The Leipziger Teilung

When two brothers, Ernst and Albrecht of Saxony divided up their enormous inheritance that comprised Thuringia, Meissen and the electorate of Sachsen-Wittenberg, they not only undermined their power base as the de facto #2 amongst the imperial principalities and planted the seed for a conflict that would play a key role in the Reformation but they also laid the foundations for the modern Länder of Thuringia and Saxony.

And this division was not driven by the usual family feud but came after 20 years of largely harmonious government and a shared childhood trauma. Why they took, or had to take this fateful step, is what we will discuss today.

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Transcript

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 200 – Divide and Lose, the Leipziger Teilung, also episode 15 of season 10: The Empire in the 15^th Century.

When two brothers, Ernst and Albrecht of Saxony divided up their enormous inheritance that comprised Thuringia, Meissen and the electorate of Sachsen-Wittenberg, they not only undermined their power base as the de facto #2 amongst the imperial principalities and planted the seed for a conflict that would play a key role in the Reformation but they also laid the foundations for the modern Länder of Thuringia and Saxony.

And this division was not driven by the usual family feud but came after 20 years of largely harmonious government and a shared childhood trauma. Why they took, or had to take this fateful step, is what we will discuss today.

And big thanks to all of you who responded to the question I asked last week about whether you enjoy going down the various rabbit holes that opened up as the empire fragmented. I was expecting a somewhat biased result – after all, anyone who was keen on a straightforward and more rapid narrative is unlikely to listen for two years in the hope such an acceleration may finally appear. But what I did not expect was that so many of you contacted me on various channels to tell me they enjoyed these deviations, even going so far as to describe them as the core and main value proposition of the show. So, no further debate, we will continue our meandering walk around the empire.

And since this is the 200^th episode, instead of mentioning those patrons whose turn it is to have their names called out, I will today honour 11 patrons of the show who have been supporting continuously from as long ago as 2021 have hence made an outstanding contribution to the show. And so, in no particular order, I want to thank Margreatha H., Tom J., Misty A. S., Nathan S., Peter F., Simen K., Sherylynn B., Ed and Karri O., Nina B.R., Michael B., and Warren W. Normally I would say that you should bask in the warm glow of the admiration of your fellow men but ,sweating in 35 plus degrees heat as I guess many of you are as well, I wish you to be fanned over by thousands of fans…

And with that, back to the show

If you are, like me, a huge fan of the tv drama Succession, you may imagine that disputes over the inheritance of great wealth are always a ballet of broken alliances, foul accusations and backstabbing that Shiv, Kendall and Roman performed to such utter perfection and ended with all of them losing.

But it does not always have to be like that to create an equally disastrous outcome, as it happened to Ernst and Albrecht the sons of Frederick, elector and duke of Saxony. To explain why they divided their lands and fatally weakened themselves, we need to get back to where we left off in the story off the House of Wettin in episode 107.

They had only just emerged from an all-out conflict between father and sons. This turned from family squabble to dominating political issue for the empire when king Adolf von Nassau concluded that the Landgraviate of Thuringia would be the asset that could propel his family from little counts to proper princes. Well, it didn’t. When it was all over, in 1307, the last man standing, Frederic the Bitten was confirmed as the lord of all the ruins.

His lands may have been broken, but they were extensive. The Landgraviate of Thuringia with its great fortress-palace of the Wartburg and the margraviate of Meissen where the cities of Dresden and Leipzig were rising. For the next hundred or so years, Fredrick the Bitten and his successors rebuild the economy of their devastated principality.

And they were very successful at doing that. As we mentioned in episode 107, their territory contained several silver mines that provided a big chunk of their income. And as their economic fortunes improved, they were able to acquire more of the adjacent territories, some by purchase, others by more aggressive methods.

