Friedrich I. (Saxony)

Frederick the Arguable

Frederick IV the controversial (born April 11, 1370 ; † January 4, 1428 in Altenburg ) was a prince from the Wettin family . Since the death of his father in 1381 he was Margrave of Meissen and Landgrave of Thuringia and in 1423 became Duke, Elector and Palatine of Saxony.

Life

As the eldest son of Friedrich III. After the death of his uncle Wilhelm I in 1407 , he ruled the Meissen region together with his brother Wilhelm II and his cousin Friedrich the Peaceful (son of Balthasar ). After the division of the country in 1410 and 1415, he received the Mark Meissen for sole rule. At the side of King Sigismund he took part in the Hussite Wars from 1420 , and in August 1421 he achieved one of the few military successes against the Hussites near Brüx . For his commitment in this conflict he was rewarded on January 6, 1423 with the Duchy of Saxony-Wittenberg and the Palatinate County of Saxony . With this, Frederick IV, who was now called Frederick I , rose to become Duke and Elector . However, in 1424 he was part of the opposition of the electors who formed the Binger Kurverein against King Sigismund . But this managed to get Friedrich on his side, which led to the weakening of the alliance of the electors. The celebration of the enfeoffment with the electoral dignity therefore only took place on August 1, 1425 at Ofen .

After the death of his brother Wilhelm (1425) Friedrich became ruler of all Wettin possessions with the exception of Thuringia . As a result of the previous spending policy of his uncle Wilhelm I, the one-eyed man , the land and population were heavily burdened. To support the penny currency , high-quality pennies were therefore occasionally issued, which had a value ratio to the Rhenish guilder of 20: 1 and showed conspicuous coin designs, such as the well- preserved helmet penny . However, it was not until 1412 that Friedrich succeeded in stabilizing the penny currency in the form of high-quality shield groschen from the Freiberg mint , which he had minted again under his sole name in the Gotha mint from 1425 to 1428 .

When Friedrich died in 1428, he was the first Wettin to be buried in the princely chapel of the Meissen Cathedral .

Frederick the Disputable (1381–1428), Ernst (1464–1486) and Frederick the Meek (1428–1464); Prince procession , Dresden

progeny

On February 7, 1402, Friedrich I married the seven-year-old Katharina von Braunschweig-Lüneburg (1395–1442), daughter of Heinrich I of Braunschweig-Lüneburg († 1416). After ten years of marriage, there were many children:

• Frederick II (1412–1464)
• Sigismund (1416–1471), Bishop of Würzburg
• Anna (1420–1462) ∞ Landgrave Ludwig I of Hesse (1402–1458)
• Katharina (1421–1476) ∞ with Elector Friedrich II of Brandenburg (1413–1471), called "Eisenzahn"
• Heinrich (1422-1435)
• William III. (1425–1482)

literature

• Alexander Querengässer: Friedrich the arguable. Elector of Saxony. Sax-Verlag, Markkleeberg 2018, ISBN 978-3-86729-224-5 .
• Heinrich Theodor Flathe :  Friedrich I. (Elector of Saxony) . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, pp. 776-778.
• Gottfried Opitz :  Friedrich I. the arguable. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, ISBN 3-428-00186-9 , p. 567 ( digitized version ).
• Karlheinz Blaschke : Friedrich I the arguable, Elector of Saxony (1370-1428) . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 4, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-7608-8904-2 , Sp. 956.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Walther Haupt: Sächsische Münzkunde (1974), p. 66: Münzverschenkenung

Web links

Commons : Friedrich der Streitbare  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikisource: Friedrich I. (Saxony)  - Sources and full texts

• Biographical information on Friedrich in the Leipzig Lexicon

predecessor	Office	successor
Wilhelm II.	Margrave of Meissen 1407–1428	Friedrich II.
Albrecht III.	Elector of Saxony 1423–1428	Friedrich II.