Home > Philipp I of Hesse

He helped suppress the Peasants' War, embraced Protestantism in 1524 after a personal meeting with Philipp Melanchthon, tried to reconcile Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli and signed the Lutheran Augsburg Confession. He formed the Schmalkaldic League with Johann Friedrich I of Saxony.

He fought to uphold Protestantism against the Catholic Charles V, Holy Roman EmperorCharles ( February 24, 1500 September 21 1558) was Holy Roman Emperor (as Charles V from 1519- 1558; he was also King of Spain from 1516- 1556, officially as Charles I of Spain although often referred to as Charles V ("Carlos Quinto" or "Carlos V") in Spa. That he engaged in bigamyPolygamy or many marriage is a marital practice in which a person has more than one spouse simultaneously (as opposed to monogamy where each person has a maximum of one spouse at any one time). The term is often used in a de facto sense, applying regardle and forced Luther and Melanchthon to condone this was one of the main events that weakened Protestantism during its early days. After a lost battle, Philipp was caught by the Imperial troops and jailed; he was only freed years later after some concessions and due to pressure of other Protestant princes.

He founded the first Protestant universityA university is an institution of higher education and of research, which grants academic degrees. A university provides both tertiary and quaternary education. University is derived from the Latin universitas meaning corporation since the first medieval, the University of Marburg, in 1527.

On his death, his territories were divided ( HesseHesse is also the name of the German writer Hermann Hesse, as well as the German mathematician Otto Hesse. With an area of 21,110 km² and just over six million inhabitants, Hesse (German Hessen is one of Germany's sixteen federal states ( Bundeslander . becoming Hesse-KasselHesse-Kassel Hessen-Kassel was a German principality that came into existence when the Landgraviate of Hesse was divided in 1568 upon the death of Landgrave Philip of Hesse and his eldest son Wilhelm IV inherited the northern portion and established his c, Hesse-MarburgHesse-Marburg was a German Landgraviate, i. a principality directly under the Emperor, that existed independently between 1485 1500 and 1567 1605. It comprised of the city of Marburg and the surrounding territories; approximately what is today called Ober, Hesse-RheinfelsThis branch of the Hessian ruling family resided in Rheinfels castle near St. Goar, and controlled the towns of Schotten, Stornfels, Bad Homburg, Lissberg, Ulrichstein, Itter, and the part of the former County of Katzenelnbogen north of the Main. The line, and Hesse-Darmstadt) between his four sons by his first wife, Catherine of Saxony (daughter of George, Duke of Saxony), namely Wilhelm IV von Hessen-Kassel, Ludwig IV (III) von Hessen-Marburg, Philipp II von Hessen-Rheinfels, and Georg I von Hessen-Darmstadt.

Philipp was by all contemporary descriptions a highly intelligent and gifted but also particularly haughty and selfish person; the epithet "magnanimous" thus surprises. However, it seems now that this, the translation of der Großmütige, is actually a misinterpretation; while großmütig means indeed magnanimous in modern German, in Renaissance German, it appears to indeed have meant haughty.