Wittenberg had become the focus of the Protestant Reformation. In 1517, Martin Luther had nailed his 95 Theses against Indulgences on the door of the castle church at Wittenberg, the opening act of the Reformation. In 1520 he burned the papal bull condemning him, and in 1534 the first Lutheran Bible was printed there. The Elector of Saxony was the most important patron of the Lutheran Reformation.
In 1547, Emperor Charles V, with the assistance of the Duke of Alva, captured Wittenberg after the Battle of Mühlberg, where John Frederick I was taken prisoner. The Duke of Alva then presided over a court-martial and condemned John Frederick to death. To save his life, the Elector conceded the defeat of Wittenberg and resigned the government of his country in favor of his relative, Maurice of Saxony. His sentence was thereupon commuted to imprisonment for life. Rescued on 1 September, 1552, he returned to Saxony in a triumphal march, and removed the seat of government to Weimar.
Wittenberg declined after 1547, when Dresden, residence of the Albertine dukes, replaced it as the Saxon capital.
George the Bearded was Duke of Saxony from 1500 to 1539 known for his opposition to the Reformation. While the Ernestine line embraced Lutheranism, the Albertines were reluctant to do so. Despite George's efforts to avoid a succession by a Lutheran upon his death in 1539, he could not prevent it from happening. Under the Act of Settlement of 1499, Lutheran Henry IV became the new duke. Upon his accession, Henry introduced Lutheranism as a state religion in the Albertine lands of Saxony.
Frederick III, also known as Frederick the Wise, was Elector of Saxony from 1486 to 1525, who is mostly remembered for the worldly protection of his subject Martin Luther.
The Battle of Mühlberg took place near Mühlberg in the Electorate of Saxony in 1547, during the Schmalkaldic War. The Catholic princes of the Holy Roman Empire led by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V decisively defeated the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League of Protestant princes under the command of Elector John Frederick I of Saxony and Landgrave Philip I of Hesse.
The Schmalkaldic War was the short period of violence from 1546 until 1547 between the forces of Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, commanded by the Duke of Alba and the Duke of Saxony, and the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League within the domains of the Holy Roman Empire.
The House of Wettin was a dynasty of German kings, prince-electors, dukes, and counts that once ruled territories in the present-day German states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The dynasty is one of the oldest in Europe, and its origins can be traced back to the town of Wettin, Saxony-Anhalt. The Wettins gradually rose to power within the Holy Roman Empire. Members of the family became the rulers of several medieval states, starting with the Saxon Eastern March in 1030. Other states they gained were Meissen in 1089, Thuringia in 1263, and Saxony in 1423. These areas cover large parts of Central Germany as a cultural area of Germany.
John Frederick I, called the Magnanimous, was the Elector of Saxony (1532–1547) and head of the Schmalkaldic League.
John George I was Elector of Saxony from 1611 to 1656. He led Saxony through the Thirty Years' War, which dominated his 45-year reign.
Georg(e) Spalatin was the pseudonym taken by Georg Burkhardt, a German humanist, theologian, reformer, secretary of the Saxon Elector Frederick the Wise, as well as an important figure in the history of the Reformation.
Maurice was Duke (1541–47) and later Elector (1547–53) of Saxony. His clever manipulation of alliances and disputes gained the Albertine branch of the Wettin dynasty extensive lands and the electoral dignity.
Ernest of Brunswick-Lüneburg, also frequently called Ernest the Confessor, was duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and a champion of the Protestant cause during the early years of the Protestant Reformation. He was the Prince of Lüneburg and ruled the Lüneburg-Celle subdivision of the Welf family's Brunswick-Lüneburg duchy from 1520 until his death.
Saxe-Weimar was one of the Saxon duchies held by the Ernestine branch of the Wettin dynasty in present-day Thuringia. The chief town and capital was Weimar. The Weimar branch was the most genealogically senior extant branch of the House of Wettin.
The Ernestine duchies, also known as the Saxon duchies, were a group of small states whose number varied, which were largely located in the present-day German state of Thuringia and governed by dukes of the Ernestine line of the House of Wettin.
The Electorate of Saxony, also known as Electoral Saxony, was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire from 1356–1806. Its territory included the areas around the cities of Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz.
The Treaty of Leipzig or Partition of Leipzig was signed on 11 November 1485 between Elector Ernest of Saxony and his younger brother Albert III, the sons of Elector Frederick II of Saxony from the House of Wettin. The agreement perpetuated the division of the Wettin lands into a Saxon and a Thuringian part, which in the long run obstructed the further development of a Central German hegemonic power in favour of Brandenburg-Prussia.
John, known as John the Steadfast or John the Constant, was Elector of Saxony from 1525 until 1532 from the House of Wettin.
Paul Luther was a German physician, medical chemist, and alchemist. He was the third son of the German Protestant Reformer Martin Luther and was successively physician to John Frederick II, Duke of Saxony; Joachim II Hector, Elector of Brandenburg; Augustus, Elector of Saxony and his successor Christian I, Elector of Saxony. He taught alchemy to Anne of Denmark.
The “Grumbach Feud”, in 1567, was a rather bizarre episode in the history of the Ernestine side of the House of Wettin, which led to life imprisonment for Elector John Frederick II “the Middle”, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Eisenach.
The Electoral Circle, which was renamed in 1807 as the Wittenberg Circle, was a historical territory that mostly emerged from the heartlands of the former Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg. The circle was created in the reign of Frederick the Wise of Saxony in 1499 and was part of the Electorate of Saxony. The German name Kurkreis referred to the electoral dignity or status of the Saxon prince electors to whom this territory was linked.
An imperial election was held in Regensburg on 28 November 1562 to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Albertine branch is a German princely family of the House of Wettin. The name derives from the progenitor of the line, Albert III, Duke of Saxony. The Albertine branch ruled from 1485 to 1918 as dukes, electors and kings in Saxony.
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