Frederick I, Elector of Saxony

Frederick IV, Margrave of Meissen, Landgrave of Thuringia and Elector of Saxony (Frederick the Belligerent (the Warlike) (11 April 1370 – 4 January 1428) was Markgraf of Meißen, Landgraf of Thuringia and Elector of Saxony from 1381 until his death.

Biography

He was the eldest son of Frederick III, Landgrave of Thuringia and Katharina von Henneberg. After the death of his uncle William II, Margrave of Meissen in 1407, he governed the Margraviate of Meissen together with his brother William III as well as with his cousin Frederick (son of Balthasar). After secession in 1410 and 1415 he received the Mark Meissen to autocracy. In the German town war of 1388 he assisted Frederick V of Hohenzollern, burgrave of Nuremberg, and in 1391 did the same for the Teutonic Order against Wladislaus II of Poland. He supported Rupert III, Elector Palatine of the Rhine, in his struggle with King Wenceslaus for the German throne, probably because Wenceslaus refused to fulfil a promise to give him his sister Anna in marriage. The danger to Germany from the Hussites induced Frederick to ally himself with Emperor Sigismund; and he took a leading part in the war against them, during the earlier years of which he met with considerable success. In the prosecution of this enterprise Frederick spent large sums of money, for which he received various places in Bohemia and elsewhere in pledge from Sigismund, who further rewarded him in 6 January 1423 with the vacant electoral Duchy of Saxony-Wittenberg; and Fredericks formal investiture followed at Ofen on the 1 August 1425. Thus ascended Frederick IV, who called himself Frederick I now, to the duke and elector. Thus spurred to renewed efforts against the Hussites, the elector was endeavouring to rouse the German princes to aid him in prosecuting this war when the Saxon army was almost annihilated at Aussig on the 16 August 1426. After the death of his brother William Frederick became ruler over the entire possession of The House of Wettin except Thuringia. Frederick died in 1428 at Altenburg. He was buried as first Wettin in the cathedral chapel in Meissen. In 1409, in conjunction with his brother William, he founded the University of Leipzig, for the benefit of German students who had just left the University of Prague.

Ancestry

Family

Frederick I married 8 February 1402 with Catherine of Brunswick, daughter of Henry the Mild, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and had 7 children:

1. Katharina, died young;
2. Friedrich II "der Sanftmütige" (1412 – 1464);
3. Sigismund, Bishop of Würzburg, (3 March 1416 – 24 December 1471);
4. Anna, (5 June 1420 – 17 September 1462), married to Louis I, Landgrave of Hesse;
5. Katharina, (1421 – 23 August 1476, Berlin), married to Frederick II, Elector of Brandenburg;
6. Heinrich, (21 May 1422 – 22 July 1435);
7. Wilhelm "der Tapfere" (1425 – 1482), Landgrave of Thuringia, Duke of Luxemburg;

See also

• Rulers of Saxony
• Wettin (dynasty)

References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.