took the title of prince and was the real founder of the house of Anhalt.  On Henry’s death in 1252 his three sons partitioned the principality and founded respectively the lines of Aschersleben, Bernburg and Zerbst.  The family ruling in Aschersleben became extinct in 1315, and this district was subsequently incorporated with the neighbouring bishopric of Halberstadt.  The last prince of the line of Anhalt-Bernburg died in 1468 and his lands were inherited by the princes of the sole remaining line, that of Anhalt-Zerbst.  The territory belonging to this branch of the family had been divided in 1396, and after the acquisition of Bernburg Prince George I. made a further partition of Zerbst.  Early in the 16th century, however, owing to the death or abdication of several princes, the family had become narrowed down to the two branches of Anhalt-Coethen and Anhalt-Dessau.  Wolfgang, who became prince of Anhalt-Coethen in 1508, was a stalwart adherent of the Reformation, and after the battle of Muehlberg in 1547 was placed under the ban and deprived of his lands by the emperor Charles V. After the peace of Passau in 1552 he bought back his principality, but as he was childless he surrendered it in 1562 to his kinsmen the princes of Anhalt-Dessau.  Ernest I. of Anhalt-Dessau (d. 1516) left three sons, John II., George III., and Joachim, who ruled their lands together for many years, and who, like Prince Wolfgang, favoured the reformed doctrines, which thus became dominant in Anhalt.  About 1546 the three brothers divided their principality and founded the lines of Zerbst, Ploetzkau and Dessau.  This division, however, was only temporary, as the acquisition of Coethen, and a series of deaths among the ruling princes, enabled Joachim Ernest, a son of John II., to unite the whole of Anhalt under his rule in 1570.

Joachim Ernest died in 1586 and his five sons ruled the land in common until 1603, when Anhalt was again divided, and the lines of Dessau, Bernburg, Ploetzkau, Zerbst and Coethen were refounded.  The principality was ravaged during the Thirty Years’ War, and in the earlier part of this struggle Christian I. of Anhalt-Bernburg took an important part.  In 1635 an arrangement was made by the various princes of Anhalt, which gave a certain authority to the eldest member of the family, who was thus able to represent the principality as a whole.  This proceeding was probably due to the necessity of maintaining an appearance of unity in view of the disturbed state of European politics.  In 1665 the branch of Anhalt-Coethen became extinct, and according to a family compact this district was inherited by Lebrecht of Anhalt-Ploetzkau, who surrendered Ploetzkau to Bernburg, and took the title of prince of Anhalt-Coethen.  In the same year the princes of Anhalt decided that if any branch of the family became extinct its lands should be equally divided between the remaining branches.  This arrangement was carried out after the death of Frederick Augustus of Anhalt-Zerbst in 1793, and Zerbst was