They also played the grander political game very astutely. When Ludwig the Bavarian emerged victorious in his war of succession, they formed a marriage alliance with him, which they immediately ditched when Ludwigs fortunes declined, and the pendulum swung to the Luxembourgs under Karl IV. They then took full advantage of the complete collapse of imperial authority under Wenceslaus the Lazy and Ruprecht of the Palatinate. Net, net, the overall possessions of the house of Wettin grew by about a another third during that century. I could give you a list of all the little counties and lands, which would bore you to infinity and beyond, so I will instead put a map into the transcript you can find on my website: historyofthegermans.com. The link is in the show notes.

When we get to Sigismund and the Hussite wars, the House of Wettin became even more indispensable to the emperor. The Wettiner lands bordered the kingdom of Bohemia. Relations between the margraviate of Meissen and Bohemia had been close for centuries – they had traded both goods and blows, their rulers held lands either side of the borders and information and ideas moved seamlessly between the two. The university of Leipzig got its big break when Wenceslaus expelled the German speaking professors from the university of Prague.

The intellectual exchange also brought subversive ideas going round in the early 15^th century. Several of Jan Hus predecessors, associates and followers had come from or gone to the margraviate of Meissen, most prominent amongst them Nicholas of Dresden.

As one can imagine that once the councillors of Prague’s Newtown had hit the pavement in 1419, the Wettins became extremely concerned these dangerous concepts could take hold in their lands too. To snuff it out at source, they enthusiastically followed Sigismund’s call for an imperial war against the Hussites in 1420 and 1421. How not so well this went you can hear in more detail in episodes 178 following. After a string of defeats, first before Prague, then at Kutna Hora and Nemecky Brod, the emperor Sigismund gradually handed over responsibility for the fight against the Hussites to the margrave of Brandenburg and the Wettiner. Most of the action between 1421 and 1433 was led by these two, including the devastating battle of Aussig, where in 1426 the whole of the Wettin force perished (episode 182 if you are interested).

This kind of effort demanded a reward, and that reward was a new set of titles for the House of Wettin – that of electors and dukes of Saxony.

In the Golden Bull of 1356 (episode 160) the emperor Karl IV had awarded the electoral vote of Saxony to the dukes of Sachsen-Wittenberg. These dukes were members of the House of Anhalt, the descendants of Albrecht the Bear (episode 106). These guys had been rather minor figures in imperial politics of the 14^th century despite their elevated rank as prince electors. Their territory was rather small and not particularly rich, at least at that time. They never made a bid for the top job and could not even fully leverage their electoral vote due to their cousins in Lauenburg making competing claim.

And in the early 15^th century the family was befallen by some bizarre mishaps. Though there were a good dozen male members of the family around in the 1380s, by 1422 they had completely died out. Some failed to reproduce, and others died in battle, which was standard, but then all the sons of the reigning duke, together with six-page boys and their tutor died when the tower of their caste in Schweinitz collapsed. The last of the line fried in a burning farmhouse a few years later, leaving this fief vacant.

As per the covenants of the Golden Bull, Sigismund had to award the fief and the electorate to another prince. Several threw their hats into the ring, Fredrick of Hohenzollern, who just a few years earlier had already received the electorate of Brandenburg, then the Elector Palatinate, some of the other Anhalt princes, and from the house of Wettin, Frederick the Belligerent, margrave of Saxony.

Sigismund pretended it was a hard choice, but frankly he would have been mad to give a second electoral vote to the margrave of Brandenburg and the Count Palatine on the Rhine who were already electors. The other princes from the House of Anhalt were all non-entities who could not help Sigismund with his never-ending to-do list and his money problems, so Frederick of Meissen, rich and powerful prince and bulwark against the Hussites, was the natural choice.

And with that in 1422 the titles of elector and of duke of Saxony came to the House of Wettin, where they would remain until the end of the Holy Roman Empire.

You may have noticed that I have not mentioned many names of individual margrave and landgraves from the House of Wettin. The reason is not just that there were a whole lot of them, and they were sharing just four first names amongst them. The other is that all these Friedrichs, Georgs and Wilhelms did get two things right. First, they found enough opportunity to expand their share of the inheritance by going after their neighbours rather than their cousins, and secondly, they dropped their sperm count.

