The Melanchthon Circle was a 16th-century Lutheran intellectual network centred on the University of Wittenberg in Germany, and its leading theologian Philip Melanchthon, patronage came from which 37th Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, who after converting to Lutheranism, became the first ruler of the Duchy of Prussia, the secularized state that emerged from the former Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights?
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Melanchthon Circle The Melanchthon Circle was a 16th-century Lutheran intellectual network centred on the University of Wittenberg in Germany, and its leading theologian Philip Melanchthon. It was identified as significant for its interests in natural philosophy by Lynn Thorndike, in a chapter "The Circle of Melanchthon" in his multi-volume "History of Magic and Experimental Science". Among this circle were found many of the most important early proponents of the heliocentric model of Copernicus. They included Caspar Peucer who became Melanchthon's son-in-law, Erasmus Reinhold, and Georg Joachim Rheticus. Patronage came from Albert, Duke of Prussia.
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Albert, Duke of Prussia Albert of Prussia (German: Albrecht von Preussen, 17 May 149020 March 1568) was the 37th Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, who after converting to Lutheranism, became the first ruler of the Duchy of Prussia, the secularized state that emerged from the former Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights. Albert was the first European ruler to establish Lutheranism, and thus Protestantism, as the official state religion of his lands. He proved instrumental in the political spread of Protestantism in its early stage, ruling the Prussian lands for nearly six decades (1510–1568).
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Johann Arndt Johann Arndt (or Arnd; 27 December 1555 – 11 May 1621) was a German Lutheran theologian who wrote several influential books of devotional Christianity. Although reflective of the period of Lutheran Orthodoxy, he is seen as a forerunner of pietism, a movement within Lutheranism that gained strength in the late 17th century.
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Enlightenment in Poland The ideas of the Age of Enlightenment in Poland were developed later than in Western Europe, as the Polish bourgeoisie was weaker, and szlachta (nobility) culture (Sarmatism) together with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth political system (Golden Liberty) were in deep crisis. The period of Polish Enlightenment began in the 1730s–40s, peaked in the reign of Poland's last king, Stanisław August Poniatowski (second half of the 18th century), went into decline with the Third Partition of Poland (1795) – a national tragedy inspiring a short period of sentimental writing – and ended in 1822, replaced by Romanticism.
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Kingdom of Germany The Kingdom of Germany or German Kingdom (Latin: "Regnum Teutonicum" , "Teutonic Kingdom"; German: "Deutsches Reich" ) developed out of the eastern half of the former Carolingian Empire. Like Anglo-Saxon England and medieval France, it began as "a conglomerate, an assemblage of a number of once separate and independent... "gentes" [peoples] and "regna" [kingdoms]." East Francia ("Ostfrankenreich") was formed by the Treaty of Verdun in 843, and was ruled by the Carolingian dynasty until 911, after which the kingship was elective. The initial electors were the rulers of the stem duchies, who generally chose one of their own. After 962, when Otto I was crowned emperor, the kingdom formed the bulk of the Holy Roman Empire, which also included Italy (after 951), Bohemia (after 1004) and Burgundy (after 1032).
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Allenburg Church The Allenburg Church is a Brick Gothic building established near Allenburg Castle by Konrad von Jungingen, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, in 1405. Seriously damaged during the First World War, the medieval building was restored and slightly expanded in 1925. After the Second World War, Allenburg was renamed Druzhba. It is now part of Pravdinsky District of Kaliningrad Oblast. The church was used by local farmers as a grain-drier. It was restored by the local Lutheran community in 2005 and eventually passed to the Russian Orthodox Church in 2010.
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Golden Liberty Golden Liberty (Latin: "Aurea Libertas" ; Polish: "Złota Wolność" , Lithuanian: "Auksinė laisvė" ), sometimes referred to as Golden Freedoms, Nobles' Democracy or Nobles' Commonwealth (Polish: "Rzeczpospolita Szlachecka" or "Złota wolność szlachecka", Latin: "aureă lībertās" ) was a unique political system in the Kingdom of Poland and, after the Union of Lublin (1569), in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Under that system, all nobles ("szlachta"), regardless of rank or economic status, were considered to have equal legal status and enjoyed extensive legal rights and privileges. The nobility controlled the legislature (the "Sejm" — the Polish parliament) and the Commonwealth's elected king.
