Colditz

The Colditz were a Saxon noble family of ministerial origin, named after Colditz Castle on the Mulde, raised to an imperial estate by Frederick Barbarossa in 1158. They served the emperors and the Wettin margraves of Meissen as knights and officials.

Withego II was Bishop of Meissen from 1312 to 1342, buying Nossen in 1335 and acquiring Liebethal in 1336. Thimo II, an official of Emperor Charles IV, inherited Graupen in northern Bohemia in 1341, while Thimo VIII acquired Eilenburg in 1378 and the pledge of Pirna in 1379.

The family's Saxon seat passed to the Wettins in 1404. A Bohemian branch held Graupen until 1557, when Thimo V sold it to the lords of Schoenburg; that line is said to have died out after 1620.