Konrad I "der Grosse" (Conrad the Great) was
the Margrave of Meissen from 1123 till 1156.
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Lothair also named Albert the Bear Margrave of Lusatia, while Henry named Wiprecht to that march also. Wiprecht was unable to hold his own against his two opponents and in 1124 Conrad was securely in power in Meissen. In 1136, Lothair, then emperor, appointed him to Lusatia as well.
In 1143, Conrad became Count of Groitzsch and Rochlitz and Vogt of Chemnitz and Naumburg. In 1147, while Conrad III of Germany was away on the Second Crusade, Conrad the Great joined Henry the Lion, Adalbert of Salzwedel, Albert the Bear, and the Archbishops of Magdeburg and Bremen to organise a Crusade against the Obodrites and Wagri. In August, Conrad and Albert, with the bishops of Magdeburg, Havelburg, and Brandenburg, massed their forces at Magdeburg. The Obodrite prince Niklot and his fortressess of Dubin and Dimin were besieged. Both he and Pribislav, another Obodrite prince, were forced to accept Christianity and make peace.
In the following years, he founded the monastery of St Peter auf dem Lauterberg (Petersberg), to which he retired on 30 November 1156. He died and was buried there next to his wife, Luitgard (Lucarda) von Elchingen-Ravenstein, daughter of Adalbert, Count of Elchingen-Ravenstein and Bertha of Hohenstaufen, daughter of Frederick I, Duke of Swabia and Agnes of Germany. Luitgard, whom he had married before 1119, had blessed him with many children. His eldest surviving son, Otto II, Margrave of Meissen, succeeded him in Meissen, while his second surviving son, Dietrich I, succeeded in Lusatia.
Otto, später genannt der Reiche, (* 1125; † 18. Februar 1190) aus dem Hause der Wettiner war von 1156 bis 1190 Markgraf von Meißen. Er war der älteste Sohn Konrads I., des Großen von Meißen.
Konrad I. teilte 1156, im Jahr vor seinem Tod seine Besitzungen auf. Dieses Vorgehen war umstritten, da er auch seine Reichslehen wie seine eigenen Besitzungen behandelte und an seine Söhne weitergab. Otto erhielt dabei den Hauptbesitz, die Mark Meißen. Seine Brüder erhielten kleinere Gebiete, wie die Lausitz, die Burg Wettin und die Grafschaft Groitzsch. Während Ottos Herrschaft gelang es diesem kaum, sein Territorium zu vergrößern. Politisch unterstützte er die Staufer gegen die Welfen, konnte aber kaum von der Zerschlagung des Herrschaftsgebiets Heinrichs des Löwen profitieren.
Vor allem befasste Otto sich daher mit dem inneren Landesausbau. Im Vorland des Erzgebirges siedelte er Bauern an. Zwischen 1156 und 1170 verlieh er dem Ort Leipzig als erstem in der Mark Meißen das Stadtrecht. 1176 gründete er die Kirche St. Nicolai als zweite Stadtkirche Leipzigs.
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Um 1168 wurde im Gebiet des 1162 auf Betreiben von Ottos Frau Hedwig gegründeten Klosters Altenzelle Silber gefunden, das seinen Reichtum begründete. Nahe der Fundstelle ließ Otto 1186 Freiberg anlegen, die bedeutendste Bergstadt Sachsens. Ebenfalls auf Betreiben seiner Frau setzte Otto seinen jüngeren Sohn Dietrich als Erben der Markgrafschaft ein. Sein älterer Sohn Albrecht nahm ihn deshalb gefangen, musste ihn aber auf Befehl Friedrich I. Barbarossas wieder freilassen.
Dietrich fell out with his brother, Albrecht the Proud as his mother persuaded his father to change the succession so that Dietrich was given the Margraviate of Meißen and Albrecht (although the older son) the Margraviate of Weißenfels. Albrecht took his father prisoner to try to make him return the succession to the way it had been. After Otto obtained his release by order of the emperor Frederick I, he had only just renewed the war when he died in 1190. Albrecht took back the Meißen margraviate from his brother. Dietrich attempted to regain the margraviate, supported by Landgraf Hermann I of Thuringia, whose daughter he was married to. In 1195, however, he left on a pilgrimage to Palestine.
