Saxe-Wittenberg - History - Anhalt, Wittenberg and Lauenburg

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 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 castle with 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.