sses,
to execute justice, and to form alliances with foreign states. Charles
invested Wenceslaus with the margraviate in 1373, but undertook its
administration himself, and passed much of his time at a castle which he
built at Tangermunde. He diminished the burden of taxation, suppressed
the violence of the nobles, improved navigation on the Elbe and Oder,
and encouraged commerce by alliances with the Hanse towns, and in other
ways. He caused a _Landbook_ to be drawn up in 1375, in which are
recorded all the castles, towns and villages of the land with their
estates and incomes. When Charles died in 1378, and Wenceslaus became
German and Bohemian king, Brandenburg passed to the new king's
half-brother Sigismund, then a minor, and a period of disorder ensued.
Soon after Sigismund came of age, he pledged a part of Brandenburg to
his cousin Jobst, margrave of Moravia, to whom in 1388 he handed over
the remainder of the electorate in return for a large sum of money, and
as the money was not repaid, Jobst obtained the investiture in 1397 from
King Wenceslaus. Sigismund had also obtained the new mark on the death
of his brother John in 1396, but sold this in 1402 to the Teutonic
order. Jobst paid very little attention to Brandenburg, and the period
was used by many of the noble families to enrich themselves at the
expense of the poorer and weaker towns, to plunder traders, and to carry
on feuds with neighbouring princes. When in 1410 Sigismund and Jobst
were rivals for the German throne, Sigismund, anxious to obtain another
vote in the electoral college, declared the bargain with Jobst void, and
empowered Frederick VI. of Hohenzollern, burgrave of Nuremberg, to
exercise the Brandenburg vote at the election. (See FREDERICK I.,
ELECTOR OF BRANDENBURG.) In 1411 Jobst died and Brandenburg reverted to
Sigismund, who appointed Frederick as his representative to govern the
margraviate, and a further step was taken when, on the 30th of April
1415, the king invested Frederick of Hohenzollern and his heirs with
Brandenburg, together with the electoral privilege and the office of
chamberlain, in return for a payment of 400,000 gold gulden, but the
formal ceremony of investiture was delayed until the 18th of April 1417,
when it took place at Constance.

Condition before the Hohenzollern rule.

During the century which preceded the advent of the Hohenzollerns in
Brandenburg its internal condition had become gradually worse and worse,