The
Margraviate of Brandenburg ( ) was a major
principality of the
Holy Roman Empire from 1157 to 1806.
Also known
as the March of Brandenburg (Mark
Brandenburg), it played a pivotal role in the history of
Germany
and Central
Europe.
Brandenburg developed out of the
Northern
March founded in the territory of the
Slavic Wends. Its ruling
margraves were established as prestigious
prince-electors in the
Golden Bull of 1356, allowing them to
vote in the election of the
Holy
Roman Emperor. The state thus became additionally known as
Electoral Brandenburg or the
Electorate of
Brandenburg (
Kurfürstentum Brandenburg or
Kurbrandenburg).
The
House of Hohenzollern came
to the throne of Brandenburg in 1415.
Under Hohenzollern
leadership, Brandenburg grew rapidly in power during the 17th
century and inherited the Duchy of Prussia
. The resulting Brandenburg-Prussia was the predecessor
of the Kingdom of
Prussia
, which became a leading German state during the
18th century. Although the electors' highest title was
"King in/of Prussia", their power
base remained in Brandenburg and its capitals Berlin
and Potsdam
.
Although the Margraviate of Brandenburg ended with the dissolution
of the archaic
Holy Roman Empire
in 1806, it was replaced with the Prussian
Province of Brandenburg in 1815.
Despite
its meager beginnings in the "sandbox" of
the Holy Roman Empire, the Hohenzollern Kingdom of Prussia achieved
the unification of Germany
and the creation of the German Empire
in 1871. The "Mark Brandenburg" is still used
informally today to refer to the federal state of Brandenburg
in the Federal
Republic of Germany.
Geography
The
territory of the former margraviate, commonly known as the Mark
Brandenburg, lies in present-day eastern Germany and western
Poland
. Geographically it encompassed the majority of
the present-day German states
Brandenburg and Berlin, the
Altmark
(the northern third of Saxony-Anhalt
), and the Neumark
(now divided between Poland's Lubusz
and West Pomeranian Voivodeships
). Parts of the present-day federal state
Brandenburg, such as Lower Lusatia
and territory which had been Saxon
until 1815, were not parts of the Mark.
Colloquially but not accurately, the federal state Brandenburg is
sometimes identified as the Mark or Mark Brandenburg.
The region was formed during the
ice age and
characterized by
moraines, glacial valleys,
and numerous lakes. The territory is known as a
Mark or
march because it was a border county of the
Holy Roman Empire (see also
Margraviate of
Meissen).
The Mark is defined by two uplands and two depressions. The
depressions are taken up by rivers and chains of lakes with marsh
and boggy soil along the shores; once used for
peat collection, the riverbanks are now mostly drained
and dry.
The Northern or
Baltic Uplands of the
Mecklenburg Lake Plateau
have only minor extensions into Brandenburg.
The approximately
230 km-long range of hills in the Mark's south begins in the
Lausitzer Bergland (near Żary 
) and continues past Trzebiel 
and Spremberg
, then to the northwest through Calau
, and ends in
the bare and dry Fläming
. The southern depression is generally to the
north of this ridge and appears strikingly in the Spreewald (between Baruth
and Plaue an der Havel). The northern
depression, lying almost directly south of the Baltic uplands, is
defined by the lowlands of the Noteć and
Warta Rivers, the Oderbruch
, the valley of the Finow, the
Havelland
moor, and the Oder River.
Between
these two depressions is a low plateau that extends from the
Poznań
area
westward to Brandenburg through Torzym 
, theSpree
plateau, and
the Mittelmark. From southeast to
northwest, this plateau is intersected by the lowland of the
Leniwa Obra and the Oder River below the confluence of the Lusatian
Neisse
, the lower Spree Valley, and the Havel
Valley. Between these valleys rise a series of hills
and plateaus, such as the Barnim
, the
Teltow
, the
Semmelberg near Bad
Freienwalde
(157 m), the Müggelberge in Köpenick
(115 m), the Havelberge (97 m), and the
Rauen Hills near Fürstenwalde
(112 to 152 m).
