Albert II, Margrave of Brandenburg

Albert II
Margrave of Brandenburg
File:AlbrechtII Siegesallee.JPG Monument in the Siegesallee in Berlin, 1898
Margrave of Brandenburg
Reign	1205–1220
Predecessor	Otto II
Successor	John I and Otto III
Born	c.  1177
Died	25 February 1220(1220-02-25)
Spouse	Matilda of Groitzsch
Issue	John I, Margrave of Brandenburg Otto III, Margrave of Brandenburg Matilda, Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg Elisabeth
House	House of Ascania
Father	Otto I, Margrave of Brandenburg
Mother	Ada of Holland

Albert II, Margrave of Brandenburg (born: c.  1177 – died: 25 February 1220) was a member of the House of Ascania. He was Margrave of Brandenburg from 1205 until his death in 1220.

Life

Albert II was the youngest son of Otto I and his second wife Ada of Holland and a grandson of Albert the Bear, considered the founder of the Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1157. His father Otto I promoted and directed the foundation of German settlement in the area, which had been predominantly Slavic until the 12th century.

Count of Arneburg

Albert II was, from 1184 onwards, Count of Arneburg in the Altmark. The Altmark belonged to Brandenburg, and his older brother Otto II claimed that this implied that the Ascanians owned Arneburg.

Albert participated in the Third Crusade (1189–1192). After his return, he was temporarily imprisoned in 1194 by Otto for unexplained reasons. He was present at the inaugural meeting of the Teutonic Knights in 1198 in Acre.

Margrave of Brandenburg

Albert II inherited the Margraviate in 1205, after the death of his eldest brother Otto II.

In the dispute about the imperial crown between the Houses of Hohenstaufen and Guelph in the early 13th century, Albert initially supported the Hohenstaun King Philip of Swabia, like Otto before him. After Philip's assassination in 1208, however, he changed sides, because Emperor Otto IV had assisted him in securing the Margraviate against the Danes, and had confirmed Ascanian ownership of Brandenburg in a deed in 1212.

During this period, Albert II had a lengthy dispute with Archbishop Albert I of Magdeburg. He also played an important rôle in the Brandenburg tithe dispute.

Albert II definitively secured the regions of Teltow, Prignitz and parts of the Uckermark for the Margraviate of Brandenburg, but lost Pomerania to the House of Griffins.

Death and succession

Albert II died in 1220. At the time, his two sons were still minors. Initially, archbishop Albert I of Magdeburg acted as regent. In 1221, however, Albert's widow, Countess Matilda, took up the regency. After her death in 1225, the brothers were declared legal adults and began ruling the Margraviate jointly.

Legacy

Stephan Warnatsch describes Otto I's children as follows:

[They] continued the territorialisation drive that had been initiated [by their father] and, from the end of the 12th Century, as the influx of settlers grew stronger, and, consequently, more people were available to develop the territory, started to expand into the areas of Ruppin, and in particular, Barnim and Teltow. Moreover, the Oder region and the southern Uckermark were also targets of the Ascanian expansion. In all these areas, the Ascanians ran into opposition from competing local princes.

Marriage and issue

In 1205, Albert married Matilda of Groitzsch (1185–1225), daughter of the Count Conrad II of Lusatia, a member of the House of Wettin, and wife Elizabeth, from the Polish Piast dynasty. They had four children:

• John I (born: c. 1213; died: 4 April 1266)
• Otto III "the Pious" (born: 1215; died: 9 October 1267)
• Matilda (died: 10 June 1261), married in 1228 Duke Otto I "the Child" of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1204–1252), a member of the House of Guelph
• Elizabeth (born: 1207; died: 19 November 1231), married in 1228 Landgrave Henry Raspe of Thuringia (1201–1247)

Ancestors

Family of Albert II, Margrave of Brandenburg

16. Adalbert II, Count of Ballenstedt               8. Otto, Count of Ballenstedt                       17. Adelheid of Meissen               4. Albert the Bear                             18. Magnus, Duke of Saxony               9. Eilika of Saxony                       19. Sophia of Hungary               2. Otto I, Margrave of Brandenburg                                   20. Meginhard IV of Formbach               10. Herman I, Count of Winzenburg                       21. Matilda of Reinhausen               5. Sophie of Winzenburg                             11. a Countess of Everstein                       1. Albert II, Margrave of Brandenburg                                         24. Floris II, Count of Holland               12. Dirk VI, Count of Holland                       25. Petronella of Lorraine               6. Floris III, Count of Holland                             26. Otto I, Count of Salm               13. Sophia of Rheineck                       27. Gertrud of Northeim               3. Ada of Holland                                   28. David I of Scotland               14. Henry of Scotland                       29. Maud, 2nd Countess of Huntingdon               7. Ada of Huntingdon                             30. William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey               15. Ada de Warenne                       31. Elizabeth of Vermandois

References

• Gustav Albrecht: "Markgraf Albrecht II.", in: Hie gut Brandenburg alleweg! Geschichts- und Kulturbilder aus der Vergangenheit der Mark und aus Alt-Berlin bis zum Tode des Großen Kurfürsten, edited by Richard George, published by W. Pauli's Nachfolger, Berlin, 1900
• Helmut Assing: Brandenburg, Anhalt und Thüringen im Mittelalter. Askanier und Ludowinger beim Aufbau fürstlicher Territorialherrschaften, Böhlau Verlag, Cologne, 1997, ISBN 3-412-02497-X
• Helmut Assing: Die frühen Askanier und ihre Frauen, Bernburg, 2002
• Lutz Partenheimer: Albrecht der Bär – Gründer der Mark Brandenburg und des Fürstentums Anhalt, Böhlau Verlag, Cologne, 2001, ISBN 3-412-16302-3
• Jörg Rogge: Die Wettiner, Thorbecke Verlag, Stuttgart, 2005, ISBN 3-7995-0151-7
• Hans Spichalski: Heinrich Raspe IV. von Thüringen – Landgraf und Gegenkönig, Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt, 2009, ISBN 978-3-8370-5288-6, p. 96 ff.
• Stephan Warnatsch: Geschichte des Klosters Lehnin 1180–1542 = Studien zur Geschichte, Kunst und Kultur der Zisterzienser, vol. 12.1, Lukas Verlag, Berlin, 2000 (also: thesis, Free University, Berlin, 1999), ISBN 3-931836-45-2
• ; (full text online)

Footnotes

Albert II, Margrave of Brandenburg House of Ascania Born: c. 1177 Died: 25 February 1220
Preceded by Otto II	Margrave of Brandenburg 1205–1220	Succeeded by John I and Otto III