SAXONY
500
SAXONY
sessions led him to join the emperor against the mem-
bers of the Smalkaldic League. The Capitulation of
Wittenberg gave him, as already mentioned, the elec-
toral dignity and Saxe-^Yittenberg, so that the Elec-
torate of Saxony now consisted of Saxe- Wittenberg
and Saxe-Meissen together, under the authority of
the Albertine line of the Wet tin family. Partly from
resentment at not receiving also what was left of the
Ernestine possessions, but moved still more by his
desire to have a Protestant head to the empire, Mau-
rice fell away from the German Emperor. He made
a treaty with France (1551) in which he gave the Dio-
ceses of Metz, Toul, and Verdun in Lorraine to France,
and secretly shared in all the princely conspiracies
against the emperor of whom he was apparently a
faithful adherent. In L552 he even led an imperial
army against the emperor who only escaped capture
by flight ; and during the same year the emperor was
obliged by the Treaty of Passau to grant freedom of
religion to the Protestant Estates. Maurice died in
1553 at the age of thirty-two. His brother and suc-
cessor Elector Augustus took the Dioceses of Merse-
burg, Xaumburg, and Meissen for himself. The last
Bishop of Menseburg, Michael Helding, called Sido-
nius, died at Vienna in 1561. The emperor demanded
the election of a new bishop, but the Elector Augustus
forced the election of his son Alexander, who was eight
years old, as administrator; when Alexander died in
1565 he administered the diocese himself. In the same
manner after the death of Bishop Pflug (d. 1564), the
last CathoUc bishop of Naumburg, the elector con-
fiscated the Diocese of Naumbmg and forbade the
exercise of the Catholic religion. Those cathedral
canons who were still Catholic were only permitted
to exercise their religion for ten years more.
In 1581 John of Haugwitz, the last Bishop of Meissen, resigned his office, and in 1587 became a Protestant. The episcopal domains fell likewise to Saxony, and the cathedral chapter ceased to exist. During the reigns of the Elector Augustus (d. 1586), and Christian (d. 1591), a freer form of Protestantism, called Crypto-Calvinism prevailed in the duchy. During the reign of Christian II (d. 1611) the chan- cellor, Crell, who had spread the doctrine, was over- thrown and beheaded (1601) and a rigid Lutheranism was reintroduced and with it a reUgious oath. The great religious war called the Thirty Years' War (1618-48) occurred during the reign of Elector John George (1611-56). In this struggle the elector was at first neutral, and for a long time he would not listen to the overtures of Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden. It was not until the imperial general Tilly advanced into Saxony that the elector joined Sweden. However, after the Battle of Nordlingen
(1634) the elector concluded the Peace of Prague
(1635) with the emperor. By this treaty Saxony received the Margravates of Upper and Lower Lusatia as a Bohemian fief, and the condition of the Church lands that had been secularized was not altered. The Swedes, however, revenged themselves by ten years of plundering. The Treaty of Westphalia of 1648 took from Saxony forever the possibility of extending its territory along the lower course of the Elbe, and confirmexi the preponderance of Prussia. In 1653 the direction of the CorpiLs Evangelicorum fell to Saxony, because the elector became the head of the union of the Protestant Imperial Estates. Under the following electors religious questions were not so prominent; a rigid Lutheranism n^mained the prevail- mg faith, and the practice of any other was strictly prohibited. About the middle of the seventeenth c<;ntury Italian merchants, the first Catholics to re- appear in the country, settled at Dresden, the capital and at I><'ipzig, the most important commercial city; the exercise of the CathoUc religion, however, was not permhUid to them.
A change followed when on 1 June, 1697, the
Elector Frederick Augustus I (1694-1733) returned
to the Catholic Faith and in consequence of this waa
soon afterwards elected King of Poland. The forma-
tion of a Catholic parish and the private practice of
the Catholic Faith was jiermitted at least in Dresden.
As the return of the elector to the Church aroused the
fear among Lutherans that the Catholic religion would
now be re-established in Saxony, the elector trans-
ferred to a government board, the Privy Council, the
authority over the Lutheran churches and schools
which, until then, had been exercised by the sovereign;
the Pri\'^^ Council was formed exclusively of Protes-
tants. Even after his conversion the elector remained
the head of the Corpus Evangelicorum, as did his
Catholic successors until 1806, when the Corpus vfaa
dissolved at the same time as the Holy Roman Empu-e.
His son. Elector Fredeiick Augustus II (1733-63),
was received into the Catholic Cliurch on 28 Novem-
ber, 1712, at Bologna, Italy, while heir-apparent.
With this conversion, which on account of the excited
state of feeling of the Lutheran population had to be
kept secret for five years, the ruling family of Saxony
once more became Catholic. Before this, individual
members of the Albertine line had returned to the
Churcli, but they had died without issue, as did the
last ruler of Saxe-Weissenfels, a collateral line founded
in 1657, and the master of the imperial ordnance, John
Adolphus of Saxe-Weissenfels (d. 1746). Another
collateral line founded in 1657 was that of Saxe-
Naumburg-Zeitz, which became extinct in 1759.
Those who became Catholics of this line were Chris-
tian Augustus, cardinal and Archbishop of Gran in
Hungary (d. 1725), and Maurice Adolphus, Bishop of
Leitmeritz in Bohemia (d. 1759). The most zealous
promoter of the Catholic Faith in Saxony was the
Austrian Archduchess Maria Joscpha, daughter of the
Emperor Joseph I, who in 1719 married Frederick
Augustus, later the second elector of that name. The
Court church of Dresden was built 1739-51 by the
Italian architect, Chiaveri, in the Roman Baroque
style; this is still the finest and most imposing church
edifice in Saxony and is one of the most beautiful
churches in Germany Notwithstanding the faith
of its rulers, however, Saxony remained entirely a
Protestant coimtry; the few Catholics who settled
there remained without any political or civil rights.
When in 1806 Napoleon began a war with Prussia,
Saxony at first alUed itself to Prussia, but afterwards
joined Napoleon and entered the Confederation of the
Rhine. Elector Frederick Augustus III (1763-1827)
received the title of King of Saxony as Frederick
Augustus I.
III. The Kingdom of Saxony. — The new kingdom was an ally of France in all the Naj)oleonic wars of the years 1807-13. At the beginning of the great War of Liberation (1813) the king sided neither with Napoleon nor with his allied opponents, but united his troops with those of France wlien Napoleon threat- ened to treat Saxony as a hostile country. At the Battle of Leipzig (16-18 October, 1813), when Napo- leon was completely defeated, the greater part of the Saxon troops deserted to the allied forces. The King of Saxony was taken as a Prussian prisoner to the Castle of Friedrichsfeld near Berlin The Congress of Vienna (1814-15) took from Saxony the greater part of its land and gave it to Prussia, namely 7800 sfnian; ini](!S with al)out 850,000 inhabitants; this ceded territory included tlic^ former Duchy of Saxe- WittenlxTg, tlie former possessions of the Dioceses of Mersel)urg and Naiinihurg, a large i)art of Lusatia, etc. What Prussia had obtained, with addition of some old Prussian districts, was formed into the Province of Saxony. The K.ingdom of Saxony had left only an ansa <)f 57.S9 sriuanr miUis with a population at that era of 1,500,000 inhabitants; under these conditions it became a membcsr of the Ge^rman Confc;deration that was founded in 1815. King John (1854^73)
