Page "Duchy of Saxony" Paragraph 33

While in 1168 the Saxon clan of the Ascanians, allies of Frederick Barbarossa, had failed to install their family member Siegfried, Count of Anhalt, on the archepiscopal see of Bremen, the Ascanians prevailed twofoldly in 1180.

The chief of the House of Ascania, Otto I, Margrave of Brandenburg, son of Albert the Bear, a maternal cousin of Henry the Lion, provided his sixth brother Bernard, Count of Anhalt, from then on Bernard III, Duke of Saxony, with the from then on so-called younger Duchy of Saxony ( 1180 – 1296 ), a radically belittled territory consisting of three unconnected territories along the river Elbe, from north west to south east, ( 1 ) Hadeln around Otterndorf, ( 2 ) around Lauenburg upon Elbe and ( 3 ) around Wittenberg upon Elbe.

Except of the title, Duke of Saxony, Angria and Westphalia, which this younger Duchy of Saxony granted its rulers, even after its definite dynastic partition in 1296, this territory, consisting only of territorial fringes of the old Duchy of Saxony until 1180, had little in common with the latter.