In 1237 and 1244, two towns, Cölln and Berlin, were founded during the rule of Otto and Johann, grandsons of Margrave Albert the Bear.

Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796, was a member of the House of Ascania, herself the daughter of Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst.

John's and Agnes' childless deaths left the main core of Salzwedel and the important seat of the Altmark to be reunited in Brandenburg.

(genealogical list of the dynasty in German) The original arms of the house of Ascania, from their ancestors the Saxon counts of Ballenstedt, were "Barry of ten sable and or".

The Ascanian margrave Albert the Bear was invested with the Saxon ducal title in 1138; when he succeeded the Welf's Henry the Lion, who was deposed by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.

In 1180, Albert's son Bernhard, Count of Anhalt received the remaining Saxon territories around Wittenberg and Lauenburg, and the ducal title.

Legend, so unlikely to be true, goes that when he rode in front of the emperor, at the occasion of his investiture, he carried a shield with his escutcheon of the Ballenstedt coat of arms (barry sable and or).

As the Ascanian Electors of Saxony also held the High office of an Arch-Marshal of the Holy Roman Empire, they added the ensign Per fess sable and argent two swords in saltire gules (the swords later featuring as the trademark of the Meissen china factory) to their coat of arms.

When the line became extinct in 1422, the arms and electoral dignity were adopted by the Wettin by margrave Frederick IV of Meissen as it had become synonymous with the Saxon ducal title.