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Vogtland

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or Voigtland, a district of Germany, forming the S. W. corner of the kingdom of Saxony, and also embracing parts of the principality of Reuss and of the duchies of SaxeAltenburg and Saxe-Weimar. It is bounded on the N. by the principalities of Reuss, in the S.E. by Bohemia, and on the S.W. and W. by Bavaria. Its character is generally mountainous, and geologically it belongs to the Erzgebirge range. It is extremely rich in mineral ores-silver, copper, lead and bismuth. The name denoted the country governed for the emperor by a Vogt (bailiff or steward), and was, in the middle ages, known as terra advocatorum. The Viigte are first met with in the country in the 10th century, and the office shortly afterwards appears to have become hereditary in the princely line of Reuss. But this house was not in undivided possession, rival claims being raised from time to time; and after being during the middle ages a bone of contention between Bohemia, the burgraves of Nuremberg and the Saxon house of Wettin, it passed gradually to the Wettins, falling by the division of 1485 to the Ernestine branch of the family. The elector Augustus I. made it one of the circles:of his dominions.

See Limmer, Geschichte des Vogtlandes (Gera, 1825-28, 4 vols.); Simon, Das Vogtland (Meissen, 1904); C. F. Collmann, Das Vogtland im Mittelalter (Greiz, 1892); and Metzner, Vogtleindische Wanderungen (Annaberg, 1902).