George, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach

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George, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach : biography

4 March 1484 – 27 December 1543

Reformation in Franconia

In the hereditary lands Brandenburg-Ansbach in Franconia, where with his older brother Casimir of Brandenburg-Kulmbach he had assumed the regency in place of their father, he encountered greater difficulties, although the popular spirit was inclined toward the Reformation. Owing to his marriage with a Bavarian princess and to his military command in the imperial service, his brother was allied more closely with the old church and resisted the new reforming efforts. But the pressure of the estates of the land soon compelled him to allow preaching according to Luther’s doctrine, although he ensured retention of the old church ceremonies, even of those that were contrary to the new faith.

George protested against such half-measures and showed his dissatisfaction with the half-hearted resolutions of the state assembly of October 1526. It was only after the death of his brother that as sole ruler he could successfully undertake and carry out reformation in the Franconian territories, with the assistance of councillors such as Johann von Schwarzenberg and through the new resolutions of the state assembly of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1528). At the same time George maintained his correspondence with Luther and Philipp Melanchthon, discussing such questions as the evangelization of monasteries, the use of monastic property for evangelical purposes, and especially the foundation of lower schools for the people and of higher schools for the education of talented young men for the service of church and state. He tried to gain, by his continued correspondence with Luther and other reformers such as Urbanus Rhegius, efficient men for the preaching of the gospel and for the organization of the evangelical church. Hand in hand with the Council of Nuremberg he worked for the institution of a church visitation on the model of that of the Electorate of Saxony, from which after repeated revisions and emendations the excellent church order of Brandenburg-Nuremberg of 1533 was developed. After its introduction in Nuremberg and his territories in Franconia, it was also introduced in his dominions in Upper Silesia.

Influence beyond his territories

George’s influence manifested itself also in the development of the German Reformation as a whole. When a union of the evangelicals in upper and lower Germany was contemplated as a means of improved defense against the retaliatory measures of the Roman Catholic Church, George had a meeting with Elector John of Saxony at Schleitz in 1529, where they agreed on certain articles of faith and confession to be drawn up by Luther; the commission was executed in the seventeen articles of Schwabach on the basis of the fifteen theses of the Marburg Colloquy.

But neither at the Convention of Schwabach nor at that of Schmalkalden did George approve armed resistance against the emperor and his party, even in self-defense. He opposed the emperor energetically at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, when the emperor demanded the prohibition of evangelical preaching. King Ferdinand made George the most alluring offers of Silesian possessions if he would support the emperor, but he strongly rejected them. Next to the elector of Saxony, he stands foremost among the princes who defended the reformed faith. After the death of his cousin, Joachim I, who was a strict Romanist, he assisted his sons in the introduction of the Reformation in the territories of the Electorate of Brandenburg. He took part in the religious colloquy of Regensburg in 1541 where Elector Joachim II made a last attempt to bridge the differences between the Romanists and evangelicals and with his nephew requested Luther’s cooperation. The Diet of Regensburg was the last religious meeting which he attended.

He is one of the figures on the Prussian Homage painting by Jan Matejko.

Ancestry