So, by natural causes in 1440 the further enlarged Wettiner lands were again under a common government, led by two brothers, Fredrick II and William III. Frederick was the elder by 13 years which meant he ruled alone for a fairly long time. By 1445 the younger, William III became disenchanted with the idea of being the second in command. Egged on by his councillors he demanded a division of their lands. The way this was normally handled by the House of Wettin was the same we use at home for dividing up cake, i.e, one cuts the slices and the other one chooses. Usually, the eldest does the slicing and the younger does the choosing. Only one territory was excluded. As was set out in the Golden Bull, the electorate and the duchy of Sachsen-Wittenberg belonging to it, had to go to the eldest son.

Once the brothers had agreed they wanted to divide it all up again, the elder, Frederick presented his suggestion for the division, William turned it down. Then Frederick said to William, o.k., you do the slicing, and I do the choosing then. All went o.k., in as much that Frederick accepted the slicing and then chose the part that comprised Thuringia. At which point William said, no, I wanted Thuringia. Friedrich said, this is no way to do business, and the whole case was put before a commission comprised of local princes, including Brandenburg, Hessen and the archbishop of Magdeburg. They sided with William, granting him Thuringia, leaving Frederick with the other bit, the lands around Meissen, Dresden and Leipzig he did not want.

That is the moment where even Frederick, who carried the moniker “the Gentle”, had enough. You cannot both divide and choose. And war was on.

Some have claimed that the devastation this Saxon brother’s war wrought on Thuringia was worse than anything either World War II or even the 30-years war managed to do. We have no way to assess that, but the way the war was conducted makes this not improbable. Both sides sought out allies amongst the neighbouring princes whose sole reason for taking part was pay and plunder. And amongst these neighbours were the Hussites of Bohemia who broke into Thuringia on several occasion, largely unopposed on account of their fearsome reputation gained under Jan Zika and the two Prokops. Anyone who did not get behind the walls of one of the major cities in time, ended up raped and slaughtered, their fields burned, their vineyards pulled up and their villages set alight.

We did talk about the Hussite Cherry Festival in Naumburg in episode 182. It is most likely the siege it refers to took place during this war between the brothers. Naumburg celebrating the event for near 600 years now, may be an indication of how traumatic this Hussite invasion had been.

The whole thing lasted 4 years and ended in 1451 with Frederick accepting the decision of the commission and took the Meissen lands, whilst William received Thuringia.

This rather disastrous war had a follow-on that would in turn traumatise the future heirs to the house of Wettin. There was a knight, Kunz von Kaufungen, who had served the elector Frederick during the brother’s war but felt he had not received the agreed reward for his services. He sued the prince, and after proceedings before various courts, the parties met for negotiations. They traded arguments back and forth. Frederick made clear he was not going to budge, and Kunz von Kaufungen left the hall of his lord.   

As negotiations had broken down, according to the medieval understanding of the law, Kaufungen was now allowed to enforce his claims by way of a feud. Kaufungen found some supporters who shared his legal position and on the night of the 7^th of July 1455, 16 armed men entered the castle of Altenburg and kidnapped the two sons of Frederick, called Albrecht and Ernst. The idea was to use them as a pawn in the next round of negotiations. The two boys, 12 and 14 were put on horses and their captors tried to bring them to one of Kaufungen’s castles. Kaufungen and the other nobles who had joined his feud, had sent Fehdebriefe, a formal declaration of hostilities when they rode away with their hostages. 

Frederick ordered all his subjects to hunt down the kidnappers. Kunz von Kaufungen was the first to be apprehended, already on the first day by colliers who freed Albrecht. A few days later the nobles who had joined the attack surrendered and released Ernst in exchange for freedom from prosecution.

Six days later, Frederick, whose moniker “the Gentle” may actually be a bid of a misnomer, had Kaufungen and his brother beheaded. Over the next few weeks several other co-conspirators felt the wrath of the enraged father.

This event had two outcomes. First, by executing Kaufungen and his friends, the Prince Frederick asserted a different, a modern understanding of the law. What Kaufungen did might have been allowed under the medieval rules of feuding, but were a capital crime under Roman Law, which was more and more penetrating the practice of the courts.

