FREDERICK III, Prince Elector and Duke of Saxony. - B. at Torgau on 17 Jan. 1463, d. at Lochau on 5 May 1525. The firstborn son of Elector Ernest, he succeeded his father in Aug. 1486.

He promoted the sciences and the arts and founded (1502) the University of Wittenberg, to which he summoned Luther and Philip Melanchthon. He was a friend of Georg Spalatin, his court chaplain, and of Erasmus of Rotterdam. Four times he was imperial vicar. He championed the reform of the constitution of the Empire, in a particularist sense, with Maximilian I, on whose death (1519) he refused the candidacy for the imperial crown, and worked for the election of Charles V, which was opposed by the King of France. He was at first a fervent Catholic: in 1493 he had gone as a pilgrim to the Holy Land and had brought back various relics, which he kept in the church of the convent of the Holy Spirit, founded by him, at Wittenberg. He had furthermore been favorable to a stricter observance of the rule in the convents. But, later, he did not deny Luther his protection. When the latter was summoned to present himself at Rome, F. saw to it that he was interrogated in Germany at Augsburg by Card. Thomas de Vio (Oct. 1518). With the bull Exsurge Domine (15 June 1520) 41 Lutheran propositions were condemned; it now depended on the Saxon prince whether or not to give effect to the bull, which ordered that Luther's writings be burned and the reformer sent to Rome. F. allowed Luther to continue his teaching. After the latter had been condemned and was about to be placed under the ban by the Diet of Worms (1521), F. had him seized and carried to the Wartburg, where the reformer attended to the translation of the Bible. Protestant historians affirm that F. was, from the very beginnings of the reform, a convinced Lutheran. This opinion was abandoned by Kolde and by Kirn. In any case F. in the last years of his life openly professed Lutheranism and defended the new heresy from every attack, and it owes to him, at least in part, its fortune. He died unmarried. He was succeeded by his brother John the Constant, with whom he had shared the government of the hereditary lands.

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: G. Spalatin, Friedrich's des Weisen Leben u. Zeitgeschichte, Jena 1851; Th. Kolde, F. der Weise u. die Anlässe der Reformation, Erlangen 1881; R. Bruck, F. der Weise als Förderer der Kunst, Strasburg 1903; P. Kalkoff, Die Kulturwahl Fz IV., u. Karl, V., Weimar 1925, passim; P. Kirn, F. der Weise u. die Kirche, Leipzig 1926; A. Koch, Die Kontroverse über die Stellung F. z des Weisen zur Reformation, in Arch. f. Rel. Geschichte, 23 (1926), pp. 213-60. Also J. Lortz, Die Reformation in Deutschland, 2 vols., 2nd ed., Freiburg im Br. 1941, passim.

Angelo Ferran

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Frederick III, Prince Elector and Duke of Saxony

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