At the time of the struggle between the two rival kings Philip of Swabia and Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor, Phillip gave Dietrich the tenure of the march of Meißen again. After that time, Dietrich was on Phillip's side and remained true to the Staufer even after Phillip was murdered in 1208.
Dietrich became caught up in dangerous disagreements with the city of Leipzig and the Meißen nobility. After a fruitless siege of Leipzig, in 1217 he agreed to a settlement but then took over the city by trickery, had the city walls taken down and built three castles of his own within the city, full of his own men.
Margrave Dietrich died on 18 February 1211, possibly poisoned by his doctor, instigated into doing so by the people of Leipzig and the dissatisfied nobility.
Henry was the youngest son of Dietrich of Meissen and Jutta of Thuringia. In 1221 he succeeded his father, as Margrave of Meissen of the Wettin dynasty, under guardianship of his maternal uncle, Ludwig the Saint, and after his death in 1227, under that of Albert II, Duke of Brandenburg. In 1230 he was legally proclaimed an adult and in 1234 married with Constantia, the daughter of Leopold VI, Duke of Austria.
He experienced his first armed combat in 1237 in the Prussian Crusade against the Old Prussians. In 1245 after many years of conflict he was forced to cede Köpenick and Teltow in Brandenburg but won the area of Schiedlo where he founded Fürstenberg.
In the struggle between the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope Henry took the side of the Emperor. In consideration, the Emperor Frederick II in 1242 gave him Thuringia and the Palatinate of Saxony and in 1243 betrothed his daughter Margaret to Henry's son Albert.
Only after the departure of Conrad IV from Germany did Henry recognise the opposing king, William of Holland. After the death of Heinrich Raspe in 1247, Henry enforced his rights in Thuringia by military means against his cousin Sophie of Brabant, the daughter of Ludwig the Saint, and Count Siegfried of Anhalt. After a long drawn-out war he ceded Hesse to Henry I of Hesse but kept Thuringia, which he granted to his son Albert with the Palatinate of Saxony. These acquisitions significantly increased the Wettin territorial possessions, which now reached from the Oder up to the Werra, and from the Erzgebirge up to the Harz.
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From 1273 Heinrich was an important support to king Rudolf I. Against Bohemia he won, among other places, Sayda and Purschenstein, and was known throughout the whole empire as a glittering prince, famous as a patron of the arts and a model knight, and as a significant Minnesinger, poet and composer. He was patron of many tournaments and singing competitions, in which he also took part himself, and commissioned the famous Christherre-Chronik. He set to music religious hymns to be sung in the churches, by express permission of the pope.
As early as 1265 he granted Pleissnerland, which he had acquired in 1243, the county of Thuringia and Landsberg to his sons Albert II, Margrave of Meissen, otherwise Albrecht the Degenerate, and Dietrich, Margrave of Landsberg, keeping for himself only Meissen and a formal power of oversight. Only domestic disorders, caused by the unworthiness of his son Albrecht, clouded the later years of his reign and indeed, long after his death in 1288, were to bring his house to ruin.
He was the eldest son of Henry the Illustrious, Margrave of Meissen by his first wife, Constantia of Austria.
In 1265 Margrave Henry (the Illustrious) granted the Landgraviate of Thuringia and the Palatinate to Albrecht and the Margraviate of Landsberg in the Osterland to his younger brother Dietrich. Henry kept for himself the Margraviates of Meissen and Lausitz as a formal power over his sons.
