Friederike Elisabeth of Saxony-Eisenach

Friederike Elisabeth of Saxony-Eisenach

Friederike Elisabeth von Sachsen-Eisenach (* May 5, 1669 in Altenkirchen ; † November 12, 1730 in Langensalza ) was Princess of Saxony-Eisenach from the house of the Ernestine Wettins and, by marriage, duchess of the Saxon secondary school principality of Saxony-Weißenfels- Querfurt.

family

Friederike Elisabeth was the third daughter of Duke Johann Georg I of Saxony-Eisenach and his wife Johanetta von Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn , daughter of Count Ernst von Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn .

Life

The Ernestine dukes of Saxony-Eisenach, who had had very good relationships with the Albertines for a long time, tried to strengthen them through further dynastic connections. For example, Friederike Elisabeth's older brother Johann Georg II , who had succeeded his father as Duke in 1686, married their eldest sister, Princess Eleonore Erdmuthe Luise, to the Elector of Saxony after the death of her first husband, Margrave Johann Friedrich von Brandenburg-Ansbach Johann Georg IV.

Both died, however, in 1694 and 1696 respectively, and since the following Saxon Elector Friedrich August I was already married, the bond with the Albertines had to be strengthened in some other way.

For this, Duke Johann Georg resorted to his younger sister Friederike Elisabeth, whom he married ten months before his death to his namesake, the head of an Albertine branch, Duke Johann Georg von Sachsen-Weißenfels . In return, the sister of Johann Georg von Weißenfels, Princess Magdalena Sibylla, married Duke Johann Wilhelm von Sachsen-Eisenach in 1708 , the brother of Friederike Elisabeth and Johann Georg II.

Friedrike Elisabeth gave her husband's reform policy in the Querfurt-Weißenfels dwarf state considerable social impetus. So she worked towards the enactment of an alms order in 1700 and on her birthday in 1710 founded an orphanage in Langendorf , which she then continued to support materially.

Friedrike Elisabeth was particularly drawn to baroque horticulture . Her husband gave her several such appropriately designed facilities as a gift, such as the so-called Hermitage between Weißenfels and Langendorf, Klein-Friedenthal - a garden palace with spacious grounds, a zoo at the Neuenburg hunting lodge and the garden at the Leißlinger Wiese .

However, Johann Georg also tended to display great courtly splendor, in the context of which he had the costly construction of a small river port in Weißenfels specially arranged for Friederike Elisabeth in 1710. Pleasure cruises were organized on the Saale with a small flotilla of 15 ships .

After the death of her husband and the accession of her brother-in-law Christian to power in 1712, the Dryburg Castle in Langensalza , which had already been expanded for her in 1695, was assigned to her as Wittum , near which she initially had a princely pleasure garden laid out before she finally moved into it in 1717 also inhabited until her death in 1730. In the following, she had numerous structural changes carried out in the castle and town.

She was buried in a pewter coffin in the castle church of Neu-Augustusburg . Since the body had to be embalmed before its long transport to Weißenfels, the removed entrails were buried separately in an urn in the castle church.

Since their marriage did not produce a surviving male successor for the secondary school - their only son Hereditary Prince Johann Georg did not even reach the first year of life - this made the end of the line inevitable, as the following two dukes also left no heirs.

Marriage and offspring

Her only marriage was on January 7, 1698 in Jena with Johann Georg, Duke of Saxony-Weissenfels , the son of Johann Adolf I, Duke of Saxony-Weissenfels from his marriage to Johanna Magdalena of Saxony-Altenburg .

She had the following children with her husband:

• Friederike Elisabeth (born August 4, 1701 in Weißenfels, † February 28, 1706 in Weißenfels), Princess of Saxony-Weißenfels
• Johann Georg (born October 20, 1702 in Weißenfels, † March 5, 1703 in Weißenfels), Hereditary Prince of Saxony-Weißenfels
• Johannetta Wilhelmine (born May 31, 1704 in Weißenfels, † July 9, 1704 in Weißenfels), Princess of Saxony-Weißenfels
• Johannetta Amalia (born September 8, 1705 in Weißenfels, † February 7, 1706 in Weißenfels), Princess of Saxony-Weißenfels
• Johanna Magdalena (born March 17, 1708 in Weißenfels, † January 25, 1760 in Leipzig), Princess of Saxony-Weissenfels ∞ Ferdinand Kettler , Duke of Courland and Semigallia
• Friederike Amalia (born March 1, 1712 in Weißenfels, † January 31, 1714 in Weißenfels), Princess of Saxony-Weißenfels

literature

• 300 years of Neu-Augustusburg Castle, 1660–1694 - Residence of the Dukes of Saxony-Weißenfels: Festschrift. Weißenfels, 1994, pages 38-39
• Gerhardt, Friedrich, Castle and Castle Church of Weißenfels, Weißenfels, 1898, pages 55–56
• Johann Christoph Dreyhaupt : Description of the… Saal-Creyses, especially the cities of Halle. Halle, 1749/1751 (i.e. "Dreyhaupt-Chronik")

Web links

• Anne-Simone Knöfel: Friederike Elisabeth of Saxony-Eisenach . In: Institute for Saxon History and Folklore (Ed.): Saxon Biography .
• Johann Huebners… three hundred and three and thirty genealogical tables, Tab. 169
• Publications by and about Friederike Elisabeth von Sachsen-Eisenach in VD 17 .