The
Ernestine duchies, also called the
Saxon duchies (although also the Albertine
appanage duchies of
Weissenfels,
Merseburg and
Zeitz were "Saxon duchies" and located adjacent to several Ernestine ones), were a changing number of small
states largely located in the present
German state of
Thuringia, governed by dukes of the Ernestine line of the
House of Wettin.