Gunzelin (Meissen)

Gunzelin von Kuckenburg (* around 965, † after 1017) was Margrave of Meißen from 1002 to 1010.

He was the son of Margrave Günther von Merseburg and brother of his predecessor Ekkehard I from the noble Ekkehardines .

After the death of Margrave Ekkehard I in 1002, King Heinrich II awarded the Mark of Meißen to his brother Gunzelin. In the autumn of 1004 Gunzelin took part in the successful siege of Budusin Castle (Bautzen), which the Polish Duke Boleslaw Chrobry had occupied during his campaign against the Ekkehardines . Budusin would have gone up in flames had it not been prevented by an order from Margrave Gunzelin, reports the Merseburg bishop Thietmar von Merseburg in his chronicle. After negotiations with Boleslaw Chrobry, he agreed the free withdrawal of the Polish occupation, which devastated large areas of the Mark when they withdrew.

Gunzelin resided in Budusin for the following years, probably in the Wallburg on the Lubasschanze near the Spree. During this time he was attacked by the Meissen Counts Hermann and Ekkehard, the sons of the former Margrave Ekkehard I, and accused of illicit self-help and the sale of many probably Slavic-Christian families to Jewish oriental traders who sold these people as slaves in the Caliphate of Córdoba to Arabs Customers were selling. At a princely convention in Merseburg in 1009, Gunzelin was finally deposed as margrave at the behest of the king and handed over to the custody of Bishop Arnulf von Halberstadt . He is said to have spent the eight years of his captivity in the farming village of Ströbeck in the Magdeburg Börde and found enough leisure here to devote himself to his favorite pastime, the game of chess , which he taught the villagers there according to the old rules. However, there is no evidence of this. According to other reports, Gunzelin spent part of his detention in Bamberg . Margrave Gunzelin was only regained his freedom in 1017, allegedly after his chains had fallen from his feet as if by a miracle. However , he did not get his main property back, the former royal court of Frose . No information is available about the last years of his life; possibly he spent it on his allod property , the Kuckenburg .

literature

• Ludwig Giesebrecht : Wendish stories from the years 780 to 1182. Volume 2. Rudolph Gaertner, Berlin 1843, p. 10 ff.
• Siegfried Hirsch : Yearbooks of the German Empire under Heinrich II. Volume 1. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1862, p. 224 .
• Ekkehards Thietmar: IV. 32, V. 6. 10. 12, VI. 36
• Heinrich Theodor Flathe :  Gunzelin, Margrave of Meissen . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, p. 181.

predecessor	Office	successor
Ekkehard I.	Margrave of Meissen 1002–1009	Hermann I.