albert's youngest son, Count Bernhard of Ballenstedt, who nevertheless only ruled over small, mostly Eastphalian fringes of the old duchy.
Anhalt, Wittenberg and Lauenburg
Duke Bernard died in 1212 and his two surviving sons divided the Saxon heritage: the elder Henry took the old Ascanian allodial possessions around Ballenstedt where he established the Ascanian County of Anhalt, while his younger brother Albert I inherited the title of a Duke of Saxony and retained three territorially unconnected Eastphalian estates on the Elbe river around the towns of Wittenberg and Belzig as well as the northern lordship of Lauenburg with Amt Neuhaus and Land Hadeln at the Elbe estuary.
After Albert I's death in 1260 his two heirs, John I and his younger brother Albert II ruled jointly. In 1269, 1272 and 1282 they gradually divided their governing competences within the then three territorially unconnected Saxon areas (Hadeln, Lauenburg and Wittenberg), thus preparing a partition, whereby Albert II, Burgrave of Magdeburg since 1269, concentrated on the Wittenberg territory. He consolidated his position by marrying Agnes, daughter of Rudolph of Habsburg, whom he elected King of the Romans in 1273. After Duke John I had resigned in 1282 in favour of his three minor sons Eric I, John II and Albert III, followed by his death three years later, the three brothers and their uncle Albert II continued the joint rule as Saxon dukes.
Upon the death of Margrave Henry III of Meissen in 1288, Duke Albert II applied at his father-in-law King Rudolph I for the enfeoffment of his son and heir Rudolph with the Saxon County palatine on the Unstrut river, which ensued a long lasting dispute with the eager clan of the House of Wettin. Albert's attempts to secure the succession in the lands of the extinct Counts of Brehna were more successful: when their fiefs were reverted to the Empire in 1290, the king enfeoffed his son Rudolph. After King Rudolph had died, Albert II with his nephews still minor on 27 April 1292 wielded the Saxon electoral vote, electing Adolph of Nassau, the brother-in-law of Archbishop Siegfried II of Cologne. The bishop together with King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia had succeeded in bringing Albert II in favour of electing Adolph: he had signed an elector pact on 29 November 1291 that he would vote the same as Wenceslaus. In 1295 Albert II could again enlarge his Saxon territory, when he acquired the County of Gommern.
Duchy of Wittenberg
The last document, mentioning the joint government of Albert II with his nephews as Saxon fellow dukes dates back to 1295.[1] The definite partitioning of the Duchy of Saxony into Saxe-Lauenburg (German: Herzogtum Sachsen-Lauenburg), jointly ruled by the brothers Albert III, Eric I and John II and Saxe-Wittenberg (German: Herzogtum Sachsen-Wittenberg), ruled by Albert II took place before 20 September 1296. The Vierlande, Sadelbande (Land of Lauenburg), the Land of Ratzeburg, the Land of Darzing (today's Amt Neuhaus), and the Land of Hadeln are mentioned as the separate territory of the brothers.[1] Duke Albert II received the Wittenberg lands around the eponymous city, Brehna and Gommern. He thus became the founder of the Ascanian line of Saxe-Wittenberg.
When Rudolph succeeded his father Albert II as Duke of Saxe-Wittenberg in 1298, he and the Dukes of Saxe-Lauenburg rivallingly claimed the Saxon electoral privilege. Upon the assassination of his brother-in-law King Albert I in 1308, he voted for Count Henry of Luxembourg. In 1314 both duchies participated in the double election of the German kings, Frederick III, the Fair from the House of Habsburg and his Wittelsbach cousin Louis IV, the Bavarian. Louis received five of the seven votes, to wit Archbishop-Elector Baldwin of Trier, the legitimate King John of Bohemia, Duke John II of Saxe-Lauenburg, claiming the Saxon prince-electoral power, Archbishop Peter of Mainz, and Albert's Ascanian cousin Margrave Waldemar of Brandenburg. Frederick the Fair received in the same election four of the seven votes, with the deposed King Henry of Bohemia, illegitimately assuming electoral power, Archbishop Henry II of Cologne, Louis' brother Count Rudolph I of the Palatinate, and Duke Rudolph I of Saxe-Wittenberg, equally exercising the Saxon electoral dignity.
