Margraviate of Meissen

Who rules

Name

Dietrich (Theoderic), called later 'the Oppressed' (der Bedrängte)

Title

Margrave of Meissen (marchio Misnensis)

Since

1197-1198: the march came back to him after Henry VI died (28 September 1197); FMG dates his succession to 1197, de.wikipedia and the article on the Pleissenland have Philip enfeoff him in 1198 (exact date and place not pinned)

Born

1162

Family

Wettin. Second son of Margrave Otto the Rich (died 18 February 1190) and Hedwig of Brandenburg, daughter of Albert the Bear (Hedwig is alive and dies in 1203). Brother of Margrave Albert the Proud (died 1195) and of Adelaide, the repudiated queen of Bohemia.

Confidence

high

de.wikipedia Dietrich der Bedrängte and Pleißenland; en.wikipedia Dietrich, Margrave of Meissen; FMG Medieval Lands (Meissen); the Rhineland map's record for Thuringia (Thuringia) for the marriage

Overlord

The king (Philip, in Dietrich's eyes); the march is an imperial princely fief.

What the realm holds

• Meissen: the margrave's castle on the castle hill (shared with the burgrave's and the bishop's)
• The old castle districts (Burgwarde) of the march round Meissen, the Lommatzsch country (Daleminzia) and the Elbe valley up to the Dresden basin (Nisan), where the castle that becomes Dresden is not yet named (first named 1206)
• Großenhain (Hayn) north of the Elbe
• Oschatz, Strehla and the Elbe crossings below Meissen (Strehla's lord in 1200 not pinned)
• Freiberg and its silver mines, the castle and mint
• Altzella (Altenzelle), the Cistercian house monastery founded by Otto in 1162, burial place of his father
• In the Osterland: Leipzig (town rights from Otto about 1165), Grimma, Oschatz, Döbeln
• Weissenfels on the Saale (town founded by Otto about 1185)
• Torgau on the Elbe (its lord in 1200 is not pinned; drawn with Dietrich, low confidence)

How it was acquired

The march came to the Wettins in 1089 (Henry of Eilenburg) and finally in 1123-1125 (Conrad the Great). Conrad divided his lands in 1156: Meissen to Otto, the Eastern March and Landsberg to Dietrich, Wettin to Henry, Rochlitz and Groitzsch to Dedo, Brehna to Frederick. Otto's lands passed to Albert in 1190, to the Empire in 1195, and to Dietrich in 1198.

Allies and rivals

Allies: King Philip; his father-in-law Landgrave Hermann; his Wettin cousins Conrad of the Eastern March, Dietrich of Groitzsch, Ulrich of Wettin and the counts of Brehna. Rivals: King Ottokar of Bohemia over Adelaide; the royal officers of the Pleissenland (Altenburg, Leisnig, Colditz), who block his way south; the burgraves of Meissen and Dohna, royal men inside his march; the burghers of Leipzig (later).

The realm that morning

On 1 January 1200 Dietrich holds the whole march without challenge and backs Philip. No fighting is going on inside it. The king's land of Altenburg (the Pleissenland) lies across his southern side, the bishops of Meissen, Merseburg and Naumburg hold their towns and castle districts inside and beside it, and his cousin Conrad holds the Eastern March (Lusatia) to the north-east and Eilenburg and Rochlitz in the Osterland.

Wealth

Silver above all: the Freiberg mines, worked by free miners since 1168, make the margraves among the richest princes of the Empire. Tolls on the Elbe and on the roads through Leipzig; the Leipzig markets; new villages of German settlers cleared on the Erzgebirge slopes since the 1150s.

Military

Castles at Meissen, Freiberg, Leipzig, Großenhain, Oschatz, Döbeln, Grimma, Weissenfels and the old Burgwarde. Dietrich's record: years of war against his brother Albert (1190-1195) with Thuringian help. No numbers.

Threats

• The throne war: if Philip's cause falls, a Welf king could again treat Meissen as a lapsed fief.
• Ottokar of Bohemia, his sister's husband turned enemy, on the Erzgebirge frontier.
• The Pleissenland officers and royal ministeriales across his southern march.
• His own nobles and the Leipzig burghers resist his lordship (an open break comes later).

