ELECTORAL SAXONY

After the dissolution of the medieval Duchy of Saxony the name Saxony was first applied to a small part of the
ancient duchy situated on the Elbe around the city of Wittenberg. This was given to Bernard of Ascania, the
second son of Albert the Bear, who was the founder of the Mark of Brandenburg, from which has come the
present Kingdom of Prussia. Bernard's son, Albert I, added to this territory the lordship of Lauenburg, and
Albert's sons divided the possessions into Saxe-Wittenberg and Saxe-Lauenburg. When in 1356 the Emperor
Charles IV issued the Golden Bull, the fundamental law of the empire which settled the method of electing the
German emperor, the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg was made one of the seven electorates.

The Golden Bull of 1356 raised the duke of Saxe-Wittenberg to the permanent rank of elector, with the right to
participate in the election of the Holy Roman Emperor. Electoral Saxony, as his territory was called, was a
relatively small area along the middle Elbe. To the S of Electoral Saxony extended the margraviate of Meissen,
ruled by the increasingly powerful house of Wettin. The Ascanian line of Saxe-Wittenberg became extinct in 1422.
The Emperor Sigismund bestowed the country and electoral dignity upon Margrave Frederick the Valiant of Meissen,
a member of the Wettin line.

The Margravate of Meissen had been founded by the Emperor Otto I. In 1089 it came into the
possession of the Wettin family, who from 1247 also owned the eastern part of the Margravate of Thuringia. In
1422 Saxe-Wittenberg, and the Margravates of Meissen and Thuringia were united into one country, which
gradually received the name of Saxony. The margraves of Meissen acquired (13th–14th cent.) the
larger parts of Thuringia and of Lower Lusatia and the intervening territories, and in 1423 Margrave Frederick
the Warlike added Electoral Saxony; he became (1425) Elector Frederick I. Thus, Saxony shifted to E central
and E Germany from NW Germany.

In 1485 the Wettin lands were partitioned between two sons of Elector Frederick II; the division came to be
permanent. Ernest, founder of the Ernestine branch of Wettin, received Electoral Saxony with Wittenberg and
most of the Thuringian lands. Albert, founder of the Albertine branch, received ducal rank and the Meissen
territories, including Dresden and Leipzig. Duke Maurice of Saxony, a grandson of Albert and a Protestant,
received the electoral title in the 16th cent.; it remained in the Albertine branch until the dissolution (1806) of
the Holy Roman Empire.

The duke as elector thereby received the right to elect, in company with the other six electors, the German
emperor. In this way the country, though small in area, obtained an influential position. The electoral dignity
had connected with it the obligation of primogeniture, that is, only the eldest son could succeed as ruler; this
excluded the division of the territory among several heirs and consequently the disintegration of the country.
The importance of this stipulation is shown by the history of most of the German principalities which were
not electorates.

Elector Frederick the Valiant died in 1464, and his two sons made a
division of his territories at Leipzig on 26 August, 1485, which led to the still existing separation of the Wettin
dynasty into the Ernestine and Albertine lines. Duke Ernest, the founder of the Ernestine line, received by the
Partition of Leipzig the Duchy of Saxony and the electoral dignity united with it, besides the Landgravate of
Thuringia; Albert, the founder of the Albertine line, received the Margravate of Meissen. Thus the Ernestine
line seemed to have the greater authority. However, in the sixteenth century the electoral dignity fell to the
Albertine line, and at the beginning of the nineteenth century it received the royal title as well.

