Albrecht II (Meissen)

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Albrecht the Degenerate (1288–1307), Margrave of Meißen and Landgrave of Thuringia, rider brakteat , Gotha Mint

. Albert II , the Degenerate , even the Naughty (* 1240 , † 13. November 1314 - by other sources on 20 November 1314 and in 1315 - in Erfurt ) from the gender of Wettin was first Landgrave of Thuringia and later Margrave of Meissen .

Full coat of arms of Landgrave Albrecht II of Thuringia (around 1265)
Albrecht II and Margaretha von Staufen in a representation from the 15th century

Life

Albrecht was born as the eldest son of Heinrich the Illustrious and Constantia of Austria . Through the division of the states carried out by his father in 1265, Albrecht received Thuringia and the Palatinate County of Saxony and became Landgrave of Thuringia. His brother Dietrich received the Mark Landsberg and the Osterland , while the father himself remained in the possession of the Mark Meißen and the Mark Lausitz .

Albrecht had been married to Margaretha von Staufen , the daughter of Emperor Frederick II , since 1254. The Pleißenland was pledged to the Wettin house as a dowry .

Albrecht the Degenerate (1288–1307) and Friedrich the Bitten (1307–1324); Prince procession, Dresden

After initially happy government and marriage, Albrecht turned away from Margarete and began a passionate love affair with Kunigunde von Eisenberg , with the result that Margarete left the Wartburg on June 24, 1270 and went to Frankfurt am Main , where she on August 8 died the same year. The younger sons Friedrich and Dietrich were taken by their uncle, Margrave Dietrich von Landsberg . Heinrich, the eldest son, disappeared in Silesia in 1283 .

In 1274 Albrecht married Kunigunde and had her son Apitz (Albrecht) legitimized by the king. When he intended to bequeath the Landgraviate of Thuringia to him and his sons from their first marriage to come to terms only with the Osterland (their mother's inheritance) and the Palatinate Saxony , the latter began a war against their father, in which Albrecht was initially superior: Friedrich got into His father was imprisoned and was arrested at the Wartburg, but was able to escape after a year and continued the war against his father together with his brother Dietrich. During this time her uncle Dietrich von Landsberg died in 1284 . He left a son, Friedrich the Stammler . Four years later, in 1288, Heinrich the Illustrious , Albrecht's father , also died . Both exacerbated the family disputes.

With the death of his father Albrecht also became Margrave of Meißen , while Friedrich the Stammler inherited the Mark Lausitz , which he lost to Albrecht's son Dietrich IV in the same year. Also in 1288 Friedrich took his father Albrecht prisoner in battle. The Treaty of Rochlitz (January 1, 1289) gave Albrecht back his freedom against the cession of large parts of the country. What he had left of the Mark Meissen, he sold to his nephew Friedrich the Stammler. When Friedrich and Dietrich IV took possession of his lands after his death in 1291, Albrecht had to sell Thuringia to the Roman-German King Adolf von Nassau in the event of his death due to financial difficulties in 1293 , who also saw the Marks of Meissen and Osterland as by death Friedrich the Stammler looked at fiefdoms that had fallen back , but just as little as his successor Albrecht I of Habsburg was able to actually take possession of the areas he claimed.

After Kunigunde's death (1286), Albrecht had married Elisabeth von Arnshaugk for the third time ; in 1299 she became the mother-in-law of her stepson Friedrich and brought about a kind of reconciliation between father and son. Most recently, Albrecht ceded Thuringia to Friedrich for an annual fee and died in Erfurt in 1314 . His favorite son Apitz (Albrecht) had died before him.

Marriages and offspring

Albrecht married three times:

His first marriage was in 1254 or 1255 with Margaretha von Staufen , daughter of Emperor Friedrich II. Their marriage had the following children:

  1. Heinrich (* March 21, 1256; † between January 25 and July 23, 1282)
  2. Frederick the Open (1257–1323)
  3. Dietrich IV., Called Diezmann (* around 1260; † probably December 10, 1307)
  4. Margareta (mentioned in a document on April 17, 1273)
  5. Agnes (* before 1264; † after September 1332), was married to Heinrich von Braunschweig-Lüneburg before 1284 and was the mother of the later Byzantine Empress Irene Alemanna .

After 1270 Albrecht married his previous lover Kunigunde von Eisenberg († October 31, 1286). From this marriage came:

  1. Apitz (Albrecht) (* before 1270; † after January 27, 1301, at the latest in 1305), Herr von Tenneberg 1290
  2. Elisabeth (* before 1270; † after April 23, 1326), married before April 11, 1291 Heinrich II. Von Frankenstein († between April 23, 1326 and March 25, 1327)

Before October 1, 1290, Albrecht married Elisabeth von Arnshaugk, born von Orlamünde († after March 24, 1333). This marriage remained childless.

literature

Belletristic representation

  • Bernd Kaufmann: The slandered one. The story of Landgrave Albrecht II of Thuringia. First book: Margareta BKP-Verlag GmbH, Zweibrücken 2009, ISBN 978-3-9813424-0-6 and "Der Verleumdete. The story of Landgrave Albrecht II of Thuringia. Second book: War of the Sons" BKP Verlag GmbH, Zweibrücken 2011 , ISBN 978-3-9813424-3-7 .
predecessor Office successor
Henry III. Margrave of Meissen
1288–1292 		Friedrich I.
personal data
SURNAME Albrecht II.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Albrecht the Degenerate; Albrecht the Naughty
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Landgrave of Thuringia
DATE OF BIRTH 1240
DATE OF DEATH on November 13, 1314
Place of death Erfurt