out with John, duke of Sagan, over the possessions of John’s brother-in-law, Henry XI., duke of Glogau. To deal with these difficulties Albert returned to Brandenburg in 1478, and during his stay drove back the Pomeranians, and added Crossen and other parts of duke Henry’s possessions to the electorate. Again left in charge of the country, John beat back a fresh attack made by John of Sagan in 1482; and he became elector on his father’s death in March 1486. He added the county of Zossen to his possessions in 1490, and in 1493 made a fresh treaty with the duke of Pomerania. Although he brought a certain degree of order into the finances, his poverty and the constant inroads of external enemies prevented him from seriously improving the condition of the country. John, who was called “Cicero,” either on account of his eloquence, or of his knowledge of Latin, was interested in learning, welcomed Italian scholars to the electorate, and strove to improve the education of his people. He died at Arneburg on the 9th of January 1499, and was succeeded by his son Joachim I.
When Joachim undertook the government of Brandenburg he had to deal with an amount of disorder almost as great as that which had taxed the energies of Frederick I. a century before. Highway robbery was general, the lives and property of traders were in continual jeopardy, and the machinery Joachim. for the enforcement of the laws was almost at a standstill. About 1504 an attack of unusual ferocity on some Frankfort traders aroused the elector’s wrath, and during the next few years the execution of many lawbreakers and other stern measures restored some degree of order. In this and in other ways Joachim proved himself a sincere friend to the towns and a protector of industry. Following the economic tendencies of the time he issued sumptuary laws and encouraged manufactures; while to suppress the rivalry among the towns he established an order of precedence for them. Equally important was his work in improving the administration of justice, and in this direction he was aided by scholars from the university which he had founded at Frankfort-on-Oder in 1506. He gave a new organization to the highest court of justice, the Kammergericht, secured for himself an important voice in the choice of its members, and ordered that the local law should be supplemented by the law of Rome. He did not largely increase the area of Brandenburg, but in 1524 he acquired the county of Ruppin, and in 1529 he made a treaty at Grimnitz with George and Barnim XI., dukes of Pomerania, by which he surrendered the vexatious claim to suzerainty in return for a fresh promise of the succession in case the ducal family should become extinct. Joachim’s attitude towards the teaching of Martin Luther which had already won many adherents in the electorate, was one of unrelenting hostility. The Jews also felt the weight of his displeasure, and were banished in 1510.
Ignoring the Dispositio Achillea, the elector bequeathed Brandenburg to his two sons. When he died in July 1535 the elder, Joachim II., became elector, and obtained the old and middle marks, while the younger, John, received the new mark. John went definitely over to the side Joachim II. of the Lutherans in 1538, while Joachim allowed the reformed doctrines free entrance into his dominions in 1539. The elector, however, unlike his brother, did not break with the forms of the Church of Rome, but established an ecclesiastical organization independent of the pope, and took up a position similar to that of King Henry VIII. in England. Many of the monasteries were suppressed, a consistory was set up to take over the functions of the bishops and to act as the highest ecclesiastical court of the country. In 1541 the new ecclesiastical system was confirmed by the emperor Charles V. With regard to this policy the elector was probably influenced by considerations of greed. The bishoprics of Brandenburg, Havelberg and Lebus were secularized; their administration was entrusted to members of the elector’s family; and their revenues formed a welcome addition to his impoverished exchequer. Nor did Joachim neglect other opportunities for adding to his wealth and possessions. In 1537 he had concluded a treaty with Frederick III., duke of Liegnitz, which guaranteed to the Hohenzollerns the succession to the Silesian duchies of Liegnitz, Brieg and Wohlau in the event of the ducal family becoming extinct; this arrangement is important as the basis of the claim made by Frederick the Great on Silesia in 1740. The treaty was declared invalid by the German king, Ferdinand I.; but the elector insisted on its legality, and in 1545 strengthened his position by arranging a double marriage between members of his own family and that of Duke Frederick. Of more immediate consequence was an arrangement made in 1569 with the representatives of Joachim’s kinsman, Albert Frederick, duke of Prussia, after which the elector obtained the joint investiture of the duchy of Prussia from Sigismund II., king of Poland, and was assured of the succession if the duke’s family became extinct. Joachim’s luxurious habits, his partiality for adventurers, and his delight in building, led him to incur such a heavy expenditure that after pledging many of his lands and rights he was compelled in 1540 to appeal for help to the estates. Taking advantage of his difficulties, the estates voted him a sum of money as the price of valuable concessions, the most important of which was that the elector should make no alliance without their consent. Fresh liabilities were soon incurred, and in spite of frequent contributions from the estates Joachim left at his death in January 1571 a heavy burden of debt to his son and successor, John George.
The elector’s death was followed ten days later by that of his brother, John, and as John left no sons the whole of Brandenburg, together with the districts of Beeskow and Storkow which had been added by purchase to the new mark, were united under the rule of his nephew, John George.
John
George.
Born on the 11th of September 1525 this prince had served in the field under Charles V., and, disliking his father’s policy and associates, had absented himself from Berlin, and mainly confined his attention to administering the secularized bishopric of Brandenburg which he had obtained in 1560. When he became elector he hastened to put his ideas into practice. His father’s favourites were exiled; foreigners were ousted from public positions and their places taken by natives; and important economies were effected, which earned for John George the surname of Oekonom, or steward. To lighten the heavy burden of debt left by Joachim the elector proposed a tax on wheat and other cereals. Some opposition was shown, but eventually the estates of both divisions of the mark assented; only, however at the price of concessions to the nobles, predominant in the diet, which thrust the peasantry into servitude. Thus the rule of John George was popular with the nobles, and to some extent with the towns. Protestant refugees from France and the Netherlands were encouraged to settle in Brandenburg, and a period of peace was beneficial to a land, the condition of which was still much inferior to that of other parts of Germany. In religion the elector was a follower of Luther, whose doctrines were prevalent among his people. He had accepted the Formula Concordiae, a Lutheran document promulgated in June 1580, and sought to prevent any departure from its tenets. His dislike of Calvinism, or his antipathy to external complications, however, prevented him from taking any serious steps to defend Protestantism from the attacks of the counter-reformation. He did indeed join the league of Torgau, which voted assistance to Henry IV. of France in 1591; but he refused to aid the United Provinces, or even to give assistance to his eldest son, Joachim Frederick, administrator of the archbishopric of Magdeburg, whose claim to sit and vote in the imperial diet was contested, or to his grandson, John George, whose election to the bishopric of Strassburg was opposed by a Roman Catholic minority in the chapter. This indifference to the welfare of the Protestants added to the estrangement between the elector and his eldest son, which was further accentuated when John George, ignoring the Dispositio Achillea, bequeathed the new mark to one of his younger sons. He died on the 8th of January 1598.
Joachim Frederick, who now became elector, was born on the 27th of January 1546. Since 1553 he had held the bishopric of Havelberg, since 1555 that of Lebus; he had been administrator of Magdeburg since 1566, and of Brandenburg since 1571. Resigning these dignities in 1598, he contested his father’s