The other, even more material impact of the event was the trauma it inflicted on the two boys. They both attributed Kaufungen’s act quite accurately to the Saxon Brother’s war. The conflict had so weakened princely authority and finances, that even minor nobles felt entitled to challenge their lord, first in court and then in the field. They committed to never letting that happen to them should the time come.

Which is why the brothers accepted their Father’s last will and testament that set out that the land should not be divided between them – and this is now important – the elder brother was supposed to rule the land both on his own and his brother’s behalf. That was not outright primogeniture, more of a sort of unlimited guardianship. The younger brother was not disinherited but was just obliged to stay out of the way and was given a generous pension.

The system worked brilliantly for the next 20 years. Ernst was formally in charge, but he did give Albrecht a bigger share in the government of the estate than he had to. Ernst focused on domestic politics, improving the economy and repairing devastation from the brother’s war, whilst Albrecht’s interest lay more in external relations and chivalric exploits. The brothers lived together in the castle of Dresden, thereby preserving the ability to react rapidly to the ever-changing political environment.

Success followed success under the joint government. Their father had already achieved a permanent settlement between the Wettins and the Kingdom of Bohemia that ended the perennial border conflicts.

The brothers fought a number of feuds against neighbouring counts and incorporated their lands. And they used their substantial resources to place two sons of Ernst onto important episcopal seats, Magdeburg and Mainz. A sister became abbess of Quedlinburg, and when she faced a rebellion of the townspeople, her brothers came to her aid, making Quedlinburg dependent upon them in the process.

Albrecht even put his head in the ring for the crown of Bohemia when his father-in-law, Georg Podiebrad had died. The attempt was ultimately unsuccessful, but 10 out of 10 for trying.

The rise in their political profile came alongside a material economic boom. Leipzig had already established close links eastwards along the Via Regia, but in the 15^th century this route via Breslau and Krakow to Russia, Ukraine and the Baltic states was taking trade away from the Hanseatic League in the North and the older route via Regensburg.

In 1466 the city of Leipzig gained the right to hold a fair, the event that turned into the Leipziger Messe, until today one of the great industry get-togethers only rivalled by the Frankfurter Messe.

In 1480 a printing press was established there, the beginnings of Leipzig as one of the main centres of publishing in Germany.  

And on top of that the brothers hit another jackpot in the world of mining. The original mine in Freiberg had already been a major source of income that had allowed the family to sustain the many self-inflicted pains of the previous century. But in 1470 another deposit was discovered in Schneeberg, triggering a silver rush, or as the Germans called it at the time, a Berggeschrei. The deposits discovered at that time included not just Schneeberg, but also Annaberg-Buchholz and Marienberg. I just found out that the most famous one, Joachimsthal, just across the border in Bohemia was owned by descendants of Kaspar Schlick, chancellor of the empire and hero Silvio Aneas Piccolomini’s, aka pope Pius II’s, erotic novel mentioned in episode 184. Sorry, you wanted more cross-references, and that is what you get.

The good news continued. In 1482 their uncle, William III, the man who had fought their father in the Saxon Brother’s war, passed away without offspring. William had remained erratic and full of temper to his end. Though he had inherited the lands that were most affected by the devastation of the war, he kept fighting feuds with all and sundry.  Though the biggest disagreement he had with his wife, the daughter of the Habsburg King Albrecht II. Despite her august heritage, he treated her appallingly. At some point when she tried to rekindle their failing marriage, he threw a shoe at her, a form of insult he may have picked up during a journey to the Holy Land. In the end he had her incarcerated where she died barely 30 years old. William married his mistress of many years, but this relationship did not yield offspring and less surprisingly, neither had his first marriage. So as per the family law, Thuringia returned to the brothers.

Under the joint government of Albrecht and Ernst the house of Wettin had reached its largest geographical extent and arguably the height of its power. Which must mean it is downhill from here….

And the best way for a princely family to fall off the wagon is to divide up their lands, which Ernst and Albrecht did in 1485.

