Margraviate of Brandenburg member of Holy Roman Empire
Wittelsbachs
Having defeated the Habsburgs, the Wittelsbach Emperor Louis IV, an uncle of Henry II, granted Brandenburg to his oldest son, Louis I (the "Brandenburger") in 1323. As a consequence of the murder of Provost Nikolaus von Bernau in 1325, Brandenburg was punished with a papal interdict. From 1328 onwards, Louis was in war against Pomerania which he claimed as a fiefdom and the conflict did not end before 1333. The rule of Margrave Louis I was rejected by the domestic nobility of Brandenburg, and, after the death of Emperor Louis IV in 1347, the margrave was confronted with the False Waldemar, an imposter of the deceased Margrave Waldemar. The pretender was recognized as Margrave of Brandenburg on 2 October 1348 by the new emperor, Charles IV of Luxembourg, but was exposed as a fraud after a peace between the Wittelsbachs and Luxembourgs at Eltville. In 1351 Louis gave the Mark to his younger half-brothers Louis II (the "Roman") and Otto V in exchange for the sole rule over Upper Bavaria.
Louis the Roman forced the False Waldemar to renounce his claims to Brandenburg and succeeded in establishing the Margraves of Brandenburg as prince-electors in the Golden Bull of 1356. Brandenburg therefore became a Kurfürstentum (literally "electoral principality" or "electorate") of the Holy Roman Empire and had a vote in the election of the Holy Roman Emperor. The Margrave of Brandenburg also held the ceremonial title of Arch-Chamberlain of the Empire (Latin: Archi-Camerarius Imperii). When Louis the Roman died in 1365, Otto took over the rule of Brandenburg, although he quickly neglected the march. He sold Lower Lusatia, which he had already pledged to the Wettin dynasty, to Emperor Charles IV in 1367. A year later he lost the town Deutsch Krone (Wałcz) to Polish King Casimir the Great.
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