In June 1255 Albrecht married Margaret of Sicily, the daughter of Emperor Frederick II. As a dowry
the Pleissnerland was pledged to the house of Wettin. They had five children:
1. Henry, inherited the Pleissnerland in 1274.
2. Frederick, Margrave of Meissen.
3. Dietrich, called Dietzmann, Margrave of Lausitz.
4. Margaret.
5. Agnes, married to Heinrich I,, Duke of Brunswick-Grubenhagen.
After what was at first a happy rule and marriage, Albrecht turned away from Margaret and began a
passionate love affair with Kunigunde of Eisenberg. She bore him two children: a daughter, Elisabeth
in 1269, and a son, Albrecht ("Apitz") in 1270.
When she discovered the adultery and the illegitimate births, Margaret left Wartburg on 24 June 1270 and went to Frankfurt am Main where she died on 8 August of the same year. The two younger sons, Frederick and Dietzmann were looked after by their uncle, Dietrich, Margrave of Landsberg. Henry, the oldest, disappeared in Silesia in 1282.
Albrecht married Kunigunde in 1274 and legitimised their children. When Albrecht intended to leave to Apitz the Landgravate of Thuringia and compensate his sons from his first marriage only with the Osterland (who included the inheritance of their mother) and the Palatinate County of Saxony, they began a war against their father. Frederick was captured by his father and was locked in Schloss Wartburg; however, he escaped one year later and continued the war against his father together with D ietzmann. During this time, in 1284, their uncle Dietrich of Landsberg died, and four years later, in 1288, Heinrich the Illustrious, Albrecht's father, also died. These deaths heightened the family disputes./p>
At the death of his father Albrecht became Margrave of Meissen, while his nephew Frederick Tuta - son of Dietrich of Landsberg - inherited the Margravate of Lausitz, which was lost by Albrecht's son Dietzmann in that year. Shortly after, Frederick captured his father Albrecht in battle. By the Treaty of Rochlitz (1289) Albrecht obtained his freedom after the renunciation of large parts of his lands. He retained Meissen himself, but finally sold it to Frederick Tuta. When, after his death (1291) his cousins Frederick and Dietzmann arbitrarily took possession of his lands, Albrecht - suffering financial difficulties - was compelled to sell Thuringia in 1293 to the German King Adolf of Nassau; in the contract, it was stipulated that the king could take possession of the lands after Albrecht's death. In the sale, Albrecht included Meissen and Osterland as his fiefs, despite the fact they were in the hands of his sons. Thanks to this, Adolf's successor Albrecht I of Habsburg was able to take possession of these lands, claiming that the contract of sale was legitimate and lawful.
Kunigunde of Eisenberg died on 31 October 1286. Four years later, on 1 October 1290, Albrecht married thirdly Elisabeth of Orlamünde, heiress of Nordhalben and widow of Hartmann XI of Lobdeburg-Arnshaugk. The same year, Apitz, Albrecht's son by Kunigunde, was formally legitimized by t he Emperor and created Herr of Tenneberg.
Four years later (1300) Albrecht's eldest surviving son, Frederick, married Elisabeth of Lobdeburg-Arnshaugk, daughter of his stepmother; this make the final reconciliation between father and son. Five years later Apitz of Tenneberg died, aged thirty-five. The death of his favorite son was a terrible blow to Albrecht. He never recovered from the loss. In 1307 Albrecht finally resigned the Landgraviate of Thuringia and the County Palatine of Saxony to his son Frederick in exchange for an annuity. He died seven years later in Erfurt, aged seventy-four.
Born in Eisenach, Frederick was the son of Albert the Degenerate and Margaret of Germany. According to legend, his mother, fleeing her philandering husband in 1270, was overcome by the pain of parting and bit Frederick on the cheek: therefore he became known as the Bitten.
After the death of Conradin in 1268, he became the legitimate heir to the Hohenstaufen claims, and claimed the Kingdom of Sicily, briefly taking the titles of King of Jerusalem and Sicily and Duke of Swabia. (While not descended from the Kings of Jerusalem, his grandfather Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, had claimed the kingdom for himself.)
