Margrave of Meissen

This article lists the margraves of Meissen, a march and territorial state on the eastern border of the Holy Roman Empire.

King Henry the Fowler, on his 928-29 campaign against the Slavic Glomacze tribes, had a fortress erected on a hill at Meissen (Mišno) on the Elbe river. Later named Albrechtsburg, the castle about 965 became the seat of the Meissen margraves, installed by Emperor Otto I when the vast Marca Geronis (Gero's march) was partitioned into five new margraviates, including Meissen, the Saxon Eastern March, and also the Northern March which eventually became the Margraviate of Brandenburg.

During the tenth century, the Meissen margraves temporarily extended their territory into the Milceni lands up to the Kwisa (Queis) river and the border with the Silesian region of the Early Polish state. The eastern lands around Bautzen (Budissin), later known as Upper Lusatia, were ceded to the Polish duke Bolesław I the Brave according to the 1018 Peace of Bautzen; in 1076 they passed to the Duke of Bohemia as an Imperial fief.