Elisabeth of Brandenburg (1510–1558)

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Elisabeth, woodcut around 1542
Elisabeth, tempera around 1600

Elisabeth von Brandenburg (born August 24, 1510, presumably in Cölln , † May 25, 1558 in Ilmenau ) was a princess from the house of the Hohenzollern and by marriage Duchess of Braunschweig-Calenberg-Göttingen and from 1546 countess and wife of Henneberg . She is known as the “Reformation Princess” who, together with the Hessian reformer Anton Corvinus, implemented the Reformation in what is now southern Lower Saxony .

Live and act

Early Years (1510-1525)

Elisabeth was the third child and the second daughter of Elector Joachim I of Brandenburg and his wife Elisabeth , daughter of the Danish King Johann I. Her upbringing was strictly religious and humanistic .

At the age of not quite 15, she was on July 7, 1525 Stettin with the widowed forty years older Duke of Brunswick-Calenberg-Goettingen, I. Erich married.

She came into contact with the ideas of the Reformation as early as 1527 at her home court in Brandenburg, when her mother celebrated the Lord's Supper for the first time under both guises and thus openly confessed to Luther's teachings . The violent reaction of Elisabeth's father, who feared that his wife would convert to " Protestantism ", reached the Wittenberg reformers , who had to intervene in favor of the Electress; this may have strengthened the sympathy of the then seventeen-year-old Elisabeth with the new ideas of the Reformation.

Marriage to Erich I. (1525–1540)

Elisabeth and Erich around 1530

Despite the age difference, the marriage was apparently not threatened with failure, which was not least due to the fact that Erich mostly stayed at the Erichsburg or the Calenberg Fortress, while Elisabeth stayed in her body breed Münden in the Welfenschloss Münden .

Yet there were serious conflicts. In 1528, as an offended wife, Elisabeth blamed Anna von Rumschottel, her husband's mistress of many years, for complications during her second pregnancy. She asked her husband to have Anna von Rumschottel burned as a witch , and she herself sent spies and soldiers to the neighboring diocese of Minden in order to have them arrested in her hiding place in the Minden office building; but Anna von Rumschottel escaped. In inquisition proceedings against alleged Rumschottel helpers, some of the women accused died at the stake after being tortured. Finally, Elisabeth forced a more lucrative Wittum (widow's estate) from Erich I than she was contractually entitled to through the marriage: Instead of the previous office of Calenberg in the Unterwald , which brought little income with Calenberg Castle , Neustadt and Hanover , she received the one associated with higher income Oberwald with the cities of Münden , Northeim and Göttingen , which also gave it greater political weight. The finally unproblematic birth of the longed-for healthy male descendant Erich II made this dark chapter quickly forgotten in both of them.

When Elisabeth visited her mother in Lichtenberg in 1534 , she met Martin Luther personally for the first time , and since 1538 the princess had been in regular correspondence with the reformer. She kept supplying him with cheese and wine; conversely, mulberry and fig tree seedlings as well as a German translation of the Bible with a personal dedication found their way from Wittenberg to Münden.

On April 7, 1538, Elisabeth had the lay chalice handed to her, publicly showing that she belonged to the Lutheran faith. On October 6th, she informed Landgrave Philip of Hesse about her conversion and with his help brought the evangelical pastor and reformer Antonius Corvinus from nearby Witzenhausen to Münden. Duke Erich I was tolerant of his wife's obvious turn to Lutheran teaching. Although Luther's views contradicted his Catholic attitude and loyal to the Emperor, he also admired the reformer's courage.

Implementation of the Reformation (1540–1545)

With Elector Johann Friedrich von Sachsen , Elisabeth knew another strong ally on her side, so that when Erich I died on July 30, 1540, despite the bitter resistance of Heinrich von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel , she received the custodial government over the principality together with Philip of Hesse . She used the five years of her guardianship to implement the Reformation and to reorganize the princely household.

Antonius Corvinus was appointed superintendent of the principality based in Pattensen . The lawyer Justus von Waldhausen, who had studied in Wittenberg, was appointed Princely Councilor and later Chancellor on Luther's recommendation. The physician Burckard Mithoff as well as the court judge Justinus Gobler and the Magister Heinrich Campe completed the team with which the princess wanted to push through her work of the Reformation.