However, only Louis the Bavarian, co-elected with Saxe-Lauenburg's vote, finally asserted himself as emperor after the 1322 Battle of Mühldorf by the Treaty of Trausnitz on March 13, 1325. As an obvious opponent, Duke Rudolph I failed with his claims to Brandenburg after the line of his Ascanian cousins became extinct in 1319: King Louis IV seized the margraviate and enfeoffed his son Louis V instead. Rudolph I in turn allied with the rivaling House of Luxembourg. He supported Count Charles IV of Luxembourg as anti-king to Louis IV and on that account exclusively received the Saxon electoral dignity with the Golden Bull of 1356, thus slighting Saxe-Lauenburg. Saxe-Wittenberg thereupon came to be known as the Electorate of Saxony (Kursachsen).
When the Ascanian line in the Electorate of Saxony died out in 1422, the Ascanian Duke Eric V of Saxe-Lauenburg failed to assert his succession in Wittenberg. King Sigismund granted the Electorate to Margrave Frederick IV of Meissen from the House of Wettin, who united the Meissen and the Saxon lands of Wittenberg under his rule. He assumed the electoral title and thereby transferred the state of Saxony up the Elbe river to his Meissen residence. His lands were also called "Upper Saxony" (see: Upper Saxon Circle) to distinguish them from the territory of the medieval stem duchy, the later Lower Saxony. The territory of former Saxe-Wittenberg became known as the Kurkreis ("Electoral District"). By the division of the Saxon Electorate according to the 1485 Treaty of Leipzig, the Wittenberg lands including the electoral dignity fell to Ernest of Wettin.
Notes
1 2 Cordula Bornefeld, "Die Herzöge von Sachsen-Lauenburg", in: Die Fürsten des Landes: Herzöge und Grafen von Schleswig, Holstein und Lauenburg [De slevigske hertuger; German], Carsten Porskrog Rasmussen (ed.) on behalf of the Gesellschaft für Schleswig-Holsteinische Geschichte, Neumünster: Wachholtz, 2008, pp. 373-389, here p. 375. ISBN978-3-529-02606-5
The House of Ascania was a dynasty of German rulers. It is also known as the House of Anhalt, which refers to its longest-held possession, Anhalt.
The history of Saxony-Anhalt began with Old Saxony, which was conquered by Charlemagne in 804 and transformed into the Duchy of Saxony within the Carolingian Empire. Saxony went on to become one of the so-called stem duchies of the German Kingdom and subsequently the Holy Roman Empire which formed out of the eastern partition of the Carolingian Empire. The duchy grew to become a powerful state within the empire, ruling over much of what is now northern Germany, but following conflicts with the emperor it was partitioned into numerous minor states around the end of the 12th century.
The Duchy of Saxony was originally the area settled by the Saxons in the late Early Middle Ages, when they were subdued by Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars from 772 and incorporated into the Carolingian Empire (Francia) by 804. Upon the 843 Treaty of Verdun, Saxony was one of the five German stem duchies of East Francia; Duke Henry the Fowler was elected German king in 919.
Albert I was a Duke of Saxony, Angria, and Westphalia; Lord of Nordalbingia; Count of Anhalt; and Prince-elector and Archmarshal of the Holy Roman Empire. Even though his grandfather Albert the Bear had held the Saxon dukedom between 1138 and 1142, this Albert is counted as the first.
Frederick the Fair or the Handsome, from the House of Habsburg, was the duke of Austria and Styria from 1308 as well as the anti-king of Germany from 1314 until 1325 and then co-king until his death.
The Duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg, was a reichsfrei duchy that existed from 1296–1803 and again from 1814–1876 in the extreme southeast region of what is now Schleswig-Holstein. Its territorial center was in the modern district of Herzogtum Lauenburg and originally its eponymous capital was Lauenburg upon Elbe, though in 1619 the capital moved to Ratzeburg.
