• General Notes

  Name Suffix: Duke of Saxony
  Ancestral File Number: 8WKQ-13
  !Title:Duke of Saxony and Bavaria.
  -Western Europ in the Middle Ages, 300-1375- by Tierney, 1978.
  
  Notes from http://www.tacitus.nu/historical-atlas/regents/germany/saxony.htm
  
  Saxony was originally a tribal duchy in north western Germany. When its duke Heinrich the Lion lost all of his fiefs 1180 Saxony was considerably reduced in size and given to the House of Askanien, it was later partitioned between two branches of that house into Sachsen-Lauenburg and Sachsen-Wittenberg. The latter was also an electorate, which meant that its duke had the right to participate in the election of Germany?s kings. Sachsen-Wittenberg was 1423 given to Friedrich the Warlike of the house of Wettin and who also was margrave of Meissen . All lands belonging to the house of Wettin would thereafter be called Saxony, and when the landgraviate of Thuringia had been added 1440 had a new large and significant Saxon state had been created outside the area of the original Saxon tribal duchy.
  
  Saxony was partitioned 1485 between the brothers Ernst and Albrecht who had been co-regents since 1464. The two new states were first called the Electorate of Saxony (Ernst) and the duchy of Saxony (Albrecht). But the Ernestine line lost the elector title and large parts of its territory to the Albertine line 1547. After that the Ernestine lands were fragmented into numerous small and insignificant duchies through partitions between the different branches of the Ernestine Line.
  
  When Johan Georg I died 1656 the Albertine part of Saxony was partitioned between his four sons. When these branches died out their lands were reunited with those ruled by the elector.

Details of The Lion's family with Princess Matilda of England