As early as 1542 the Calenberg Church Ordinance was drawn up for the whole of Calenberg-Göttingen; This was followed by a thorough church visit from November 17, 1542 to April 30, 1543, in which Elisabeth also took part personally. A monastery order of November 4, 1542 regulated the Protestant reorganization of the monasteries . In 1544 a court order was issued to regulate the legal situation in the country. In addition, the princess personally wrote numerous spiritual songs and a letter to her subjects , which should strengthen them in their faith.

When her son Erich was to marry Anna of Hesse , the daughter of the Hessian Landgrave Philipp, who had been promised to him since childhood, Erich fell in love with Sidonie , who was also Lutheran , the sister of the Saxon Duke and later Elector Moritz of Saxony . At the insistence of her son, Elisabeth broke off her engagement with the befriended Hessian court, and a year later Erich married Sidonie, ten years older than her, on May 17, 1545.

In a government handbook, Elisabeth collected important pieces of advice that should serve her son as a guide for her own reign that followed.

Disappointed Hopes and Lonely Last Years (1545–1558)

In 1546, one year after her son Erich II came to power, Elisabeth concluded with Count Poppo XII. zu Henneberg (1513–1574), the younger brother of the husband of her eldest daughter, the marriage, whereby she kept the reign over her body breeding Münden.

She watched with great concern her son's turn to the Catholic faith , which he hoped would give him opportunities at the imperial court. He accepted the Augsburg interim in 1548 and did not shy away from imprisoning the reformer Corvinus and the Pattens preacher Walter Hoiker (also known as the stool) from 1549 to 1552 in the fortress of Calenberg, who joined 140 clergymen at the Synod of Münden in 1549 had bitterly opposed the interim.

Despite all adversities, in 1550 the princess succeeded in marrying her daughter Anna Maria to Duke Albrecht I of Brandenburg-Ansbach , who was over 40 years older and with whom Elisabeth had been in friendly correspondence for a long time. In a marriage register she wrote down important advice for her daughter Anna Maria for the upcoming married life.

In 1553, after the battle of Sievershausen , Elisabeth was expelled from Münden by Duke Heinrich von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, the nephew of her deceased husband, and fled to Hanover . In 1555 she moved to Ilmenau in Thuringia in the county of Henneberg , where she picked up the pen one last time and wrote a comfort book for widows, which should accompany them in their grief.

She had to watch with horror how her son married her youngest, Lutheran daughter Katharina appropriately to the Catholic Oberburggrave Wilhelm von Rosenberg in 1557 in order to support her economically. When Elisabeth set out on the arduous journey to the wedding in Münden, however, she found that Erich had deliberately given her a wrong date and that the wedding had long since taken place. When the marriage contract became known, the princess learned that Katharina should keep her Lutheran faith and that she could employ a Lutheran pastor for herself at her court.

The sources report that one year later, in 1558, Elisabeth died completely exhausted and heartbroken in Ilmenau. An epitaph of the Innsbruck sculptor Siegmund Buchlinger, financed by her children, with her image has been in the St. Aegidien Chapel at St. John's Church in Schleusingen since 1566 . On the pedestal, next to a Latin dedication by her children, there is a poem she wrote herself: First of all, Jesus Christ / Always has been the greatest good. / Through his spirit I had the courage / That I had courage to be Christian / And planted his word in this land.

progeny

Elisabeth had a son and three daughters from her first marriage with Duke Erich I of Braunschweig-Calenberg:

∞ (1545–1573) Sidonie von Sachsen (* March 8, 1518; † January 4, 1575), daughter of Heinrich von Sachsen and Katharina von Mecklenburg
∞ (1576) Dorothea von Lothringen (* August 24, 1545 - † June 2, 1621), daughter of Francis I of Lothringen and Christina of Denmark

Archives

  • City Archives Göttingen: Acta religionis et reformationis
  • Main State Archive Hanover: Sign. Cal. Br. Archives
  • Langenhagen City Archives: Collection of Duchess Elisabeth von Calenberg

