Frederick III, Elector of Saxony
| Frederick III | |
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| Elector of Saxony Landgrave of Thuringia |
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| Frederick in a portrait by Lucas Cranach the Elder | |
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| Reign | 26 August 1483 – 5 May 1525 |
| Predecessor | Ernst |
| Successor | John the Constant |
| House | House of Wettin |
| Father | Ernst, Elector of Saxony |
| Mother | Elisabeth of Bavaria |
| Born | 17 January 1463 Torgau |
| Died | 5 May 1525 (aged 62) Langau |
| Burial | Schlosskirche, Wittenberg |
| Religion | Catholic |
Frederick III of Saxony (17 January 1463 – 5 May 1525), also known as Frederick the Wise (German "Friedrich der Weise"), was Elector of Saxony (from the House of Wettin) from 1486 to his death. Frederick was the son of Ernest, Elector of Saxony and his wife Elisabeth, daughter of Albert III, Duke of Bavaria. He is notable as being one of the most powerful early defenders of Martin Luther,[1] Lutheranism, and the Protestant Reformation. He is commemorated as a Christian ruler in the Calendar of Saints of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod on 5 May. His court painter since 1504 was Lucas Cranach the Elder.
[edit] Biography
Born in Torgau, he succeeded his father as elector in 1486; in 1502, he founded the University of Wittenberg, where Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon taught.
Frederick was among the princes who pressed the need of reform upon Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, and in 1500 he became president of the newly formed council of regency (Reichsregiment).
Frederick was Pope Leo X's candidate for Holy Roman Emperor in 1519 — the pope had awarded him the Golden Rose of virtue on 3 September 1518 — but he helped secure the election of Charles V. Frederick ensured Luther would be heard before the Diet of Worms in 1521 and subsequently secured an exemption from the Edict of Worms for Saxony.
By 1518 Frederick's castle church contained 17,443 holy relics, including a piece of Moses' burning bush, parts of the holy cradle and swaddling clothes, thirty-five fragments of the true cross, and the Virgin Mary's milk. A diligent and pious person who rendered appropriate devotion to each of these relics could earn 1,902,202 years of absolution from unrepented sins (time otherwise spent in purgatory).[2] Two years later, the collection exceeded 19,000 pieces.[3]
He protected Martin Luther from the Pope's enforcement of the edict by faking a highway attack on Luther's way back to Wittenberg, and hid him at Wartburg Castle following the Diet of Worms.
Frederick died unmarried at Lochau, a hunting castle near Annaburg (30 km southeast of Wittenberg), in 1525 and was buried in the Schlosskirche at Wittenberg with a grave by Peter Vischer the Younger. He was succeeded by his brother Duke John the Constant as Elector of Saxony.
[edit] Ancestry
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.reformationhappens.com/movements/magisterial/
- ^ Borkowsky, Ernst (1929). Das Leben Friedrichs des Weisen. Jena. pp. 56–57.
- ^ Geoffrey Parker; Caleb Carr et al. (2001). "Martin Luther Burns at the Stake, 1521". In Robert Cowley. The collected What if? : eminent historians imagining what might have been. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. p. 511. ISBN 0399152385.
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Jackson, Samuel Macauley, ed. (1914). "article name needed". New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (third ed.). London and New York: Funk and Wagnalls.
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Frederick III, Elector of Saxony
Born: 17 January 1463 Died: 17 January 1463 |
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| Preceded by Ernest |
Elector of Saxony 1486–1525 |
Succeeded by John the Constant |
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- 1463 births
- 1525 deaths
- People from Torgau
- Electors of Saxony
- House of Wettin
- German Lutherans
- Martin Luther
- People celebrated in the Lutheran liturgical calendar
- Medieval child rulers
- Burials at All Saints' Church, Wittenberg
- Recipients of the Golden Rose
- 16th-century German people
- Saxon princes
- Imperial vicars
