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MeifTen.] GERMANY,
^
563
Rem. The two laft prefefturates were in 1687 annexed to the principality
oi ^erjurt ; but when the latter, together with the other countries belonging
to the collateral line of M'^eiffenfeh, reverted on the extindlion of
that line to the eledloral houfe, thefe prefedlurates were again taken from it.
The principality of ^erftirf, which indeed is reckoned in the circle of
Thuringia, occurs below in its order as a peculiar State of the circle of
Upper-Saxony.
The fhare of the county of Mansfeld, which is under the fovereignty of
the eledor of Saxony, belongs alfo indeed to the circle of Tburifig/'a, but
fliall be firft properly defcribed below under the whole county oi MansfeU.
The fliare of the countries of the Prince of Schicarzburgy over which
the ^XtGiorso^ Saxony exercife certain high privileges, are alfo to be mentioned
and defcribed below under the principality of Schwarzburg.
The countries of the Counts of Stoilberg, which ftand under the fovereignty
of the Eledor of Saxony, occur alio below under the whole of the
countries of the Counts oi Stoilberg.
The
Marggravate of
ME I S S E N.
§. I. 'T^HE old general charts of the marggravate oi Meijfen, publirtied
-* by Fred, de Witt, Olaus 'Johannes Gothiis, David Funk and others,
are not fo good as the fmaller one thereof, which is to be found among
the neweft general charts of the fouthern half of the circle of Upper-Saxony^
though not even that is without its defedls.
§. 2. Of the circuit and limits of the marggravate of Meiffen it is impoffible
to treat either juftly or intelligibly without diftinguifhing the times
and the fometimes lefs confined, but at others the more general acceptation
of that name. Its firft beginning it received in the tenth century from the
fort and town oi Meißen, and its limits were afterwards gradually extended.
But I (hall only fhew in this place what was underftood in the fourteenth
century by the marggravate of Meiffen. The brothers Frederick, Balthajar,
and William, marggravcs of Meißen, divided the whole of the marggraval
countries in 1382 into three parts, namely, into the Meifnerland, Oßerland,
and Hhuringia. What was at that and in the following times reckoned as
belonging to the proper marggravate of Meijen, appears from the hereditary
union between Wladißaro King of Bdwinia, the Eledor Ernefl, and
Albert Duke of Saxony, bearing date in the year 1482; namely, Drejden,
4 C 2 Pima,