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George the Bearded, Duke of Saxony (b. Meissen, 27 August 1471 - d. Dresden, 17 April 1539), was duke of Saxony from 1500 to 1539. Duke George was a member of the Order of the Golden Fleece. His father was Albert the Brave of Saxony, founder of the Albertine line of the Wettin family, his mother was Sidonie, daughter of George Podiebrad, King of Bohemia. Elector Frederick the Wise, a member of the Ernestine branch of the same family, known for his protection of Luther,
was a cousin of Duke George. George,
as the eldest son, received an excellent training in theology and other
branches of learning, and was thus much better educated than most of
the princes of his day. As early as 1488, when his father was in Friesland fighting on behalf of the emperor, George was regent of the ducal possessions, which included the Margraviate of Meissen with the cities of Dresden and Leipzig.
George was married at Dresden, on 21 November 1496, to Barbara Jagiellon, daughter of Casimir IV, King of Poland and Elisabeth, daughter of Albrecht II of Hungary. They had ten children, but all, with the exception of a daughter, died before their father. In 1498, the emperor granted Albert the Brave the hereditary governorship of Friesland. At Maastricht,
14 February 1499, Albert settled the succession to his possessions, and
endeavoured by this arrangement to prevent further partition of his
domain. He died 12 September 1500, and was succeeded in his German
territories by George as the head of the Albertine line, while George's brother Heinrich became hereditary governor of Friesland. The
Saxon occupation of Friesland, however, was by no means secure and was
the source of constant revolts in that province. Consequently Heinrich,
who was of a rather inert disposition, relinquished his claims to the
governorship, and in 1505 an agreement was made between the brothers by
which Friesland was transferred to George, while Heinrich received an
annuity and the districts of Freiberg and Wolkenstein.
But this arrangement did not restore peace in Friesland, which
continued to be an unceasing source of trouble to Saxony, until finally
the duke was obliged, in 1515, to sell it to Burgundy for
the very moderate price of 100,000 florins. These troubles outside of
his Saxon possessions did not prevent George from bestowing much care
on the government of the ducal territory proper. When regent, during
the lifetime of his father, the difficulties arising from conflicting
interests and the large demands on his powers had often brought the
young prince to the verge of despair. In
a short time, however, he developed a decided ability as a ruler; on
entering upon his inheritance he divided the duchy into governmental
districts, took measures to suppress the robber - knights, and
regulated
the judicial system by defining and readjusting the jurisdiction of the
various law courts. In his desire to achieve good order, severity, and
the amelioration of the condition of the people, he sometimes ventured
to infringe even on the rights of the cities. His court was better
regulated than that of any other German prince, and he bestowed a
paternal care on the University of Leipzig, where a number of reforms were introduced, and Humanism, as opposed to Scholasticism, was encouraged. From the beginning of the Reformation in
1517, Duke George directed his energies chiefly to ecclesiastical
affairs. Hardly one of the secular German princes held as firmly as he
to the Church, he defended its rights and vigorously condemned every
innovation except those countenanced by the highest ecclesiastical
authorities. At first he was not opposed to Luther, but as time went on
and Luther's aim became clear to him, he turned more and more from the
Reformer, and was finally, in consequence of this change of attitude,
drawn into an acrimonious correspondence in which Luther, according to
some without any justification, heavily criticized the duke. The
duke was not blind to the undeniable abuses existing at that time in
the Church. In 1519, despite the opposition of the theological faculty
of the university, he originated the Disputation of Leipzig, with the idea of helping forward the cause of truth, and was present at all the discussions. In 1521, at the Diet of Worms,
when the German princes handed in a paper containing a list of
"grievances" concerning the condition of the Church, George added for
himself twelve specific complaints referring mainly to the abuse of Indulgences and the annates. In 1525, he combined with his Lutheran son - in - law, Landgrave Philip of Hesse, and his cousin, the Elector Frederick the Wise, to suppress the revolt of the peasants, who were defeated near Frankenhausen in Thuringia. Some years later, he wrote a forcible preface to a translation of the New Testament issued at his command by his private secretary, Hieronymus Emser,
as an offset to Luther's version. Lutheran books were confiscated by
his order, wherever found, though he refunded the cost of the books. He
proved himself in every way a vigorous opponent of the Lutherans,
decreeing that Christian burial was to be refused to apostates, and recreant ecclesiastics were to be delivered to the bishop of Merseburg. For
those, however, who merely held anti - catholic opinions, the punishment
was only expulsion from the duchy. The duke deeply regretted the
constant postponement of the ardently desired council, from the action
of which so much was expected. While awaiting its convocation, he
thought to remove the more serious defects by a reform of the
monasteries, which had become exceedingly worldly in spirit and from
which many of the inmates were departing. He vainly sought to obtain
from the Curia the right, which was sometimes granted by Rome,
to make official visitations to the conventual institutions of his
realm. His reforms were confined mainly to uniting the almost vacant
monasteries and to matters of economic management, the control of the
property being entrusted in most cases to the secular authorities. In 1525, Duke George formed, with some other German rulers, the League of Dessau, for the protection of Catholic interests. In the same way he was the animating spirit of the League of Halle, formed in 1533, from which sprang in 1538 the Holy League of Nuremberg for the maintenance of the religious Peace of Nuremberg. The
vigorous activity displayed by the duke in so many directions was not
attended with much success. Most of his political measures, indeed,
stood the test of experience, but in ecclesiastico - political matters he
witnessed with sorrow the gradual decline of Catholicism and the spread
of Lutheranism within his dominions, in spite of his earnest efforts
and forcible prohibition of the new doctrine. Furthermore, during
George's lifetime his nearest relations his son - in - law Philip of Hesse,
and his brother Heinrich, joined the Reformers. He
spent the last years of his reign in endeavours to secure a Catholic
successor, thinking by this step to check the dissemination of Lutheran
opinions. The only one of George's sons then living was the weak - minded
and unmarried Frederick. The intention of his father was that Frederick
should rule with the aid of a council. Early in 1539, Frederick was
married to Elizabeth of Mansfeld,
but he died shortly afterwards, leaving no prospect of an heir.
According to the act of settlement of 1499, George's Protestant brother
Heinrich was now heir prospective; but George, disregarding his
father's will, sought to disinherit his brother and to bequeath the
duchy to Ferdinand, brother of Charles V. His sudden death prevented the carrying out of this intention.
George
was an excellent and industrious ruler, self - sacrificing, high - minded,
and unwearying in the furtherance of the highest interests of his land
and people. As a man he was upright, vigorous and energetic, if
somewhat irascible. A far - seeing and faithful adherent of the emperor
and empire, he accomplished much for his domain by economy, love of
order and wise direction of activities of his state officials. The
grief of his life was Luther's Reformation and what he regarded to be
apostasy from the Old Faith. Of a strictly religious, although not
narrow, disposition, he sought at any cost to keep his subjects from
falling away from the Church, but his methods of attaining his object
were not always free from reproach. |