Electors of Saxony Holy Roman Emperors Building Literature Theater Liturgies Hymnals Monuments Calendrical commemoration Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse (13 November 1504 – 31 March 1567), nicknamed der Großmütige (lit.

In this he was aided not only by his chancellor, the humanist Johann Feige, and his chaplain, Adam Krafft, but also by the ex-Franciscan François Lambert of Avignon, a staunch enemy of the faith he had left.

While the radical policy of Lambert, embodied in the Homberg church order, was abandoned, at least in part, the monasteries and religious foundations were dissolved and their property was applied to charitable and scholastic purposes.

Philip's father-in-law George, Duke of Saxony, the bishop of Würzburg, Konrad II von Thungen, and the archbishop of Mainz, Albert III of Brandenburg, were active in agitating against the growth of the Reformation.

After meeting with Elector John of Saxony in Weimar on 9 March 1528, it was agreed that the Protestant princes should take the offensive in order to protect their territories from invasion and capture.

The imperial authorities at Speyer now forbade all breach of the peace, and, after long negotiations, Philip succeeded in extorting the expenses for his armament from the dioceses of Würzburg, Bamberg, and Mainz, the latter bishopric also being compelled to recognize the validity of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Hessian and Saxon territory until the Holy Roman Emperor or a Christian council should decide to the contrary.

Although the attitude of the Wittenberg theologians frustrated his attempts to bring about harmonious relations, and although the situation was further complicated by the position of Georg, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, who demanded a uniform confession and a uniform church order, Philip held that the differences between the followers of Martin Bucer and the followers of Luther in their sacramental theories admitted honest disagreement, and that Holy Scripture could not resolve the differences definitively.

Philip eagerly embraced Zwingli's plan of a great Protestant alliance to extend from the Adriatic to Denmark to keep the Holy Roman Emperor from crossing into Germany.

This association caused some coldness between himself and the followers of Luther at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, especially when he propounded his irenic policy to Melanchthon and urged that all Protestants should stand together in demanding that a general council alone should decide religious differences.

This was supposed to be indicative of Zwinglianism, and Philip soon found it necessary to explain his exact position on the question of the Eucharist, whereupon he declared that he fully agreed with the Lutherans, but disapproved of persecuting the Swiss.

At this time he offered Luther a refuge in his own territories and began to cultivate close relations with Martin Bucer, whose understanding of political questions created a common bond of sympathy between them.

The Holy Roman Empire's elector John of Saxony, Philip's most powerful ally, agreed to, “oppose the terms of the Edict of Worms, which outlawed Martin Luther and demanded his punishment as a heretic”.

[2] In 1531 Philip was successful in accomplishing the purpose for which he had so long worked by securing the adhesion of the Protestant powers to the Schmalkaldic League, which was to protect their religious and secular interests against interference from the Emperor.

He proposed a compromise on the subject of confiscated church property, but at the same time he was untiring in preparing for a possible recourse to war and cultivated diplomatic relations with any and all powers whom he knew to have anti-Habsburg interests.

From the Great Hospital”[4] The sum proved not to be enough to hold off the multi-ethnic Imperial hordes, backed by Genoese banks, Papal reserves, and subsidies collected from the Low Countries.

[5] In the years following, this coalition became one of the most important factors in European politics, largely through the influence of Philip, who lost no opportunity in furthering the Protestant cause.

Within a few weeks of his 1523 marriage to the unattractive and sickly Christine of Saxony, who was also alleged to be an immoderate drinker, Philip committed adultery; and as early as 1526 he began to consider the permissibility of bigamy.

Since such sanction was clearly lacking in this case, Luther advised against bigamous marriage, especially for Christians, unless there was extreme necessity, as, for example, if the wife was leprous, or abnormal in other respects.

Philip was affected by Melanchthon's opinion concerning the case of Henry VIII, where the Reformer had proposed that the king's difficulty could be solved by his taking a second wife better than by his divorcing the first one.

To strengthen his position, there were Luther's own statements in his sermons on the Book of Genesis, as well as historical precedents which proved to his satisfaction that it was impossible for anything to be un-Christian that God had not punished in the case of the patriarchs, who in the New Testament were held up as models of faith.

Bucer, who was strongly influenced by political arguments, was won over by the landgrave's threat to ally himself with the Emperor if he did not secure the consent of the theologians to the marriage, and the Wittenberg divines were worked upon by the plea of the prince's ethical necessity.

Even while the marriage question was occupying his attention, Philip was engaged in constructing far-reaching plans for implementing the new religion and for drawing together all the opponents of the House of Habsburg, though at the same time he did not give up hopes of reaching a religious compromise through diplomatic means.

Following Bucer's advice, the landgrave now proceeded to take active steps with the hope of establishing religious peace between the Roman Catholics and Protestants.

Duke Maurice of Saxony and Joachim II of Brandenburg would not join the Schmalkaldic League; Cleves was successfully invaded by imperial troops; and Protestantism was rigorously suppressed in Metz.

The situation was suddenly changed, however, and Philip was tardily forced again into the opposition against the Emperor, by the Treaty of Crépy of 1544, which opened his eyes to the danger threatening Protestantism.

At his direction his theologians were prominent in the various conferences where representative Roman Catholics and Protestants assembled to attempt to find a working basis for reunion.

He gave permanent form to the Hessian Church by the great agenda of 1566–67, and in his will, dated 1562, urged his sons to maintain the Augsburg Confession and the Concord of Wittenberg, and at the same time to work in behalf of a reunion of Roman Catholics and Protestants if opportunity and circumstances should permit.