Some argue a rift had been building up between the brothers during Ernst’ pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Instead of passing the ducal authority to his brother for the time of his absence, Ernst had forced him to share decision making with his councillors. A snub that indicated a lack of trust.

A short time later, Albrecht moved out of their joint residence in the castle of Dresden. He took himself and his now quite large family to the castle of Torgau.  

And there are again councillors who are blamed for the estrangement between the brothers, claims that are confirmed by the accusations Albrecht would later make.

In 1482 the two brothers began discussions over a division of the lands. It is hard to believe that these relatively minor disagreements could overshadow 20 years of successful joint rule, a communal childhood trauma and the explicit wish of their father.

Two arguments have been brought forward. One is that both Ernst and Albrecht had large families. And as they were reaching late middle age, their thoughts may have turned to the fate of their sons. Albrecht had full 5 sons and Ernst 4. The maths no longer worked. The chance that more than a half dozen dukes could manage the principality in full agreement, as Albrecht and Ernst had done, was highly improbable. If Albrecht and Ernst would each designate just one of their sons to be joint duke and elector, what about the younger ones? And then there was the long-established Wettin tradition of divisions, how can that be overcome?

The other argument is that before they had inherited Thuringia, division of their lands would have pushed them back down the league table of the imperial princes. But now, with Thuringia included in the basket, a division was possible. Albrecht still insisted that the division would seriously impact the standing of the family, but it seems Ernst was less concerned.

Ernst could also not refuse a division since his father had not established full primogeniture but had only given Ernst the right to rule for life on behalf of both brothers.

So, over a period of 3 years the brothers swapped proposals, until on June 17, 1485, they agreed the Leipzig Division. Ernst, being the eldest inherited the Electorate as per the Golden Bull and chose Thuringia as his territory. Albrecht received the Meissen lands. Some rights and territories, in particular the silver mines remained under joint management.

Surprisingly, this arrangement held, at least for over fifty years. Sure, there were frictions between the two branches, but either side found ways to keep themselves busy. Albrecht himself became a well-rewarded paladin of the emperors Friedrich III and Maximilian, establishing a tradition. From here forward, the Albertine line, based in Dresden would be found siding with the emperor, even across boundaries of religion. And Albrecht made the step his father had failed to take, he established full primogeniture for his lands.

His brother Ernst did not do it or did not get around to doing it. He died in 1487, just two years after the Leipzig division. His heirs, Frederick and John will probably get their own episode. The elder, Frederick became known as Frederick the Wise and he is the elector of Saxony who founded the university of Wittenberg, hid its most famous lecturer,  Martin Luther in the Wartburg, where he translated the bible, whilst his brother and successor was a key figure in spreading the Reformation. But that is something we will do when we get to the Reformation.

The two lines, known as the Ernestine and the Albertine line of the house of Wettin would never be reunited. Since the Albertiner established primogeniture from the beginning, their land became a large and coherent state, one of Germany’s richest. And it became synonymous with the name Saxony, an irony, since it lies outside the original stem duchy of Saxony.

The Ernestiner went through several further divisions, leaving the resulting statelets far too small to play a significant political role, aside from the momentous decisions of Frederick the Wise and his brother. Thuringia became the posterchild for the Holy Roman Empire of tiny principalities; the Duodez Fürsten, whose lands extended no further than 12 miles in any direction, but boasted a large palace, gardens, a theatre, opera, a princely court with regular balls and entertainments. Places that could barely field more than a 1000 soldiers but could make the writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe its chief minister.

Some have argued that a united Saxony comprising both Thuringia and what is today Saxony would have been powerful enough to keep Prussia from rising to dominance in the 18^th and 19^th century. Maybe, but we will meet the elector Friedrich August II of Saxony, and you can make up your mind whether a few battalions more would have shifted the outcome of the Silesian Wars.

I am not yet sure what we want to do next episode, but since you encouraged me to do deviations, I may put in something I have been thinking about for a while, talking about two products Germany became famous for in this period, map making and armour. Let’s see.

In any event, I will take a week off now, not for any other reason than that I feel a bit drained….