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Treaty of Frankfurt (1539) The Treaty of Frankfurt (also spelled Treaty of Frankfort), also known as the Truce of Frankfurt, was a formal agreement of peace between Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and Protestants on 19 April 1539. The parties met at Frankfurt-on-the-Main, and the Lutherans were represented by Philip Melancthon. The treaty stated that the emperor would not take any violent actions against the Protestants, who had formed an alliance known as the Schmalkaldic League, for fifteen months starting 1 May; during this time both parties could try and resolve the differences in their confessions. As a result of this peace, the Schmalkaldic League lost the protection of France.
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Frederick III, Elector Palatine Frederick III of Simmern, the Pious, Elector Palatine of the Rhine (February 14, 1515 – October 26, 1576) was a ruler from the house of Wittelsbach, branch Palatinate-Simmern-Sponheim. He was a son of John II of Simmern and inherited the Palatinate from the childless Elector Otto-Henry, Elector Palatine ("Ottheinrich") in 1559. He was a devout convert to Calvinism, and made the Reformed confession the official religion of his domain by overseeing the composition and promulgation of the Heidelberg Catechism. His support of Calvinism gave the German Reformed movement a foothold within the Holy Roman Empire.
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Friends of God The Friends of God (German: Gottesfreunde; or gotesvriunde) was a medieval lay mystical group within the Catholic Church (though it nearly became a separate sect) and a center of German mysticism. It was founded between 1339 and 1343 during the Avignon Papacy of the Western Schism, a time of great turmoil for the Catholic Church. The Friends of God were originally centered in Basel, Switzerland, and were also fairly important in Strasbourg and Cologne. Some late-nineteenth century writers made large claims for the movement, seeing it both as influential in fourteenth-century mysticism, and as a precursor of the Protestant Reformation. Modern studies of the movement, however, have emphasised the derivative and often second-rate character of its mystical literature, and its limited impact on medieval literature in Germany.
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Gottfried Lengnich Gottfried Lengnich (Polish: "Gotfryd Lengnich" ) (4 December 1689 – 28 April 1774) was an 18th-century historian, lawyer and politician. He became known for writing the 9-volume "History of Royal Prussia" and for teaching Stanisław August Poniatowski, the last king of Poland.
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Polish-Lithuanian identity The Polish-Lithuanian identity describes individuals and groups with histories in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or with close connections to its culture. This federation, formally established by the 1569 Union of Lublin between the Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania, created a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state founded on the binding powers of national identity and shared culture rather than ethnicity or religious affiliation. The term Polish-Lithuanian has been used to describe various groups residing in the Commonwealth, including those that did not share the Polish or Lithuanian ethnicity nor their pre-dominant Christian (Catholic) faith.
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Lordship of Diepholz The County of Diepholz (West Low German: "Diepholt"), that was first known as the Lordship of Diepholz, was a territory in the Holy Roman Empire in the Lower-Rhenish-Westphalian Circle. It was ruled by the Noble Lords, later Counts, of Diepholz from the late tenth century until 1585, when it was mostly incorporated into the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg.
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Stadtkirche Wittenberg The Stadt- und Pfarrkirche St. Marien zu Wittenberg (Town and Parish Church of St. Mary's) is the civic church of the German town of Lutherstadt Wittenberg. The reformers Martin Luther and Johannes Bugenhagen preached there and the building also saw the first celebration of the mass in German rather than Latin and the first ever distribution of the bread and wine to the congregation - it is thus considered the mother-church of the Protestant Reformation. Since 1996 it has been a World Heritage Site - it, the Castle Church of All Saints (Schlosskirche), the Lutherhaus, the Melanchthonhaus and the surrounding Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm form the world's densest concentration of World Heritage Sites in one area.
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Berthold von Henneberg Bertold von Henneberg-Römhild (1442–1504) was Archbishop of Mainz and Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 1484, imperial chancellor from 1486, and leader of the reform faction within the Empire.
