article “John s. of Zebedee” in the Ency. Bib. (1901) is the work of a German of the advanced left. Dr E. A. Abbott’s laborious From Letter to Spirit (1903), Joannine Vocabulary (1904) and Grammar
(1906) overflow with statistical details and ever acute, often fanciful,
conjecture. Professor F. C. Burkitt’s The Gospel History (1906) vigorously
sketches the book’s dominant characteristics and true function.
E. F. Scott’s The Fourth Gospel (1906) gives a lucid, critical and
religiously tempered account of the Gospel’s ideas, aims, affinities,
difficulties and abiding significance.
(F. v. H.)
JOHN ALBERT (1459–1501), king of Poland, third son of
Casimir IV. king of Poland and Elizabeth of Austria. As
crown prince he distinguished himself by his brilliant victory
over the Tatars at Kopersztyn in 1487. He succeeded his father
in 1492. The loss of revenue consequent upon the secession of
Lithuania placed John Albert at the mercy of the Polish Sejmiki
or local diets, where the szlachta, or country gentry, made their
subsidies dependent upon the king’s subservience. Primarily a
warrior with a strong taste for heroic adventure, John Albert
desired to pose as the champion of Christendom against the
Turks. Circumstances seemed, moreover, to favour him. In
his brother Wladislaus, who as king of Hungary and Bohemia
possessed a dominant influence in Central Europe, he found a
counterpoise to the machinations of the emperor Maximilian,
who in 1492 had concluded an alliance against him with Ivan III.
of Muscovy, while, as suzerain of Moldavia, John Albert was
favourably situated for attacking the Turks. At the conference
of Leutschau in 1494 the details of the expedition were arranged
between the kings of Poland and Hungary and the elector
Frederick of Brandenburg, with the co-operation of Stephen,
hospodar of Moldavia, who had appealed to John Albert for
assistance. In the course of 1496 John Albert with great
difficulty collected an army of 80,000 men in Poland, but the
crusade was deflected from its proper course by the sudden
invasion of Galicia by the hospodar, who apparently—for the
whole subject is still very obscure—had been misled by reports
from Hungary that John Albert was bent upon placing his
younger brother Sigismund on the throne of Moldavia. Be
that as it may, the Poles entered Moldavia not as friends, but
as foes, and, after the abortive siege of Suczawa, were compelled
to retreat through the Bukowina to Sniatyn, harassed all the
way by the forces of the hospodar. The insubordination of
the szlachta seems to have been one cause of this disgraceful
collapse, for John Albert confiscated hundreds of their estates
after his return; in spite of which, to the end of his life he
retained his extraordinary popularity. When the new grand
master of the Teutonic order, Frederic of Saxony, refused to
render homage to the Polish crown, John Albert compelled
him to do so. His intention of still further humiliating the
Teutonic order was frustrated by his sudden death in 1501. A
valiant soldier and a man of much enlightenment, John Albert
was a poor politician, recklessly sacrificing the future to the
present.
See V. Czerny, The Reigns of John Albert and Alexander Jagiello (Pol.) (Cracow, 1882).
JOHN ANGELUS (d. 1244), emperor of Thessalonica. In
1232 he received the throne from his father Theodore, who,
after a period of exile, had re-established his authority, but
owing to his loss of eyesight resolved to make John the nominal
sovereign. His reign is chiefly marked by the aggressions of the
rival emperor of Nicaea, John Vatatzes, who laid siege to
Thessalonica in 1243 and only withdrew upon John Angelus consenting
to exchange the title “emperor” for the subordinate
one of “despot.”
See G. Finlay, History of Greece, vol. iii. (1877).