Consort

Jutta of Thuringia (born about 1183, died at Schleusingen on 6 August 1235), daughter of Landgrave Hermann I by his first wife Sophia, the widow of Count Henry of Wettin. Betrothed as a child as the seal of the landgrave's alliance; FMG and the Genealogia Wettinensis date the marriage to 1194, when Dietrich was styled lord of Weissenfels (other accounts give 1197). On 1 January 1200 she is about sixteen or seventeen.

Heirs and children

• No legitimate son is securely born by 1 January 1200. The children of the marriage (Hedwig, later wife of Count Dietrich of Cleves; Otto, died before 1215; Sophia, later wife of Count Henry of Henneberg; Jutta; and Henry 'the Illustrious', born about 1215-1218) have no recorded birth years except Henry, and given Jutta's age at most the eldest one or two can have been born by this date: not pinned.
• Illegitimate sons: Dietrich (born about 1190, bishop of Naumburg 1243-1272), very likely born by 1200; Konrad, later a monk of the Petersberg at Erfurt, and Heinrich (died 1259), later provost of Meissen: birth years not pinned.
• His sister Adelaide's children live with her at Meissen: Vratislav (born before 1181), Dagmar (Markéta, born about 1186, later queen of Denmark, 1205), Božislava and Hedwig.

Officers

• The burgrave of Meissen sits in the king's castle on the same hill as the margrave and the bishop; the burgraves (the Meinheringer family) are royal officers, not the margrave's men (see Burgrave of Meissen).
• The margrave's own ministeriales (sworn officers of unfree birth) hold his castles and courts; the household offices (steward, marshal, cupbearer, chamberlain) are attested for the Wettins in this period but the holders that winter are not pinned.
• Mint masters at Meissen, Freiberg and Leipzig (names not pinned).

Court winter 1199 in 1200

Not pinned. Philip kept Christmas 1199 at Magdeburg with the Saxon princes; whether Dietrich was there is not attested in the sources consulted.

King backed

Philip of Swabia, since 1198 (enfeoffed by him with the march in 1198; signatory of the Speyer declaration of 28 May 1199). He stays with the Staufen even after Philip's murder in 1208.

Treaties marriages feuds

The Thuringian alliance through Jutta (the landgrave is his father-in-law and has just returned to Philip, 15 August 1199). The Bohemian marriage of his sister Adelaide, broken by Ottokar in 1199: Adelaide's suit against the annulment, opened in 1199, is before Pope Innocent III and the two kings. No war between Meissen and Bohemia is recorded for 1199-1200; the quarrel is fought in law, at Rome and at the kings' courts.

A long quarrel with the burghers of Leipzig and with part of the Meissen nobility runs through his reign but breaks out only later (siege of Leipzig and the settlement of 1216-1217).

Coinage

Silver pennies of the thin one-sided type (bracteates) struck for the margrave from Freiberg silver at Meissen, Freiberg and Leipzig (the full list of mints in 1200 is not pinned).

The host

His ministeriales and castle garrisons, the service of his vassals and of the Wettin cousins when they act together. No numbers are recorded.

Belt assessment

No raiding belt is drawn. No fighting is recorded in the march, the Osterland, the Pleissenland or Lusatia in the winter of 1199-1200: all the princes and royal officers here stand with Philip, and the quarrel with Bohemia over Adelaide is fought at law. The nearest fighting is the Welf raid on the archbishop of Magdeburg's Calbe during Philip's Christmas court (Rhineland map).