The region is predominantly marked by dry,
sandy soil, wide stretches of which have
pine trees and
erica plants, or
heath. However, the soil is
loamy in the
uplands and plateaus and, when farmed appropriately, can be
agriculturally productive.
Mark Brandenburg has a cool, continental climate, with temperatures
averaging near 0°C in January and February and near 18°C in July
and August. Precipitation averages between 500 mm and
600 mm annually, with a modest summer maximum.
History
Northern March
_Brandenburg_1150.jpg/300px-Karte(PS)_Brandenburg_1150.jpg)
Brandenburg, c.
By the 8th century,
Slavic Wends, such as the
Sprevjane
and
Hevelli, started to move into the
Brandenburg area. They intermarried with Saxons and
Bohemians.
The Bishoprics of
Brandenburg and
Havelberg were established at the
beginning of the 10th century (in 928 and 948, respectively).
They were
suffragan to the Archbishopric of
Mainz; the Bishopric of Brandenburg reached to the Baltic Sea
.
King
Henry the Fowler started
governing in the region in 928–9, allowing Emperor
Otto I to establish the
Northern March under Margrave
Gero in 936 during the German
Ostsiedlung. However, the march and the
bishropics were overthrown by a Slavic rebellion in 983; until the
collapse of the Liutizian alliance in the middle of the 11th
century, the
Holy Roman Empire
government through bishoprics and marches came nearly to a
standstill for approximately 150 years., even though the bishopric
was retained.
Prince
Pribislav of the Hevelli
came to power at the castle of Brenna (Brandenburg
an der Havel
) in 1127. During Pribislav's reign, in which he
cultivated close connections with the German nobility, Germans succeeded in
binding to the Holy Roman Empire
the Havolanie region from Brandenburg an der Havel to Spandau
. The disputed eastern border continued
between the Hevelli and the Sprewane, recognized as the Havel-Nuthe
line. Prince
Jaxa of Köpenick
(
Jaxa de Copnic) of the Sprewaner lived in Köpenick east
of the dividing line.
Ascanians
During the second phase of the German Ostsiedlung, the shrewd
diplomat
Albert the Bear
began the expansionary eastern policy of the
Ascanians. From 1123–5 Albert developed contacts
with Pribislav, who served as the godfather for the Ascanian's
first son,
Otto, and
gave the boy the Zauche region as a christening present in 1134. In
the same year Emperor
Lothair III named Albert
margrave of the
Northern March and
raised Pribislav to the status of
king,
although that was later rescinded. Also in 1134, Albert succeeded
in securing for the Ascanians the inheritance of the childless
Pribislav.
After the latter's death in 1150, Albert
received the Havolanie residence of Brenna, or Brandenburg
an der Havel. The Ascanians also began to build the
castle
of Spandau.
In contrast to their leaders who had accepted Christianity, the
Havolanie population still worshipped old Slavic deities and
opposed Albert's assumption of power.
Jaxa of Köpenick, a possible relative
of Pribislav and a claim-holder to Brandenburg, occupied
Brandenburg through guile, violence, and
Polish help, and
seized the Havelland. Older historical research dates this conquest
to 1153, although there are no definite sources for the date. More
recent researchers, such as Lutz Partenheimer, date it to spring
1157, as it is doubtful that Albert would not have responded to
Jaxa's actions for four years.
With bloody victories on
11 June 1157, Albert the Bear was able to reconquer
Brandenburg, exile Jaxa, and found a new lordship. Because he
already held the title of margrave, Albert styled himself as
Margrave of Brandenburg
(
Adelbertus Die gratia marchio in Brandenborch) on
3 October 1157,
thereby beginning the Margraviate of Brandenburg.