JOHN FREDERICK I. (1503–1554), called the Magnanimous,
elector of Saxony, was the elder son of the elector, John the
Steadfast, and belonged to the Ernestine branch of the Wettin
family. Born at Torgau on the 30th of June 1503 and educated
as a Lutheran, he took some part in imperial politics and in the
business of the league of Schmalkalden before he became
elector by his father’s death in August 1532. His lands comprised
the western part of Saxony, and included Thuringia, but
in 1542 Coburg was surrendered to form an apanage for his
brother, John Ernest (d. 1553). John Frederick, who was an
ardent Lutheran and had a high regard for Luther, continued
the religious policy of his father. In 1534 he assisted to make
peace between the German king Ferdinand I. and Ulrich,
duke of Württemberg, but his general attitude was one of
vacillation between the emperor and his own impetuous colleague
in the league of Schmalkalden, Philip, landgrave of
Hesse. He was often at variance with Philip, whose bigamy he
disliked, and his belief in the pacific intentions of Charles V.
and his loyalty to the Empire prevented him from pursuing any
definite policy for the defence of Protestantism. In 1541 his
kinsman Maurice became duke of Saxony, and cast covetous
eyes upon the electoral dignity. A cause of quarrel soon arose.
In 1541 John Frederick forced Nicholas Amsdorf into the see of
Naumburg in spite of the chapter, who had elected a Roman
Catholic, Julius von Pflug; and about the same time he seized
Wurzen, the property of the bishop of Meissen, whose see was
under the joint protection of electoral and ducal Saxony.
Maurice took up arms, and war was only averted by the efforts of
Philip of Hesse and Luther. In 1542 the elector assisted to drive
Henry, duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, from his duchy, but in
spite of this his relations with Charles V. at the diet of Spires in 1544 were very amicable. This was, however, only a lull in the
storm, and the emperor soon began to make preparations for
attacking the league of Schmalkalden, and especially John
Frederick and Philip of Hesse. The support, or at least the
neutrality, of Maurice was won by the hope of the electoral
dignity, and in July 1546 war broke out between Charles and
the league. In September John Frederick was placed under the
imperial ban, and in November Maurice invaded the electorate.
Hastening from southern Germany the elector drove Maurice from
the land, took his ally, Albert Alcibiades, prince of Bayreuth,
prisoner at Rochlitz, and overran ducal Saxony. His progress,
however, was checked by the advance of Charles V. Notwithstanding
his valour he was wounded and taken prisoner at
Mühlberg on the 24th of April 1547, and was condemned to death
in order to induce Wittenberg to surrender. The sentence was
not carried out, but by the capitulation of Wittenberg (May
1547) he renounced the electoral dignity and a part of his
lands in favour of Maurice, steadfastly refusing however to
make any concessions on religious matters, and remained in
captivity until May 1552, when he returned to the Thuringian
lands which his sons had been allowed to retain, his return
being hailed with wild enthusiasm. During his imprisonment
he had refused to accept the Interim, issued from Augsburg
in May 1548, and had urged his sons to make no peace with
Maurice. After his release the emperor had restored his
dignities to him, and his assumption of the electoral arms and
title prevented any arrangement with Maurice. However, after
the death of this prince in July 1553, a treaty was made at
Naumburg in February 1554 with his successor Augustus. John
Frederick consented to the transfer of the electoral dignity, but
retained for himself the title of “born elector,” and received some
lands and a sum of money. He was thus the last Ernestine
elector of Saxony. He died at Weimar on the 3rd of March
1554, having had three sons by his wife, Sibylla (d. 1554),
daughter of John III., duke of Cleves, whom he had married in
1527, and was succeeded by his eldest son, John Frederick. The
elector was a great hunter and a hard drinker, whose brave and
dignified bearing in a time of misfortune won for him his surname
of Magnanimous, and drew eulogies from Roger Ascham and
Melanchthon. He founded the university of Jena and was a
benefactor to that of Leipzig.
See Mentz, Johann Friedrich der Grossmütige (Jena, 1903); Rogge, Johann Friedrich der Grossmütige (Halle, 1902) and L. von Ranke, Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation (Leipzig, 1882).
JOHN FREDERICK (1529–1595), called der Mittlere, duke of Saxony, was the eldest son of John Frederick, who had been deprived of the Saxon electorate by the emperor Charles V. in 1547. Born at Torgau on the 8th of January 1529, he received a good education, and when his father was imprisoned in 1547
