Margraviate of Meissen

The March or Margraviate of Meissen () was a medieval principality, a march, of the Holy Roman Empire in the area of the modern German state of Saxony. Created out of the Marca Geronis in 965, it merged to the Saxon Electorate in 1423.

The March of Meissen was sometimes called the Thuringian March or March of Thuringia. Usually, however, this was a term for the eastern part of the Meissen march, that is, the land east of the Elbe as far as the Saale, a land inhabited by Slavs. Formerly, the "Thuringian march" was called the "Sorbian march".

Founding

In 928 or 929, during a campaign against the Slavic Glomacze tribe, King Henry the Fowler built a castle on a hill above the Elbe. The later Albrechtsburg was then named Meissen after the nearby stream of Meisa. A town soon developed at the foot of the fortress. Henry, however, made no attempts to Germanise the Slavs or to create a chain of supporting burgwards for his new fortress, rather Meissen sat alone, like Brandenburg, with little organisation around it. That did not last, however. The town grew, eventually becoming one of the most important cities in the large marca Geronis which covered the lands east of the Duchy of Saxony. When the marca was divided in 965 on the death of the margrave Gero the Great, Meissen formed the centre of a new march primarily against the Sorbs. The first mention of a margrave in Meissen comes in 968. That same year, the castle became...
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