The Protestant revolt of the sixteenth century was effected under the protection of the electors of Saxe-
Wittenberg. The Elector Frederick the Wise established a university at Wittenberg in 1502, at which the
Augustinian monk Martin Luther was made professor of philosophy in 1508; at the same time he became one
of the preachers at the castle church of Wittenberg. On 31 October, 1517, he posted up on this church the
ninety-five theses against indulgences with which he began what is called the Reformation. The elector did not
become at once an adherent of the new opinions, but granted his protection to Luther; consequently, owing to
the intervention of the elector, the pope did not summon Luther to Rome (1518); also through the elector's
mediation Luther received the imperial safe-conduct to the Diet of Worms (1521). When Luther was declared at
Worms to be under the ban of the entire empire the elector had him brought to the Castle of the Wartburg in
Thuringia. The new doctrine spread first in Saxe-Wittenberg. The successor Frederick the Wise (d. 1525) was
his brother John the Constant (d. 1532). John was already a zealous Lutheran; he exercised full authority over
the Church, introduced the Lutheran Confession, ordered the deposition of all priests who continued in the
Catholic Faith, and directed the use of a new liturgy drawn up by Luther. In 1531 he formed with a number of
other ruling princes the Smalkaldic League, for the maintenance of the Protestant doctrine and for common
defence against the German Emperor Charles V, because Charles was an opponent of the new doctrine. The
son and successor of John the Constant was John Frederick the Magnanimous (d. 1554). He was also one of
the heads of the Smalkaldic League, which was inimical to the emperor and Catholicism. In 1542 he seized the
Diocese of Naumburg-Zeitz, and attacked and plundered the secular possessions of the Dioceses of Meissen
and Hildesheim. The Catholic Faith was forcibly suppressed in all directions and the churches and monasteries
were robbed. John Frederick was defeated and captured by Charles V at the Battle of Mühlberg on the Elbe,
24 April, 1547. In the Capitulation of Wittenberg, 19 May, 1547, the elector was obliged to yield Saxe-
Wittenberg and the electoral dignity to Duke Maurice of Saxe-Meissen. After this the only possession of the
Ernestine line of the Wettin family was Thuringia, which, however, on account of repeated divisions among the
heirs was soon cut up into a number of duchies. Those still in existence are: the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-
Eisenach, the Duchies of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Saxe-Meiningen, and Saxe-Altenburg.

Duke Albert (d. 1500) was succeeded in the Duchy of Saxe-Meissen by his son George the Bearded (d. 1539).
George was a strong opponent of the Lutheran doctrine and had repeatedly sought to influence his cousins
the Electors of Saxe-Wittenberg in favour of the Catholic Church, but George's brother and successor, Henry
the Pious (d. 1541), was won over to Protestantism by the influence of his wife Catharine of Mecklenburg, and
thus Saxe-Meissen was also lost to the Church. Henry's son and successor Maurice was one of the most
conspicuous persons of the Reformation period. Although a zealous Protestant, ambition and desire to
increase his possessions led him to join the emperor against the members of the Smalkaldic League. The
Capitulation of Wittenberg gave him, as already mentioned, the electoral dignity and Saxe-Wittenberg, so that
the Electorate of Saxony now consisted of Saxe-Wittenberg and Saxe-Meissen together, under the authority of
the Albertine line of the Wettin family. Partly from resentment at not receiving also what was left of the
Ernestine possessions, but moved still more by his desire to have a Protestant head to the empire, Maurice fell
away from the German Emperor. He made a treaty with France (1551) in which he gave the Dioceses of Metz,
Toul, and Verdun in Lorraine to France, and secretly shared in all the princely conspiracies against the
emperor who only escaped capture by flight; and during the same year the emperor was obliged by the Treaty
of Passau to grant freedom of religion to the Protestant Estates. Maurice died in 1553 at the age of thirty-two.
His brother and successor Elector Augustus took the Dioceses of Merseburg, Naumburg, and Meissen for
himself. The last Bishop of Merseburg, Michael Helding, called Sidonius, died at Vienna in 1561. The emperor
demanded the election of a new bishop, but the Elector Augustus forced the election of his son Alexander, who
was eight years old, as administrator; when Alexander died in 1565 he administered the diocese himself. In the
same manner after the death of Bishop Pflug (d. 1564), the last Catholic bishop of Naumburg, the elector
confiscated the Diocese of Naumburg and forbade the exercise of the Catholic religion. Those cathedral
canons who were still Catholic were only permitted to exercise their religion for ten years more.

