Conrad I, Margrave of Meissen
| Conrad I | |
|---|---|
| Margrave of Meissen | |
Conrad the Great, depicted in the Fürstenzug, Dresden
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| Reign | 1123–1156 |
| Predecessor | Wiprecht |
| Successor | Otto II |
| Born | c. 1097 |
| Died | 5 February 1157 Petersberg |
| Buried | Lauterberg Abbey |
| Noble family | House of Wettin |
| Spouse(s) | Luitgard of Elchingen-Ravenstein |
| Issue | |
| Father | Thimo of Wettin |
| Mother | Ida of Nordheim |
Conrad I (c. 1097 – 5 February 1157), called the Great (German: Konrad der Große), a member of the House of Wettin, was Margrave of Meissen from 1123 and Margrave of Lusatia from 1136 until his retirement in 1156. Initially a Saxon count, he became the ruler over large Imperial estates in the Eastern March and progenitor of the Saxon electors and kings.
Conrad was the son of the Saxon count Thimo of Wettin and his wife Ida, a daughter of Count Otto of Nordheim. Both his father and maternal grandfather had been involved in the Saxon Rebellion against the Salian king Henry IV in 1073–75. Thimo was the first to call himself a Count of Wettin after the ancestral seat on the Saale river, while his elder brother Dedi ruled in the Saxon March of Lusatia (Eastern March). His son Henry the Elder also became the first Wettin margrave in Meissen in 1089
Upon the early death of his father, Conrad succeeded him as Count of Wettin and Brehna. When his cousin Henry the Elder died in 1103, he hoped to be enfeoffed with the Lusatian and Meissen marches by Emperor Henry IV. However, his expectations proved to be false, when Henry's widow Gertrude of Brunswick gave birth to a posthumous son, Henry II. Conrad, with bitterness, spread rumours that Gertrude in fact had given birth to a girl and had replaced her by a peasant's son. When Henry II attained his majority in 1121, he campaigned against his uncle and had im arrested. Conrad faced an end in prison, but avoided this fate when Henry II died in 1123 at the age of twenty, presumably poisoned.
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