Brandenburg until the extinction of the Ascanian dynasty in
1320.
The
territorial limits of the original margraviate differed from the
area of the current Bundesland Brandenburg, consisting merely of the Havelland and Zauche
regions. In the following 150 years the Ascanians
succeeded in winning the Uckermark,
Teltow, and
Barnim regions east
of the Havel and Nuthe, thereby extending the Mark to the Oder River. The
Neumark ("New March") east of the Oder was
acquired gradually through purchases, marriages, and aid to the
Piast dynasty of
Poland.
Because of the sandy soil prevalent in Brandenburg, the
agriculturally meager principality was denigrated as "the
sandbox of the
Holy
Roman Empire".
Albert invited
colonists to settle the new territory, many of whom came from
the Altmark ("Old
March", a later name for the original Northern March), the Harz
, Flanders (hence the Fläming region), and the Rhineland. After the capture of territory along the
Elbe and Havel Rivers in the 1160s, Flemish and Dutch settlers from flooded regions in
Holland
used their expertise to build dikes in Brandenburg. Initially,
the Ascanians protected the country by settling
knights in villages;
castles
fortified with knights were mostly located in the border region of
the Neumark. After a 14th-century decline in imperial power,
however, knights began constructing castles throughout the
principality, granting them more independence.
After Albert's death in 1170, his son succeeded him as
Otto I, Margrave of
Brandenburg.
The Ascanians pursued a policy of expanding
to the east and the northeast with the goal of connecting their
territories through Pomerania to the
Baltic
Sea. This policy brought them into conflict with
the Kingdom of Denmark
. After the
Battle of Bornhöved ,
Margrave
John I
staked his claim to Pomerania, receiving it as a fief from Emperor
Frederick II in
1231.
The
middle of the 13th century was a time of important developments for
the Ascanian House, as it won Stettin 
and the Uckermark (1250),
although the former was later lost to the Duchy of Pomerania. Henry II, the last
Ascanian margrave, died in 1320.
Wittelsbachs
[[File:HRR 14Jh.jpg|thumb|right|300px|The
Holy Roman Empire from 1273 to 1378.
]]
Having defeated the
Habsburgs, the
Wittelsbach Emperor
Louis IV, an uncle of Henry II,
granted Brandenburg to his oldest son,
Louis I (the "Brandenburger") in
1323. As a consequence of the murder of Provost Nikolaus von Bernau
in 1325, Brandenburg was punished with a papal
interdict. From 1328
onwards, Louis was in war against
Pomerania which he claimed as a fiefdom and the
conflict did not end before 1333. The rule of Margrave Louis I was
rejected by the domestic nobility of Brandenburg, and, after the
death of Emperor Louis VI in 1347, the margrave was confronted with
the
False Waldemar, an
imposter of the deceased Margrave
Waldemar.
The
pretender was recognized as Margrave of Brandenburg on 2 October 1348 by the new
emperor, Charles IV
of Luxembourg, but was exposed
as a fraud after a peace between the Wittelsbachs and Luxembourgs
at Eltville
. In 1351 Louis gave the Mark to his younger
half-brothers
Louis II (the
"Roman") and
Otto V in
exchange for the sole rule over
Upper
Bavaria.
Louis the Roman forced the False Waldemar to renounce his claims to
Brandenburg and succeeded in establishing the Margraves of
Brandenburg as
prince-electors in the
Golden Bull of 1356. Brandenburg
therefore became a
Kurfürstentum (literally "electoral
principality" or "electorate") of the
Holy Roman Empire and had a vote in the
election of the
Holy Roman
Emperor. The Margrave of Brandenburg also held the ceremonial
title of
Arch-Chamberlain of the Empire. When Louis the
Roman died in 1365, Otto took over the rule of Brandenburg,
although he quickly neglected the march.
He sold Lower Lusatia, which he had already pledged to the Wettin dynasty, to Emperor Charles IV in
1367. A year later he lost the town Deutsch Krone 
to King Casimir
the Great of Poland.
