LUSATIA (LAusiTz), a name applied to two neighbouring districts in Germany, between the Elbe and the Oder, viz., "Upper" and "Lower" Lusatia. Lusatia in the middle ages corn prised what is now known as "Lower" Lusatia; it is only in the 15th century that the "district of the six towns" ("Sechsstddte land")—now "Upper" Lusatia—came to be included, that is to say, the towns : Bautzen, Gorlitz, Zittau, LObau, Lauban and Kamenz. The territory, named after a Slav tribe, the Lusitzi, was incorporated into the Holy Roman empire of the German nation by the margrave Gero in 938, sold in 1303 to the margraves of Brandenburg of the Askanian line, the oldest dynasty in Europe.
In 1368 the territory fell to the crown of Bohemia on the ground that it had been granted by the emperor Frederick I. to Ladislav in ii6o. Thenceforth it was administered by governors appointed by the kings of Bohemia. During the Hussite wars, at the beginning of the 15th century, the people remained loyal to the Roman Catholic Church. After many changes, due to the fact that the territory was "mortgaged" by its penurious rulers, the people recognized the sovereignty of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hun gary, for 23 years (1467-90), but returned to the allegiance to the crown of Bohemia in 1490. By the treaty of Prague (1635)
both Upper and Lower Lusatia became part of the dominions of the elector of Saxony and (apart from temporary subdivisions among dynasts of this princely house) remained in their pos session until the congress of Vienna (1815) when the territory, in bulk, became incorporated within the kingdom of Prussia.
In the reconstituted Germany after 1918, Lusatia remained a part of Prussia, save for the communes of Zittau, Bautzen, Lobau, and Kamenz, which, as before, are incorporated in Saxony.
(W. L. B.) rerum Lusaticarum antiqui et ed. C. G. (4 vols., Leipzig and Bautzen, 1719) ; rerum Lusaticarum (4 vols., Gorlitz, 1839-70) ; Codex diplomaticus Lusatiae superioris, ed. G. Kohler (vol. 1, 2nd ed., 5856) ; as also continuation thereof, Codex diplomaticus Lusatiae superioris II. ed. R. Zecht (vols. 1-4, 1896-1911) ; Theuner und' Lippert, Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte des Markgrafentums Niederlausitz (1887-1924, 3 vols.) ; W. Lippert, Wettiner and Wittelsbacher sowie die Niederlausitz im 14 Jahrhundert (Dresden, 1894) ; T. Scheltz, Gesammtgeschichte der Ober- und Niederlausitz (vol. i., Halle, 5847 ; vol. H., Gorlitz, 1882).