In 1581 John of Haugwitz, the last Bishop of Meissen, resigned his office, and in 1587 became a Protestant.
The episcopal domains fell likewise to Saxony, and the cathedral chapter ceased to exist. During the reigns of
the Elector Augustus (d. 1586), and Christian (d. 1591), a freer form of Protestantism, called Crypto-Calvinism
prevailed in the duchy. During the reign of Christian II (d. 1611) the chancellor, Crell, who had spread the
doctrine, was overthrown and beheaded (1601) and a rigid Lutheranism was reintroduced and with it a
religious oath. The great religious war called the Thirty Years' War (1618-48) occurred during the reign of
Elector John George (1611-56). In this struggle the elector was at first neutral, and for a long time he would not
listen to the overtures of Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden. It was until the imperial general Tilly advanced
into Saxony that the elector joined Sweden. However, after the Battle of Nördlingen (1634) the elector
concluded the Peace of Prague (1635) with the emperor. By this treaty Saxony received the Margravates of
Upper and Lower Lusatia as a Bohemian fief, and the condition of the Church lands that had been secularized
was not altered. The Swedes, however, revenged themselves by ten years of plundering. The Treaty of
Westphalia of 1648 took from Saxony forever the possibility of extending its territory along the lower course of
the Elbe, and confirmed the preponderance of Prussia. In 1653 the direction of the Corpus Evangelicorum fell
to Saxony, because the elector became the head of the union of the Protestant Imperial Estates. Under the
following electors religious questions were not so prominent; a rigid Lutheranism remained the prevailing faith,
and the practice of any other was strictly prohibited. About the middle of the seventeenth century Italian
merchants, the first Catholics to reappear in the country, settled at Dresden, the capital and at Leipzig, the
most important commercial city; the exercise of the Catholic religion, however, was not permitted to them.

A change followed when on 1 June, 1697, the Elector Frederick Augustus I (1694-1733) returned to the
Catholic Faith and in consequence of this was soon afterwards elected King of Poland. The formation of a
Catholic parish and the private practice of the Catholic Faith was permitted at least in Dresden. As the return of
the elector to the Church aroused the fear among Lutherans that the Catholic religion would now be re-
established in Saxony, the elector transferred to a government board, the Privy Council, the authority over the
Lutheran churches and schools which, until then, had been exercised by the sovereign; the Privy Council was
formed exclusively of Protestants. Even after his conversion the elector remained the head of the Corpus
Evangelicorum, as did his Catholic successors until 1806, when the Corpus was dissolved at the same time as
the Holy Roman Empire. His son, Elector Frederick Augustus II (1733-63), was received into the Catholic
Church on 28 November, 1712, at Bologna, Italy, while heir-apparent. With this conversion, which on account
of the excited state of feeling of the Lutheran population had to be kept secret for five years, the ruling family of
Saxony once more became Catholic. Before this, individual members of the Albertine line had returned to the
Church, but they had died without issue, as did the last ruler of Saxe-Weissenfels (d. 1746). Another collateral
line founded in 1657 was that of Saxe-Naumburg-Zeitz, which became extinct in 1759. Those who became
Catholics of this line were Christian Augustus, cardinal and Archbishop of Gran in Hungary (d. 1725), and
Maurice Adolphus, Bishop of Leitmeritz in Bohemia (d. 1759). The most zealous promoter of the Catholic Faith
in Saxony was the Austrian Archduchess Maria Josepha, daughter of the Emperor Joseph I, who in 1719
married Frederick Augustus, later the second elector of that name. The Court church of Dresden was built
1739-51 by the Italian architect, Chiaveri, in the Roman Baroque style; this is still the finest and most imposing
church edifice in Saxony and is one of the most beautiful churches in Germany. Notwithstanding the faith of its
rulers, however, Saxony remained entirely a Protestant country; the few Catholics who settled there remained
without any political or civil rights. When in 1806 Napoleon began a war with Prussia, Saxony at first allied itself
to Prussia, but afterwards joined Napoleon and entered the Confederation of the Rhine. Elector Frederick
Augustus III (1763-1827) received the title of King of Saxony as Frederick Augustus I.