Elector Johann Friedrich Memorial Stone at the Battle of Mühlberg

An outstanding historical event was the battle of Mühlberg on April 24, 1547 between the Catholic prince under Emperor Charles V and the Protestant Schmalkaldic League. As a result of the defeat of the Protestants, Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous, Elector of Saxony, had to renounce his electoral dignity. This was given to Duke Moritz of Saxony and thus to the Albertine line of the House of Wettin.
The victory at Mühlberg and the end of the Schmalkaldic War brought the Albertine prince a closed, enlarged territory, with the elimination of the Ernestine corridor between the western and eastern parts of the country. An Ernestine duchy remained, which essentially extended to Thuringia.
The Ernestine and Albertine lines emerged from the so-called Leipzig division of 1485.
The brothers Elector Ernst and Duke Albrecht the Courageous shared their rulership, so the Saxon subjects were allowed to live in two rulers or, in the event of the extinction of one of the two lines, to reunite in a single principality.
Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous and Moritz were grandsons of the Wettin brothers. Johann Friedrich was the oldest male descendant of Johann the Steadfast, a son of Elector Ernst, after whom the members of the Wettin line were named Ernestiner. Moritz was a grandson of the Albertine line of the Wettins, who gave it its name, Albrecht the Courageous.
At the Vorwerk Kiebitz, at the point where Elector Johann Friedrich was captured, a sandstone memorial was erected to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the battle. At this point there was already a memorial stone, erected in 1847 by the then owner of the Vorwerk. It was willfully smashed.
See muehlberg-elbe.de/verzeichnis/objekt.php?mandat=40371

To see the community