Counts · Other imperial lands · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Ulrich of Wettin

The ancestral castle of the house on a rock above the Saale north of Halle, with the villages round it.

The county is small and hemmed in by the archbishop of Magdeburg's Halle and Giebichenstein, but it carries the family name and the old Wettin county rights in the Hassegau and on the lower Saale.

Who he is

Name
Ulrich I
Title
Count of Wettin
Since
1187 (after his elder brother Henry II)
Born
not pinned (1170s)
Family
Wettin: son of Count Henry I of Wettin (died 1181), son of Conrad the Great. Henry's widow Sophia married Landgrave Hermann of Thuringia about 1182 and bore him Jutta, now Dietrich of Meissen's wife; if Ulrich is Sophia's son (likely, but the Genealogia Wettinensis as quoted by FMG calls Henry's wife a noble's daughter 'from Austria', so not checked), he is the margravine's half-brother. Ulrich dies in 1206; his son Henry is the last count of Wettin (died 1217).
Confidence
medium

Wettin genealogy as summarised in the Rhineland map's Thuringia record (Hermann's first wife) and FMG; our own reading, not checked against a charter in this run

Overlord

The king (some of the county's rights were held of the archbishop of Magdeburg: not pinned)

What it holds

  • Wettin castle on the Saale
  • Löbejün and Rothenburg on the Saale (medium-low confidence)
  • Scattered rights in the county on both banks of the Saale north of Halle

How it was acquired

From his father Henry I, who received Wettin in the division of 1156.

Allies and rivals

The Wettin cousins; his stepfather Landgrave Hermann; rival and neighbour the archbishop of Magdeburg at Halle.

How things stand that morning

Holds Wettin. His side in the throne war is not pinned; his neighbours (Magdeburg, the Ascanians, the Wettin cousins) all back Philip.

Wealth

Saale farmland and river tolls; no great market of his own (Halle is the archbishop's).

Military

Wettin castle. No numbers.

Threats

  • Magdeburg's pressure on the lower Saale

Places of note

  • Wettin castle: Ancestral castle of the house

Where the sources disagree

  • Henry I of Wettin's wife: the Rhineland map's record calls Landgrave Hermann's first wife 'Sophia of Sommerschenburg, widow of Count Henry of Wettin'; FMG's Thuringia page quotes the Genealogia Wettinensis calling Henry's wife 'Sophia, daughter of a certain noble of Austria'. Ulrich's mother is therefore not pinned.

Evidence: No article on Ulrich could be fetched in this run; the line is standard Wettin genealogy.

On the map: Schematic.

Primary sources for Empire

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

8 more in the sources library for The Rhineland, the Low Countries and the Swiss Lands.

Sources and studies

  1. FMG Medieval Lands: Meissen

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.