Luxembourgs
After the middle of the 14th century, Emperor Charles IV attempted
to secure Brandenburg for the
House
of Luxembourg. Control over the electoral vote of Brandenburg
would help assure the Luxembourgs of election to the imperial
throne, as they already held the vote of
Bohemia.
Charles succeeded in purchasing Brandenburg
from Margrave Otto for 500,000 guilders in
1373 and, at a Landtag in Guben
, united
Brandenburg and Lower Lusatia with the Kingdom of Bohemia.
The Landbuch of Charles IV, a source for the history of medieval
settlement in Brandenburg, originated during this time.
Charles
chose the castle of Tangermünde
to be the electoral residence.
The power of the Luxembourgs in Brandenburg declined during the
reign of Charles's nephew
Jobst of
Moravia. The
Neumark was pawned
to the
Teutonic Knights, who
neglected the border region. Under the Wittelsbach and Luxembourg
margraves, Brandenburg fell increasingly under the control of the
local nobility as central authority declined.
Hohenzollerns
[[File:Central Europe religions 1618.jpg|thumb|right|Religion in
Central Europe, c.
1618.
]]
In return
for supporting Sigismund as Holy Roman
Emperor at Frankfurt
in 1410, Frederick VI of
Nuremberg, a burgrave of
the House of Hohenzollern, was
granted hereditary control over Brandenburg in 1411.
Rebellious
landed nobility such as
the
Quitzow family opposed his appointment,
but Frederick overpowered these knights with
artillery.
Some nobles had their property confiscated,
and the Brandenburg estates gave allegiance at Tangermünde on 20 March 1414. Frederick was officially recognized as
Margrave and Prince-elector Frederick I of Brandenburg at the
Council of
Constance
in 1415. Frederick's formal investiture with
the
Kurmark, or electoral march, and his appointment as
Archchamberlain of the Holy Roman Empire occurred on
18 April 1417, also during the
Council of Constance.
Frederick made Berlin his residence, although he retired to his
Franconian possessions in 1425. He granted
governance of Brandenburg to his eldest son
John the Alchemist,
while retaining the electoral dignity for himself.
The next elector,
Frederick II,
forced the submission of Berlin and Cölln
, setting an example for the other towns of
Brandenburg. He reacquired the Neumark from the
Teutonic Knights and began its
rebuilding.
Warfare with the
Duchy of
Pomerania was ended by the
treaties of Prenzlau (1448, 1472, and
1479).
Brandenburg accepted the
Protestant Reformation in 1539. The
population has remained largely
Lutheran
since, although some later electors converted to
Calvinism.
The Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg sought to expand their power base
from their relatively meager possessions, although this brought
them into conflict with neighboring states.
John William, Duke of
Julich-Cleves-Berg died childless in 1609. His eldest niece,
Anna, Duchess of Prussia,
was the wife of
John Sigismund, Elector
of Brandenburg, who promptly claimed the inheritance and sent
troops to take hold of some of John William's holdings in the
Rhineland. Unfortunately for John
Sigismund, this effort became tied up with the
Thirty Years' War and the disputed
succession of Julich.
At the end of the war in 1648, Brandenburg
was recognized as the possessor of approximately half the
inheritance, comprising the Duchy of Cleves
in the Rhineland and the
Counties of Mark and Ravensberg
in Westphalia.
These
territories, which were more than 100 kilometers from the borders
of Brandenburg, formed the nucleus of the later Prussian
Rhineland
.
When
Albert Frederick, Duke
of Prussia, died without a son in 1618, his son-in-law John
Sigismund inherited the Duchy of Prussia, which joined Brandenburg in the expanded state of
Brandenburg-Prussia. In
this way, the fortuitous marriage of John Sigismund to Anna of
Prussia, and the deaths of her maternal uncle in 1609 and her
father in 1618 without immediate male heirs, proved to be the key
events by which Brandenburg acquired territory both in the
Rhineland and on the Baltic coast. Prussia lay outside the Holy
Roman Empire and the electors of Brandenburg held it as a fief of
the
Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth, to which the electors paid homage.