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 1200, through the yearAdelaide's suit against her repudiation stays open at Rome and before the kings all year; the curia keeps postponing a decision, which is given for Ottokar only in 1210.Depends on: The pope keeping the case open as a lever on Ottokar and the kings Stopped by: A papal judgement, or a settlement between Ottokar and Dietrich
2. 1200 (summer; date not pinned)Archbishop Conrad of Mainz brings the parties of the two kings to arbitration; Dietrich's cousin Conrad of the Eastern March is named for Philip's side. Nothing is settled.Depends on: Archbishop Conrad's mediation Stopped by: His death (25 or 27 October 1200) or either king refusing
3. Summer 1200 (Philip's attack on Brunswick fails on 21 August)Philip's campaign into Saxony against the Welf brothers (failure before Brunswick): Dietrich may be summoned as a Staufen prince; his part is not attested.Depends on: Philip keeping his eastern princes Stopped by: A truce, or Dietrich's own troubles at home
4. 1201-1206 (not 1200)Bishop Dietrich of Meissen and Burgrave Henry of Dohna quarrel over the castle of Thorun; the margrave arbitrates at Dresden on 31 March 1206.
5. 1203 (not 1200)Ottokar goes over to Otto IV; Philip invades Bohemia. Only then do the Bohemian king and the Staufen camp fall out, and in 1205 Ottokar briefly takes Adelaide back as the price of peace with Philip.

Places of note

• Meissen castle hill: Margrave's castle, burgrave's castle and the cathedral on one hill above the Elbe
• Freiberg: Silver mines, castle and mint
• Altzella abbey: Cistercian house monastery of the margraves

Where the sources disagree

• Date of the restoration: FMG (Thuringia page) says Dietrich 'succeeded in 1197'; de.wikipedia (Dietrich der Bedrängte; Pleißenland) and en.wikipedia give 1198, with Philip's enfeoffment in 1198. Both fit 1 January 1200, when he is securely margrave.
• Marriage: 1194 (FMG, Genealogia Wettinensis) against 1197 (de.wikipedia, as reported in the Rhineland map's record); de.wikipedia's sentence on the 1198 enfeoffment ('von diesem') can be misread as naming Otto of Brunswick; the context and the Pleissenland article make clear it was Philip.
• The campaign notes (Part 8, 6) say only that Ottokar put away Adelaide and married Constance and that Adelaide has appealed to Rome; nothing conflicts. de.wikipedia (Adelheid von Meißen) adds that she opened the suit in 1199, appealed to both kings as well as the pope, and lives in Meissen under Dietrich's protection.

Evidence: Dietrich's career is well known from the Lauterberg chronicle (Chronicon Montis Sereni) and the Genealogia Wettinensis, but the exact date and place of Philip's enfeoffment in 1198 and the birth years of his children are not pinned in the sources consulted.

On the map: The march is drawn from the margrave's castle districts and towns (see the lord records). The bishops' districts (Wurzen, Mügeln, Merseburg, Naumburg, Zeitz) and the king's Pleissenland are inside or beside it and are drawn separately.

Primary sources for this realm

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.

• Annals of Jarloch (Gerlach), abbot of Milevsko, Jarloch of Milevsko (about 1200 to 1220). The last Bohemian narrative before 1200, continuing Vincentius of Prague. Read online
• Annals of Pegau; Annals of Magdeburg (12th and 13th centuries; Pegau continued to 1227). The annals of the Wettin lands and of Magdeburg. Read online
• Chronicle of the Lauterberg (Petersberg near Halle), Konrad of Lauterberg (about 1225). The house chronicle of the Wettin foundation on the Lauterberg, sharp-tongued and well informed on Saxony, Meissen and Magdeburg. Read online
• Chronicle of Reinhardsbrunn; Chronicle of St Peter's, Erfurt (Erfurt chronicle in the 13th century; Reinhardsbrunn compilation about 1340 to 1349 from older annals). The two Thuringian chronicles. Read online
• Royal Chronicle of Cologne (in stages from about 1175 to about 1250; the section on 1198 to 1220 written soon after the events). The fullest German narrative of the throne war from the Welf and Cologne side. Read online
• Deeds of the archbishops of Magdeburg (main text to 1142, continued in the 13th and 14th centuries). The Magdeburg house history, with a continuation covering Archbishop Ludolf of Kroppenstedt (1192 to 1205), a firm supporter of Philip who hosted the king's Christmas court at Magdeburg on 25 December 1199. Read online
• Charters and letters of the kingdom of Bohemia, volume 2, 1198 to 1230 (documents of 1198 to 1230, edited 1912). The critical edition of every Bohemian and Moravian charter and letter from Ottokar I's accession to 1230.