Margraviate of Brandenburg

The Margraviate of Brandenburg was the north German principality that grew from a poor border march into the core of Prussia, lasting from 1157 to 1806. It began when Albert the Bear seized the Slavic lands between Elbe and Oder and styled himself margrave, holding a rough frontier of forest, marsh and quarrelsome Wendish tribes. The Golden Bull of 1356 raised its rulers among the seven prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire, giving a modest march a vote for emperors, and the name Electoral Brandenburg stuck. In 1415 the Hohenzollerns took the throne, moved the residence to Berlin two years later, and patiently gathered scattered lands for two centuries. The decisive windfall came in 1618, when the electors inherited the Duchy of Prussia outside the Empire's borders; under the Great Elector Frederick William the united lands survived the Thirty Years War and built the standing army and bureaucracy on which his successors founded the Kingdom in Prussia. The old margraviate outlived its usefulness and was dissolved in the Napoleonic reordering of 1806, but its capital, dynasty and army marched on as Prussia.