Gisilher, Gisiler or Giseler (died 1004) was the second Archbishop of Magdeburg, succeeding Saint Adalbert, from 981 until his death in 1004.
From 971 to 981, Gisilher was the Bishop of the new see of Merseburg. When he was elevated to the archdiocese in that latter year, however, he suppressed the Merseburg bishopric on the basis that its creation (967 or 968) had not received the written consent of the Diocese of Halberstadt. [1] In 981, the Diocese of Merseburg was united to that of Magdeburg. It was only separated on Gisilher's death. [2] The archbishop had the support of the Bishops of Zeitz and Meissen, who wished to aggrandise their own dioceses.
In 983, the Slavic tribes bordering eastern Saxony rebelled. Havelberg and Brandenburg were destroyed and the March of Zeitz devastated. In August, the margraves of Meissen, Lusatia, and the Nordmark joined with the troops of the Bishop of Halberstadt under the leadership of Gisilher and defeated the Slavs at Belkesheim, near Stendal. [3] [4] Nevertheless, the Germans were once again limited to the land west of the Elbe.
In March 984, Gisilher hosted Henry II, Duke of Bavaria, in Magdeburg on Palm Sunday. He supported Henry for the regency of the young Emperor Otto III and perhaps even as king, for Henry received the commendation of the magnates at Magdeburg. [5]
On his death in 1004, there followed a brief conflict between King Henry II and the cathedral canons before Tagino was installed as archbishop. [6]
Bolesław the Brave, less often known as Bolesław the Great, was Duke of Poland from 992 to 1025, and the first King of Poland in 1025. He was also Duke of Bohemia between 1003 and 1004 as Boleslaus IV.
The Archbishopric of Magdeburg was a Roman Catholic archdiocese (969–1552) and Prince-Archbishopric (1180–1680) of the Holy Roman Empire centered on the city of Magdeburg on the Elbe River.
The Diocese of Magdeburg is a diocese of the Latin Church of the Catholic Church, located in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. Its seat is Magdeburg; it is suffragan to the Archdiocese of Paderborn.
Thietmar, Prince-Bishop of Merseburg from 1009 until his death, was an important chronicler recording the reigns of German kings and Holy Roman Emperors of the Ottonian (Saxon) dynasty. Two of Thietmar's great-grandfathers, both referred to as Liuthar, were the Saxon nobles Lothar II, Count of Stade, and Lothar I, Count of Walbeck. They were both killed fighting the Slavs at the Battle of Lenzen.
The Margravate of Meissen was a medieval principality in the area of the modern German state of Saxony. It originally was a frontier march of the Holy Roman Empire, created out of the vast Marca Geronis in 965. Under the rule of the Wettin dynasty, the margravate finally merged with the former Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg into the Saxon Electorate by 1423.
Rikdag, also called Ricdag, Riddag, or Rihdag, was Margrave of Meissen from 979 until his death. In 982, he also acquired the marches of Merseburg and Zeitz. After the Great Slav Rising in 983, he temporarily reunited all of the southern marca Geronis under his command. His march included the territory of the Chutizi and Dolomici tribes.
The Bishopric of Merseburg was an episcopal see on the eastern border of the medieval Duchy of Saxony with its centre in Merseburg, where Merseburg Cathedral was constructed. The see was founded in 967 by Emperor Otto I at the same time in the same manner as those of Meissen and Zeitz, all suffragan dioceses of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg as part of a plan to bind the adjacent Slavic ("Wendish") lands in the Saxon Eastern March beyond the Saale River more closely to the Holy Roman Empire.
Tagino was the third Archbishop of Magdeburg from 1004 until his death.
Henry of Schweinfurt was the Margrave of the Nordgau from 994 until 1004. He was called the "glory of eastern Franconia" by his own cousin, the chronicler Thietmar of Merseburg.
The 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. On Gero's death in 965 it was divided into five different marches: the Nordmark, the Ostmark, Meissen, Zeitz, and Merseburg.
Eckard I was Margrave of Meissen from 985 until his death. He was the first margrave of the Ekkehardinger family that ruled over Meissen until the extinction of the line in 1046.
Gunzelin of Kuckenburg was Margrave of Meissen from 1002 until 1009.
Walthard was the Archbishop of Magdeburg very briefly from June to August in 1012.
Gunther was the Margrave of Merseburg from 965 until his death, upon which the march of Merseburg was united to that of Meissen.
Burchard of Veltheim was a German cleric and Bishop of Halberstadt from 1059 until his death.
Wichmann von Seeburg was Bishop of Naumburg from 1150 until 1154 and Archbishop of Magdeburg from 1154 until his death. He became the first Magdeburg prince-archbishop in 1180
Henry II, also known as Saint Henry the Exuberant, Obl. S. B., was Holy Roman Emperor from 1014. He died without an heir in 1024, and was the last ruler of the Ottonian line. As Duke of Bavaria, appointed in 995, Henry became King of the Romans following the sudden death of his second cousin, Emperor Otto III in 1002, was made King of Italy in 1004, and crowned emperor by Pope Benedict VIII in 1014.
The German–Polish War consisted of a series of struggles from 1002 to 1018 between the Ottonian king Henry II of Germany and the Polish Piast ruler Bolesław I the Brave. The locus of conflict was the control of Lusatia, Upper Lusatia, as well as Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia. The fighting ended with the Peace of Bautzen in 1018, which left Lusatia and Upper Lusatia as a fief of Poland, and Bohemia became a duchy in the Holy Roman Empire.
In the Slavic revolt of 983, Polabian Slavs, (Wends), Lutici and Obotrite tribes, that lived east of the Elbe River in modern north-east Germany overthrew an assumed Ottonian rule over the Slavic lands and rejected Christianization under Emperor Otto I.
Eido I, also Ido, Eid or Ägidius, was the bishop of Meissen from 992 to 1015.
