Electorate of Saxony
| Electorate of Saxony | ||||||||||
| Kurfürstentum Sachsen (German) | ||||||||||
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State of the Holy Roman Empire Imperial elector Personal union with Poland (1697–1706 and 1709–1763) |
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| Government | Feudal monarchy | |||||||||
| Prince-Elector | ||||||||||
| • | 1356 | Rudolph I (first) | ||||||||
| • | 1419–1422 | Albert III (last Ascanian) | ||||||||
| • | 1423–1428 | Frederick I (first Wettin) | ||||||||
| • | 1763–1806 | Frederick Augustus III (last) | ||||||||
| Historical era | Early modern Europe | |||||||||
| • | Golden Bull | 10 January 1356 | ||||||||
| • | Merged with Meissen and Thuringia | 6 January 1423 | ||||||||
| • | Treaty of Leipzig | 26 August 1485 | ||||||||
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Capitulation of Wittenberg |
19 May 1547 | ||||||||
| • | Acquired Lusatia by Peace of Prague | 15 June 1635 | ||||||||
| • | Personal union with Poland | 1697–1706 & 1709–63 | ||||||||
| • | Raised to kingdom | 20 December 1806 | ||||||||
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| Today part of |
 Germany Poland
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The Electorate of Saxony (German: Kurfürstentum Sachsen, also Kursachsen), sometimes referred to as Upper Saxony, was a State of the Holy Roman Empire established when Emperor Charles IV raised the Ascanian duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg to the status of an Electorate by the Golden Bull of 1356. Upon the extinction of the House of Ascania, it was enfeoffed to the Margraves of Meissen from the Wettin dynasty in 1423, who moved the residence up the Elbe river to Dresden. After the Empire's dissolution in 1806, the Wettin electors raised Saxony to a kingdom.
After the dissolution of the medieval Duchy of Saxony, the name Saxony was first applied to a small territory on the middle Elbe river around the city of Wittenberg, which formerly had belonged to the March of Lusatia and about 1157 was held by Albert the Bear, the first Margrave of Brandenburg. When Emperor Frederick Barbarossa deposed the Saxon duke Henry the Lion in 1180, the Wittenberg lands belonged to Albert's youngest son Count Bernhard of Anhalt, who assumed the Saxon ducal title. Bernard's eldest son, Albert I, ceded Anhalt to his younger brother Henry, retained the ducal title and added to this territory the lordship of Lauenburg. His sons divided the possessions into the duchies of Saxe-Wittenberg and Saxe-Lauenburg. Both lines claimed the Saxon electoral dignity, which led to confusion during the 1314 election of the Wittelsbach duke Louis of Bavaria as King of the Romans against his Habsburg rival Duke Frederick the Fair of Austria, as both candidates received one vote each from the two rival Ascanian branches.
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