Family tree Bas » Albrecht I "de Beer" van Brandenburg (1100-1170)

Personal data Albrecht I "de Beer" van Brandenburg 

• He was born in the year 1100 in Ballenstedt.
• (Geschiedenis) .Source 1

  Albrecht de Beer (Ballenstedt, rond 1100 - Stendal?, 18 november 1170), stichter van de dynastie van de Ascaniërs en de Mark Brandenburg, was de enige zoon van Otto van Ballenstedt en Eilika Billung van Saksen. Als erfgenaam uit het huis Anhalt, als graaf van Ballenstedt, regeerde Albrecht na de dood van zijn vader in 1123 over de Ascanische bezittingen in de streek van Harz, die zich tot aan de Mulde uitstrekten. In 1134 werd hij erkend als markgraaf van de Noordmark. Hij leverde fel strijd tegen Hendrik de Leeuw en was van 1138/1139 tot 1142 ook hertog van Saksen. In 1150 kon hij de vesting Brandenburg innemen. Dit werd het begin van de mark Brandenburg.
  
  De herkomst van zijn bijnaam is niet overgeleverd. De drie regerende hertogen uit het regerende huis van Anhalt stichtten in 1836 een gezamenlijke Huisorde van Albrecht de Beer.

• (Levens event) .Source 2

  Albert the Bear (German: Albrecht der Bär; c. 1100 – 18 November 1170) was the first Margrave of Brandenburg (as Albert I) from 1157 to his death and was briefly Duke of Saxony between 1138 and 1142.
  Contents
  Life
  
  Albert was the only son of Otto, Count of Ballenstedt, and Eilika, daughter of Magnus Billung, Duke of Saxony. He inherited the valuable estates in northern Saxony of his father in 1123, and on his mother's death, in 1142, succeeded to one-half of the lands of the house of Billung. Albert was a loyal vassal of his relation, Lothar I, Duke of Saxony, from whom, about 1123, he received the Margraviate of Lusatia, to the east; after Lothar became King of the Germans, he accompanied him on a disastrous expedition to Bohemia in 1126, when he suffered a short imprisonment.
  
  Albert's entanglements in Saxony stemmed from his desire to expand his inherited estates there. After the death of his brother-in-law, Henry II, margrave of a small area on the Elbe called the Saxon Northern March, in 1128, Albert, disappointed at not receiving this fief himself, attacked Udo, the heir, and was consequently deprived of Lusatia by Lothar. In spite of this, he went to Italy in 1132 in the train of the king, and his services there were rewarded in 1134 by the investiture of the Northern March, which was again without a ruler.
  
  Once he was firmly established in the Northern March, Albert's covetous eye lay also on the thinly populated lands to the north and east. Three years he was occupied in campaigns against the Slavic Wends, who as pagans were considered fair game, and whose subjugation to Christianity was the aim of the Wendish Crusade of 1147 in which Albert took part; diplomatic measures were more successful, and by an arrangement made with the last of the Wendish princes of Brandenburg, Pribislav of the Hevelli, Albert secured this district when the prince died in 1150. Taking the title "Margrave of Brandenburg", he pressed the "crusade" against the Wends, extended the area of his mark, encouraged German migration, established bishoprics under his protection, and so became the founder of the Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1157, which his heirs — the House of Ascania — held until the line died out in 1320.
  The seal of Albert the Bear.
  
  In 1137 Conrad III, the Hohenstaufen King of the Germans, deprived Albert's cousin and nemesis, Henry the Proud of his Saxon duchy, which was awarded to Albert if he could take it. After some initial success in his efforts to take possession, Albert was driven from Saxony, and also from his Northern march by Henry, and compelled to take refuge in south Germany. When peace was made with Henry in 1142, Albert renounced the Saxon duchy and received the Counties of Weimar and Orlamünde. It was possibly at this time that Albert was made Arch-Chamberlain of the Empire, an office which afterwards gave the Margraves of Brandenburg the rights of a prince-elector.
  
  In 1158 a feud with Henry's son, Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, was interrupted by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In 1162 Albert accompanied Emperor Frederick Barbarossa to Italy, where he distinguished himself at the storming of Milan.
  
  In 1164 Albert joined a league of princes formed against Henry the Lion, and peace being made in 1169, Albert divided his territories among his six sons. He died on 13 November 1170, possibly in Stendal, and was buried at Ballenstedt.
  Cognomen
  Foundation of the memorial to Albert at Spandau Citadel.
  
  Albert's personal qualities won for him the cognomen of the Bear, "not from his looks or qualities, for he was a tall handsome man, but from the cognisance on his shield, an able man, had a quick eye as well as a strong hand, and could pick what way was straightest among crooked things, was the shining figure and the great man of the North in his day, got much in the North and kept it, got Brandenburg for one there, a conspicuous country ever since," says Carlyle, who called Albert "a restless, much-managing, wide-warring man." He is also called by later writers "the Handsome.

• He died on November 18, 1170, he was 70 years old.
• A child of Otto von Ballenstedt and Eilika van Saksen
• This information was last updated on November 13, 2012.

Household of Albrecht I "de Beer" van Brandenburg

He is married to Sophia van Winzenburg.

They got married in the year 1125, he was 25 years old.Source 2

Child(ren):

1. Siegfried van Anhalt  -1184
2. Adelbert III van Ballenstedt  -1171
3. Hedwig van Ballenstedt  ????-1203 
4. Adelheid van Brandenburg  -1162
5. Hendrik van Brandenburg  -1185
6. NN van Brandenburg  
7. Sybille van Brandenburg  -1170
8. Herman I van Weimar-Orlamünde  -1176
9. Diederik van Werben  -1183
10. Otto I van Brandenburg  1128-1184 
11. Bernard III van Saksen  1140-1212
12. Gertrude van Brandenburg  < 1155-????

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Timeline Albrecht I "de Beer" van Brandenburg

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