Albert the Bear (German: Albrecht der Bär; c. 1100 – 18 November 1170) was the first margrave of Brandenburg from 1157 to his death and was briefly duke of Saxony between 1138 and 1142.
Albert's entanglements in Saxony stemmed from his desire to expand his inherited estates there. After the death of his brother-in-law, Henry II, Margrave of the Nordmark, who controlled a small area on the Elbe called the Saxon Northern March, in 1128, Albert, disappointed at not receiving this fief himself, attacked Udo V, Count of Stade, the heir, and was consequently deprived of Lusatia by Lothar.[citation needed] Udo, however, was said to have been assassinated by servants of Albert on 15 March 1130 near Aschersleben. In spite of this, Albert went to Italy in 1132 in the train of the king, and his services there were rewarded in 1134 by the investiture of the Northern March, which was again without a ruler.[3]
In 1138 Conrad III, the Hohenstaufen King of the Germans, deprived Albert's cousin and nemesis, Henry the Proud, of his Saxon duchy, which was awarded to Albert if he could take it. After some initial success in his efforts to take possession, Albert was driven from Saxony, and also from his Northern March by a combined force of Henry and Jaxa of Köpenick, and compelled to take refuge in south Germany.[3] Henry died in 1139 and an arrangement was found. Henry's son, Henry the Lion, received the duchy of Saxony in 1142. In the same year, Albert renounced the Saxon duchy and received the counties of Weimar and Orlamünde.
Once he was firmly established in the Northern March, Albert's covetous eye lay also on the thinly populated lands to the north and east. For three years he was occupied in campaigns against the Slavic Wends, who as pagans were considered fair game, and whose subjugation to Christianity was the aim of the Wendish Crusade of 1147 in which Albert took part. Albert was a part of the army that besieged Demmin, and at the end of the war, recovered Havelberg, which had been lost since 983. Diplomatic measures were more successful, and by an arrangement made with the last of the Wendish princes of Brandenburg, Pribislav-Henry of the Hevelli, Albert secured this district when the prince died in 1150. Taking the title "Margrave in Brandenburg", he pressed the crusade against the Wends, extended the area of his mark, encouraged Dutch and German settlement in the Elbe-Havel region (Ostsiedlung), established bishoprics under his protection, and so became the founder of the Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1157, which his heirs — the House of Ascania — held until the line died out in 1320.
In 1158 a feud with Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, was interrupted by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. On his return in 1160, he, with the consent of his sons, Siegfried not being mentioned, donated land to the Knights of Saint John in memory of his wife, Sofia, at Werben on the Elbe.[4][5][6] Around this same time, he minted a pfennig in memory of his deceased wife.[citation needed] In 1162 Albert accompanied Emperor Frederick Barbarossa to Italy, where he distinguished himself at the storming of Milan.[3]
In 1164 Albert joined a league of princes formed against Henry the Lion, and peace being made in 1169, Albert divided his territories among his six sons. He died on 18 November 1170, and was buried at Ballenstedt.[3]
Albert's personal qualities won for him the cognomen of the Bear, "not from his looks or qualities, for he was a tall handsome man, but from the cognisance on his shield, an able man, had a quick eye as well as a strong hand, and could pick what way was straightest among crooked things, was the shining figure and the great man of the North in his day, got much in the North and kept it, got Brandenburg for one there, a conspicuous country ever since," says Thomas Carlyle, who called Albert "a restless, much-managing, wide-warring man."[7] He was also called "the Handsome."[7]
Marriage and children
Albert was married in 1124 to Sophie of Winzenburg (died 25 March 1160) and they had the following children:
^Mielzarek dates the marriage between 1140 and 1156 with 1153 as the most likely candidate[12]
^Mielzarek suggests that this daughter is identical to the one that married Děpold of Moravia and that the record of "Wladizlaus dux" marrying said daughter is a mistake.[14]
^Mielzarek suggests that she might have been the same daughter as Adelheid if she became a nun after her husband's death in 1148 or 1149.[16]
Freller, Thomas (2010). The German Langue of the Order of Malta. Malta: Midsea Books. ISBN978-99932-7-299-1.
Krömmelbein, Thomas; Brogyanyi, Bela, eds. (2002). Germanisches Altertum und christliches Mittelalter: Festschrift für Heinz Klingenberg zum 65. Geburtstag (in German). Kovač.
Lyon, Jonathan R. (2013). Princely Brothers and Sisters: The Sibling Bond in German Politics, 1100–1250. New York: Cornell University Press. ISBN978-0801451300.
Mielzarek, Christoph (2020). Albrecht der Bär und Konrad von Wettin: Fürstliche Herrschaft in den ostsächsichen Marken im 12. Jahrhundert (in German). Cologne: Böhlau Verlag. ISBN978-3-412-51870-7.
General references
Carlyle, Thomas (1898). History of Frederick the Great.
Partenheimer, Lutz (2007). Die Entstehung der Mark Brandenburg: Mit einem lateinisch-deutschen Quellenanhang. Köln: Böhlau. ISBN978-3-412-17106-3.
Partenheimer, Lutz (2003). Albrecht der Bär (in German). Cologne: Böhlau Verlag. ISBN3-412-16302-3.
Schultze, Johannes (2011). Die Mark Brandenburg: (Bd. I–V in einem Band). Duncker & Humblot. ISBN978-3428134809.