The Electorate of Saxony, also known as Electoral Saxony, was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire from 1356–1806. It was centered around the cities of Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz.
The Treaty of Leipzig or Partition of Leipzig was signed on 11 November 1485 between Elector Ernest of Saxony and his younger brother Albert III, the sons of Elector Frederick II of Saxony from the House of Wettin. The agreement perpetuated the division of the Wettin lands into a Saxon and a Thuringian part, which in the long run obstructed the further development of a Central German hegemonic power in favour of Brandenburg-Prussia.
The March or Margraviate of Lusatia was as an eastern border march of the Holy Roman Empire in the lands settled by Polabian Slavs. It arose in 965 in the course of the partition of the vast Marca Geronis. Ruled by several Saxon margravial dynasties, among them the House of Wettin, the lordship was contested by the Polish kings as well as by the Ascanian margraves of Brandenburg. The remaining territory was finally incorporated into the Lands of the Bohemian Crown in 1367.
The coat of arms of the present-day German free state of Saxony shows a tenfold horizontally-partitioned field of black (sable) and gold/yellow (or) stripes, charged with a green (vert) crancelin running from the viewer's top-left to bottom-right. Although the crancelin is sometimes shown bent (embowed) like a crown, this is due to artistic license. The coat of arms is also displayed on the state flag of Saxony.
Bernhard, a member of the House of Ascania, was Count of Anhalt and Ballenstedt, and Lord of Bernburg through his paternal inheritance. From 1180 he was also Duke of Saxony.
Henry I, a member of the House of Ascania, was Count of Anhalt from 1212 and the first ruling Anhalt prince from 1218 until his death.
Siegfried of Anhalt was born as the third son of Sophie of Winzenburg and her husband Albert the Bear, then Count of Anhalt, of the House of Ascania. In 1168 he was elected Archbishop of Bremen. Afterward he became Prince-Bishop of Brandenburg (1173–1179) as Siegfried I. In 1179 he succeeded in getting it upgraded to a Prince-Archbishopric of imperial immediacy in 1180, thus becoming Prince-Archbishop of Bremen. He was a strong advocate of Ascanian clan interests.
Albert II of Saxony was a son of Duke Albert I of Saxony and his third wife Helen of Brunswick and Lunenburg, a daughter of Otto the Child. He supported Rudolph I of Germany at his election as Roman king and became his son-in-law. After the death of their father Albert I in 1260 Albert II jointly ruled the Duchy of Saxony with his elder brother John I, and thereafter with the latter's sons.
John II of Saxe-Lauenburg was the eldest son of John I of Saxony and Ingeborg Birgersdotter of Småland, a daughter or grandchild of Birger jarl. He ruled Saxony jointly with his uncle Albert II and his brothers Albert III and Eric I, first fostered by Albert II, until coming of age. In 1296 John II, his brothers and their uncle divided Saxony into Saxe-Wittenberg, ruled by Albert II, and Saxe-Lauenburg, jointly ruled by the brothers between 1296 and 1303 and thereafter partitioned among them. John II then ruled the branch duchy of Saxe-Mölln, later extended to become Saxe-Bergedorf-Mölln. In 1314 he officiated as Saxon Prince-elector in an election of a German king.
Albert III (1281–1308) was a member of the House of Ascania who ruled as one of the dukes of Saxony from 1282 until his death.
Eric V of Saxe-Lauenburg was a member of the House of Ascania; son of Duke Eric IV of Saxe-Lauenburg and Sophia of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Eric V and his brother John IV jointly succeeded their father in 1412 as dukes of Saxe-Lauenburg. After John IV had died in 1414, Eric ruled alone.
Bernard II of Saxe-Lauenburg was a member of the House of Ascania and Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg from 1426 to 1463. His full title was Duke of Saxony, Angria and Westphalia, however only ruling the branch duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg between 1426 and 1463.
Rudolf I, a member of the House of Ascania, was Duke of Saxe-Wittenberg from 1298 until his death. By the Golden Bull of 1356 he was acknowledged as Elector of Saxony.
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