The electors of Brandenburg spent the next two centuries attempting
to gain lands to unite their separate territories (the Mark
Brandenburg, the territories in the Rhineland and Westphalia, and
Ducal Prussia) to form one geographically contiguous domain.
In the
Peace of Westphalia ending the
Thirty Years' War in 1648,
Brandenburg-Prussia acquired Farther
Pomerania and made it the Province of
Pomerania
in 1653. In the second half of the 17th
century,
Frederick William,
the "Great Elector", developed the power of Brandenburg-Prussia.
The state
constructed Brandenburg's first navy
(Kurbrandenburgische Marine), leading to short-lived
colonies at Arguin
, the
Brandenburger Gold Coast
, and Saint
Thomas
. The electors succeeded in acquiring
sovereignty over Prussia in the
Treaty
of Wehlau in 1657. The territories of the Hohenzollerns were
opened to immigration by
Huguenot refugees
in 1685.
Kingdom of Prussia
In return for aiding Emperor
Leopold I during the
War of the Spanish Succession,
Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg was allowed to crown himself
Frederick I, King in Prussia.
Prussia, unlike Brandenburg, lay outside the Holy Roman Empire,
within whose boundaries no ruler could call himself king.
As
king was a more prestigious title than
prince-elector, the territories of
the Hohenzollerns became known as the Kingdom of Prussia, although their power base remained in
Brandenburg.
From 1701 to 1946, Brandenburg's history was largely that of the
state of
Prussia, which established itself
as a major power in Europe during the 18th century. King
Frederick William I of
Prussia, the "Soldier-King", modernized the
Prussian Army, while his son
Frederick the Great achieved glory
and infamy with the
Silesian Wars and
Partitions of Poland. The
feudal designation of the Margraviate of Brandenburg ended with the
dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. It was replaced with
the
Province of Brandenburg
in 1815 following the
Napoleonic
Wars.
Brandenburg became part of the German Empire in 1871 during the Prussian-led unification of Germany.
Later years
Coat of arms of Brandenburg from 1945–52.
During the
Gleichschaltung of
provinces by
Nazi Germany during the
1930s, the Province of Brandenburg and the state of Prussia lost
practically all relevancy. The region was administered as the
Gau "Mark
Brandenburg".
The state of Prussia was abolished in 1947 after the defeat of Nazi
Germany in
World War II; the Gau "Mark
Brandenburg" was replaced with the
Land Brandenburg.
Territory east of the
Oder-Neisse Line (the Neumark region) was placed under Polish
administration (became part Poland as her boundaries were agreed by
the international powers in 1945 at the Yalta Conference
) and separated from Germany. Most of its
German-speaking population was
expelled and
replaced with Poles.
Brandenburg west of the Oder-Neisse Line lay
in the Soviet
occupation zone; it became part of the German
Democratic Republic
. In 1952 the region was divided among the
districts of Cottbus
, Frankfurt 
, Potsdam, Schwerin
, and Neubrandenburg
; Berlin was divided between East Berlin and West
Berlin.
This division of Brandenburg continued until the
German reunification in 1990.
The GDR
districts were dissolved and replaced with the state of Brandenburg with its capital in Potsdam. The 850th anniversary
of the foundation of the March of Brandenburg was to be celebrated
officially on 11 June 2007, with preliminary celebrations having begun at the
Knights' Academy of Brandenburg an der Havel on 23 June 2006.
See also
Footnotes
- Koch, p. 23.
- Koch, p. 24.
- Koch, p. 25.
- Koch, p. 28
- Koch, p. 29.
- Koch, p. 30.
References
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