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Prowincja A prowincja (] ; plural: "prowincje") was the largest territorial subdivision in medieval and Renaissance-era Poland, and later in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The term designated each of the two largest constituents of the state: depending on the period, including "Wielkopolska" (Greater Poland), "Małopolska" (Lesser Poland) and (upon the formation of the Commonwealth) the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Ducal Prussia was often counted as part of the Greater Poland; Inflanty (Livonia) as part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Ruthenian territories were split between Lesser Poland and the Grand Duchy.
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Frederick William III of Prussia Frederick William III (German: "Friedrich Wilhelm III" ) (3 August 1770 – 7 June 1840) was king of Prussia from 1797 to 1840. He ruled Prussia during the difficult times of the Napoleonic Wars and the end of the Holy Roman Empire. Steering a careful course between France and her enemies, after a major military defeat in 1806, he eventually and reluctantly joined the coalition against Napoleon in the "Befreiungskriege". Following Napoleon's defeat he was King of Prussia during the Congress of Vienna which assembled to settle the political questions arising from the new, post-Napoleonic order in Europe. He was determined to unify the Protestant churches, to homogenize their liturgy, their organization and even their architecture. The long-term goal was to have fully centralized royal control of all the Protestant churches in the Prussian Union of churches.
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Mikalojus Daukša Mikalojus Daukša (other possible spellings include "Mikalojus Daugsza", Polish: "Mikołaj Dauksza" and "Mikolay Dowksza"; after 1527 – February 16, 1613 in Medininkai) was a Lithuanian and Latin religious writer, translator and a Catholic church official. He is best known as the first among Lithuania's humanists to underline the need to codify and promote the Lithuanian language over Chancery Ruthenian and Polish, which were in use in the Grand Duchy at the time. Daukša's Lithuanian translation of Jacob Ledesma's catechism became the first book in Lithuanian to be published in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
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Electorate of Saxony The Electorate of Saxony (German: "" , also "Kursachsen "), sometimes referred to as Upper Saxony, was a State of the Holy Roman Empire established when Emperor Charles IV raised the Ascanian duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg to the status of an Electorate by the Golden Bull of 1356. Upon the extinction of the House of Ascania, it was enfeoffed to the Margraves of Meissen from the Wettin dynasty in 1423, who moved the residence up the Elbe river to Dresden. After the Empire's dissolution in 1806, the Wettin electors raised Saxony to a kingdom.
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History of Gdańsk Gdańsk ( or ; ] ; Kashubian: "Gduńsk"; German: "Danzig" ) is one of the oldest cities in Poland. Founded by the Polish ruler Mieszko I in the 10th century, the city was for a long time part of Piast state either directly or as a fief. In 1308 the city became part of the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights until the 15th century. Thereafter it became part of Poland again, although with increasing autonomy. A vital naval city for Polish grain trade it attracted people from all over the European continent, including Germans and Scots. The city was taken over by Prussia during the Second Partition of Poland in 1793 and subsequently lost its importance as a trading port. Briefly becoming a free city during Napoleonic wars, it was again Prussian after Napoleon's defeat, and later became part of the newly created German Empire.
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Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War The Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War or Great War occurred between 1409 and 1411, pitting the allied Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania against the Teutonic Knights. Inspired by the local Samogitian uprising, the war began by Teutonic invasion of Poland in August 1409. As neither side was ready for a full-scale war, Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia brokered a nine-month truce. After the truce expired in June 1410, the military-religious monks were decisively defeated in the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg), one of the largest battles in medieval Europe. Most of the Teutonic leadership was killed or taken prisoner. While defeated, the Teutonic Knights withstood the siege on their capital in Marienburg (Malbork) and suffered only minimal territorial losses in the Peace of Thorn (1411). Territorial disputes lasted until the Peace of Melno of 1422. However, the Knights never recovered their former power and the financial burden of war reparations caused internal conflicts and economic decline in their lands. The war shifted the balance of power in Eastern Europe and marked the rise of the Polish–Lithuanian union as the dominant power in the region.
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Heinrich Reffle von Richtenberg Heinrich Reffle von Richtenberg (died 1477) was the 33rd Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, serving from 1470 to 1477.