Meissen and the House of Wettin in 1089. In 1015 Meissen was besieged by the Poles led by future King Mieszko II. In 1241 the city was attacked in the Mongol raid on Meissen. The small Mongol force under Orda Khan defeated the city's defenders and much of the city was destroyed. The Mongols withdrew from Germany after the death of Ögedei Khan, sparing the region from further destruction. The city was at the forefront of the Ostsiedlung, or intensive German settlement of the rural Slavic lands east of the Elbe, and its reception of city rights dates to 1332. The
Meissen porcelain further precaution, very few workers knew the special secret ("arcanum") of how to make porcelain, and then perhaps only part of the process. Thus, for a few years, Meissen retained its monopoly on the production of hard-paste porcelain in Europe. By 1717, however, a competing production was set up at Vienna, as Samuel Stöltzel sold the secret recipe, which involved the use of kaolin, also known as china clay. By 1760 about thirty porcelain manufacturers were operating in Europe, most of them, however, producing frit based soft-paste porcelain. In order to identify the original Meissen products, Meissen developed markings that