However, these claims met with little favor. Swabia, pawned by Conradin before his last expedition, was disintegrating as a territorial unit. He went unrecognized in Outremer, and Charles of Anjou was deeply entrenched in power in Southern Italy. Margrave Frederick proposed an invasion of Italy in 1269, and attracted some support from the Lombard Ghibellines, but his plans were never carried out, and he played no further part in Italian affairs. From 1280, he was count palatine of Saxony.
Because his father preferred their half-brother Apitz, Frederick and his brother Diezmann waged war upon him. Frederick was captured in 1281, but after a long war his father recognized the rights of the brothers in 1289. After the death of their cousin Frederick Tuta (1291), both brothers took possession of his lands and Frederick received the Margraviate of Meissen, leaving to their father only the Margraviate of Landsberg. However, King Adolf of Nassau-Weilburg thought that Meissen and the Eastern March should return to the crown after Tuta's death, and bought Thuringia from the debt-laden Albert. The brothers were again called to arms in the defense of their inheritance, but had to give up the land. Frederick stayed away from home until the death of Adolf returned his land to him. By now his father had also been reconciled with him. Soon afterwards, however, King Albert I claimed Thuringia and was supported by the cities, which longed to become independent (reichsunmittelbar). The landgrave's family was besieged on the Wartburg by the Eisenach forces; however, Frederick succeeded in liberating them. But only the victory at Lucka on 31 May 1307 gave the two brothers relief, and before the king could gather new forces, he died.
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Paralyzed by a stroke since 1321, Frederick died on 16 November 1323 at Eisenach. His bones were later moved to Grimmenstein Castle in Gotha and after its demolition were buried in Friedenstein Castle; however, his tomb was erected in Reinhardsbrunn. In 1285, he married Agnes, the daughter of Count Meinhard II of Gorizia-Tyrol and Elisabeth of Bavaria, widowed mother of Conradin, and after her death he married Elizabeth of Arnshaugk, the daughter of his stepmother, in 1303. Only two children survived him, Elizabeth, who was married to Henry II, Landgrave of Hesse, in 1322, and Frederick, his successor.
In 1323 he started as a sole heir under guardianship of his mother the succession of his late father in the Margraviate of Meissen and the Thuringia. After he had become mature in 1329, he had to pass long-term fights with the vassals and neighbors, in particular the counts of Weimar-Orlamünde and the counts of Schwarzburg (Thuringian count's war in 1342-1345). After the death of emperor Ludwig IV, the Bavarian party tried to move him to the acceptance of the German crown, however, he mistrusted the inconstancy of his voters and rejected such strange request in favour of Charles IV of Luxembourg. Friedrich II limited himself to consolidate his rule and to defend against the danger going out from Charles IV. At a meeting 1348 in Bautzen both recognized the existing possession states.
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Balthasar war Markgraf von Meißen und Landgraf von Thüringen aus dem Geschlecht der Wettiner. Balthasar wurde als zweiter Sohn Friedrichs des Ernsthaften († 1349) geboren. Nach seines Vaters Tod stand er zunächst unter Vormundschaft seines älteren Bruders Friedrich des Strengen, regierte dann aber mit diesem und seinem jüngeren Bruder Wilhelm gemeinsam und abwechselnd. Nach dem Tod Friedrich des Strengen kam es zwischen den Brüdern Balthasar und Wilhelm sowie ihren Neffen Friedrich dem Streitbaren, Wilhelm dem Reichen und Georg zur so genannten Chemnitzer Teilung (13. November 1382), bei welcher Balthasar die Landgrafschaft Thüringen erhielt. In erster Ehe war Balthasar seit dem Frühjahr 1374 mit Margaretha, der Tochter des Burggrafen Albrecht von Nürnberg († 1390) und danach mit Anna von Sachsen verheiratet. In der Regierung Thüringens folgte ihm sein Sohn Landgraf Friedrich der Friedfertige aus erster Ehe. Ferner hatte er die Tochter Anna von Meißen.
