ALBERT I., margrave of Brandenburg, surnamed “The Bear,” from the heraldic emblem he assumed, born in 1106, was the son of Otto the Rich, count of Ballenstädt, by his marriage with Eilica, eldest daughter of the duke of Saxony. In 1121 he received from the Emperor Lothario the marquisate of Lusatia, to be held in fief, and he served the empire faithfully in the war with Bohemia in 1126. In the following year, from some unknown motive, the emperor conferred the duchy of Saxony, to which Albert, as son of the eldest daughter of Magnus, had the best claim, upon Henry of Bavaria, son of a younger daughter; and in 1131 Albert was deprived of Lusatia. He still remained, however, loyal to the empire, and received as a reward the margravate of Brandenburg in 1134. In 1136-7 he made incursions into the territory of the Wends, his troublesome neighbours on the north, and succeeded in strengthening his position. In 1138 the Emperor Conrad III. conferred upon him the duchy of Saxony; but finding himself unable to maintain his rights against Henry the Lion, he betook himself in 1142 to the emperor, who restored Saxony to his rival, and allotted Swabia to him in compensation. A few years later Albert again attacked the Wends, and secured by conquest large accessions of territory, which he held as a fief of the empire. On the extinction of the house of Staden in 1150, Albert was raised to the dignity of an elector. A third expedition against the Wends, undertaken in 1157, ended in their almost total extinction, and Albert caused the depopulated territory to be colonised by industrious agriculturists from the Rhine and the Netherlands, who greatly improved the face of the country. In 1158 Albert went on a crusade to the Holy Land, in company with his wife, returning the following ...