Works

  • A letter to their subjects (printed in Hanover, 1544)
  • Government manual for her son Erich II (1545)
  • Maternal lessons (marriage register) for Anna Maria (1550)
  • Consolation book for widows (1555, printed 1556) (second edition Leipzig, 1598)
  • Ingeborg Mengel (ed.): Elisabeth von Braunschweig-Lüneburg and Albrecht von Prussia. An exchange of princes' letters from the Reformation period. Göttingen 1954. (second unchanged edition. Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-89744-062-8 )

As well as numerous spiritual songs and prayers, some of which are printed in:

  • Iwan Franz: Elisabeth von Kalenberg-Göttingen as a song poet. In: Journal of the Association for Lower Saxony History. 1872, pp. 183-195.
  • Eduard Freiherr von der Goltz: Songs of the Duchess Elisabeth of Braunschweig-Lüneburg. In: Journal of the Society for Church History in Lower Saxony. 19, 1914, pp. 147-208.
  • Katharina Talkner, Katharina Schridde (ed.): With lust and love. The Elisabeth Breviary. Lutheran Publishing House, 2009, ISBN 978-3-7859-0993-5 .

literature

Representations

  • Sonja Domröse: Women of the Reformation, learned, courageous and firm in faith. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-525-55012-0 .
  • Andrea Lilienthal: The princess and power. Welfish duchesses in the 16th century: Elisabeth, Sidonia, Sophia. (= Sources and representations on the history of Lower Saxony. Volume 127). Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hanover 2007.
  • Inge Mager : Elisabeth of Brandenburg - Sidonie of Saxony. Two women’s fates in the context of the Reformation of Calenberg-Göttingen. In: 450 years of the Reformation in the Calenberger Land. Edited by Ev.-luth. Church district Laatzen-Pattensen, 1992, pp. 23–32.
  • Ingeborg Klettke-Mengel: Elisabeth von Braunschweig-Lüneburg as a Reformation Christian. In: Yearbook of the Society for Church History in Lower Saxony. 56, 1958, pp. 1-16.
  • Ernst-August Nebig: Elisabeth Duchess of Calenberg. Regent, reformer, writer. MatrixMedia Verlag, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-932313-18-6 .
  • Merry Wiesner: Duchess Elisabeth of Braunschweig-Lüneburg (1510–1558). In: Kerstin Merkel, Heide Wunder (Hrsg.): German women of the early modern times. Darmstadt 2000, ISBN 3-89678-187-1 , pp. 39-48.
  • Eva Schlotheuber, Birgit Emich, Wolfgang Brandis, Manfred von Boetticher (arrangement): Duchess Elisabeth von Braunschweig-Lüneburg (1510–1558). Dominion - Denomination - Culture (= sources and representations on the history of Lower Saxony. Vol. 132). Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hannover 2011, ISBN 978-3-7752-5933-0 .

Lexicon article

Web links

Commons : Elisabeth von Brandenburg (1510–1558)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Family tables can be found in Ernst-August Nebig: Elisabeth Duchess of Calenberg. Regent, reformer, writer. MatrixMedia Verlag, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-932313-18-6 , pp. 182-183.
  2. ^ Ernst-August Nebig: Elisabeth Duchess of Calenberg. Regent, reformer, writer. MatrixMedia Verlag, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-932313-18-6 , presents this differently on p. 151: Elisabeth was not present at the subsequent wedding in Münden because she was said to have been seriously ill on the journey and had to turn back. Weeks later, she confessed to close relatives that she did not want to attend the Catholic mass.
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on October 19, 2005 .
personal data
SURNAME Elisabeth of Brandenburg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Elisabeth of Münden; Elisabeth von Calenberg-Göttingen; Elisbeth von Kalenberg-Göttingen; Elisabeth von Braunschweig-Calenberg; Elisabeth von Braunschweig-Kalenberg; Elisabeth of Brandenburg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Reformation princess
DATE OF BIRTH August 24, 1510
PLACE OF BIRTH uncertain: Cölln
DATE OF DEATH May 25, 1558
Place of death Ilmenau , Thuringia