Albert III
Duke of Saxony
1443 CE to 1500 CE
Albert III (German: Albrecht) (January 27, 1443 – September 12.
1500) is a Duke of Saxony.
He is nicknamed Albert the Bold or Albert the Courageous and founds the Albertine line of the House of Wettin.
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The Ascanian line of Saxe-Wittenberg had become extinct with the death of Elector Albert III in 1422, whereafter Emperor Sigismund had bestowed the country and electoral dignity upon Margrave Frederick IV of Meissen, who had been a loyal supporter in the Hussite Wars.
The late Albert's Ascanian relative Duke Eric V of Saxe-Lauenburg had protested in vain.
Frederick, one of the seven Prince-electors, was a member of the House of Wettin, which since 1089 had ruled over the adjacent Margraviate of Meissen up the Elbe river, established under Emperor Otto I in 965, and since 1242 also over the Landgraviate of Thuringia.
Thus, in 1423, Saxe-Wittenberg, the Margraviate of Meissen and Thuringia had been united under one ruler, and the unified territory gradually received the name of (Upper) Saxony.
When Elector Frederick II died in 1464, his two surviving sons, in disregard of the primogeniture principle, divide his territories by the Treaty of Leipzig on August 26, 1485, bringing about the still existing separation of the Wettin dynasty into the Ernestine and Albertine lines.
The elder son, Ernest, founder of the Ernestine line, receives large parts of the former Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg and the electoral dignity united with it, as well as the southern Landgraviate of Thuringia; whilethe younger son, Albert, founder of the Albertine line, receives northern Thuringia and the lands of the former Margraviate of Meissen, including Leipzig and
Dresden.
Thus, the Ernestine line at first has the greater authority, until the electoral dignity and territory fall in the sixteenth century to the Albertine line, which, when Saxony is proclaimed a kingdom in the nineteenth century, becomes a royal house.
The partition decisively enfeebles the Wettin dynasty in the rivalry with the rising House of Hohenzollern, who in 1415 had also achieved the electoral dignity as Margraves of Brandenburg.
A Slavic settlement called Drežďany had developed around the late twelfth century on the southern bank of a Another settlement existed on the northern bank on the River Elbe, near the border of Saxony with Bohemia, but its Slavic name is unclear.
It was known as Antiqua Dresdin by 1350, and later as Altendresden, both literally "old Dresden".
Dietrich, Margrave of Meissen, chose Dresden as his interim residence in 1206, as documented in a record calling the place "Civitas Dresdene".
After 1270, Dresden had become the capital of the margraviate.
It was restored to the Wettin dynasty in about 1319.
Dresden becomes the permanent residence of the dukes of Alberine Saxony.