His father was Albert the Brave of Saxony, founder of the Albertine line of the Wettin family, his mother was Sidonie, daughter of George of Poděbrady, King of Bohemia.

[1] As early as 1488, when his father was in East Frisia fighting on behalf of the emperor, George was regent of the ducal possessions, which included the Margraviate of Meissen with the cities of Dresden and Leipzig.

He tried to keep the newmade lands of het Bildt which weren't granted him by Charles V. These troubles outside of his Saxon possessions did not prevent George from bestowing much care on the government of the ducal territory proper.

When regent, during the lifetime of his father, the difficulties arising from conflicting interests and the large demands on his powers had often brought the young prince to the verge of despair.

[1] In a short time, however, he developed decided ability as a ruler; on entering upon his inheritance he divided the duchy into governmental districts, took measures to suppress the robber-knights, and regulated the judicial system by defining and readjusting the jurisdiction of the various law courts.

His court was better regulated than that of any other German prince, and he bestowed a paternal care on the University of Leipzig, where a number of reforms were introduced, and Humanism, as opposed to Scholasticism, was encouraged.

Hardly one of the secular German princes held as firmly as he to the Church, he defended its rights and vigorously condemned every innovation except those countenanced by the highest ecclesiastical authorities.

In 1521, at the Diet of Worms, when the German princes handed in a paper containing a list of "grievances" concerning the condition of the Church, George added for himself twelve specific complaints referring mainly to the abuse of Indulgences and the annates.

[1] In 1525, he combined with his Lutheran son-in-law, Landgrave Philip of Hesse, and his cousin, the Elector Frederick the Wise, to suppress the revolt of the peasants, who were defeated near Frankenhausen in Thuringia.

Some years later, he wrote a forcible preface to a translation of the New Testament issued at his command by his private secretary, Hieronymus Emser, as an offset to Luther's version.

Most of his political measures stood the test of experience, but in ecclesiastico-political matters he witnessed with sorrow the gradual decline of Catholicism and the spread of Lutheranism within his dominions, in spite of his earnest efforts and forcible prohibition of the new doctrine.