Moritz Wilhelm (English: Maurice William; 12 March 1664 – 15 November 1718), a member of the Saxon

House of Wettin The House of Wettin () was a dynasty which included Saxon monarch, kings, Prince Elector, prince-electors, dukes, and counts, who once ruled territories in the present-day German federated states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The dynas ...

, was the second and last Duke of

Saxe-Zeitz The Duchy of Saxe-Zeitz () was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire established in 1656–57 as a secundogeniture of the Electorate of Saxony, Electoral Saxon house of House of Wettin. Its capital was Zeitz. The territory fell back to the Wettin ...

from 1681 until his death.

Life

He was born at

Moritzburg Castle Moritzburg Castle () or Moritzburg Palace is a Baroque palace in Moritzburg, in the German state of Saxony, about northwest of the Saxon capital, Dresden. The castle has four round towers and lies on a symmetrical artificial island. It is name ...

in the Wettin residence of

Zeitz Zeitz (; , ) is a town in the Burgenlandkreis district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the river White Elster, in the triangle of the federal states Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Saxony. History First a Slavic pagan settlem ...

, the eldest son of Duke

Maurice of Saxe-Zeitz Maurice of Saxe-Zeitz (28 March 1619 – 4 December 1681) was a duke of Saxe-Zeitz and member of the House of Wettin. Born in Dresden, he was the youngest surviving son of John George I, Elector of Saxony, and his second wife Magdalene Sibylle of ...

(1619–1681) and his second wife, Dorothea Maria (1641–1675), a younger daughter of the Wettin duke Wilhelm of Saxe-Weimar. Duke Maurice had received the

secundogeniture A secundogeniture (from 'following, second', and 'born') was a dependent territory given to a younger son of a princely house and his descendants, creating a cadet branch.Luard, Evan. The Balance of Power: The System of International Relations, ...

of Saxe-Zeitz from the hands of his father, Elector John George I of Saxony in 1652 and had Moritzburg Castle erected as his residence. He had two sons from his first marriage, but both died in infancy long before Moritz Wilhelm's birth. Moritz Wilhelm received a comprehensive education, mainly in ancient languages and theology; in 1681 he met with Philipp Spener during his Grand Tour in Frankfurt and in his later years kept up a fruitful correspondence with the philosopher

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to ...

. The sixteen-year-old succeeded as duke of Saxe-Zeitz upon the death of his father on 4 December 1681. However, he had to accept the guardianship of his Wettin cousin Elector John George III until 1684. The relationship with the Saxon electors remained tense, similar to the other Wettin secundogenitures of

Saxe-Weissenfels Saxe-Weissenfels () was a Duchy of the Holy Roman Empire from 1656 until 1746 with its residence at Weißenfels. Ruled by a cadet branch of the Albertine House of Wettin, the duchy passed to the Electorate of Saxony upon the extinction of the line ...

and

Saxe-Merseburg The Duchy of Saxe-Merseburg was a duchy of the Holy Roman Empire, with Merseburg as its capital. It existed from 1656 or 1657 to 1738 and was owned by an Albertine secundogeniture of the Saxon House of Wettin. History The Wettin Elector J ...

. Suspiciously eyed by his cousins, Moritz Wilhelm sought support at the Imperial court in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

as well as by the Electors of Brandenburg, leading to his marriage with Princess Marie Amalie, a daughter of the "Great Elector" Frederick William and devout promoter of the

Calvinist Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Protestantism, Continenta ...

faith. It was due to his published defense of this marriage that philosopher Christian Thomasius was forced to leave the strongly Lutheran Leipzig to settle in Halle, where he was involved in the creation of the university there, under the patronage of Frederick William. Moritz Wilhelm tried to reach the acknowledgement of his Saxe-Zeitz lands as a sovereign

Imperial State An Imperial Estate (; , plural: ') was an entity or an individual of the Holy Roman Empire with representation and the right to vote in the Imperial Diet (Holy Roman Empire), Imperial Diet ('). Rulers of these Estates were able to exercise signi ...

, referring to the princely ''

Hochstift In the Holy Roman Empire, the German language, German term (plural: ) referred to the territory ruled by a bishop as a prince (i.e. prince-bishop), as opposed to his diocese, generally much larger and over which he exercised only spiritual auth ...

'' rights of the former Bishops of Naumburg-Zeitz; however, his attempts failed due to the veto of the Saxon electors. When he even tried to gain Swedish support during the

Great Northern War In the Great Northern War (1700–1721) a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in Northern Europe, Northern, Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the ant ...

, Saxon troops temporarily occupied his country in 1709. After Moritz Wilhelm's only son and heir, Frederick August, died in 1710 at the age of nine, the duke finally reconciled with the Saxon electors and waived all claims to

Imperial immediacy In the Holy Roman Empire, imperial immediacy ( or ) was the status of an individual or a territory which was defined as 'immediate' () to Emperor and Empire () and not to any other intermediate authorities, while one that did not possess that stat ...

. Already in 1699, he had given the towns of Pegau and Neustadt as

appanage An appanage, or apanage (; ), is the grant of an estate, title, office or other thing of value to a younger child of a monarch, who would otherwise have no inheritance under the system of primogeniture (where only the eldest inherits). It was ...

s to his youngest brother Frederick Henry. Chosen as being the heir of Saxe-Zeitz, Frederick Henry, nevertheless, died in 1713. As Moritz Wilhelm's brother Christian August had chosen an ecclesiastical career, the secundogeniture would fell back to the main line of Wettin electors. Shortly before his death in 1717, the duke converted from Calvinism to

Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

in order to please his brother Christian August, who was a Prince of that Church as

Archbishop of Esztergom In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdioc ...

and

Primate Primates is an order (biology), order of mammals, which is further divided into the Strepsirrhini, strepsirrhines, which include lemurs, galagos, and Lorisidae, lorisids; and the Haplorhini, haplorhines, which include Tarsiiformes, tarsiers a ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

. Forced out of his Zeitz residence, he shifted the seat of his government to Weida and retired to Osterburg Castle. Urged by his consort and the Halle pietist

August Hermann Francke August Hermann Francke (; 22 March 1663 – 8 June 1727) was a German Lutheran clergyman, theologian, philanthropist, and Biblical scholar. His evangelistic fervour and pietism got him expelled as lecturer from the universities of Dresden and ...

, he revoked his conversion a few weeks before his death.

Marriage and issue

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and largest city of the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the Havel, River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...

on 25 June 1689, Moritz Wilhelm married Marie Amalie of Brandenburg (1670–1739). They had six children: #Frederick William (b. Moritzburg, 26 March 1690 – d. Moritzburg, 15 May 1690) died in infancy. # Dorothea Wilhelmine (b. Moritzburg, 20 March 1691 – d.

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in North Hesse, northern Hesse, in Central Germany (geography), central Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel (region), Kassel and the d ...

, 17 March 1743), married on 27 September 1717 to Landgrave William VIII of Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel). #Karoline Amalie (b. Moritzburg, 24 May 1693 – d. Moritzburg, 5 September 1694) died in infancy. #Sophie Charlotte (b. Moritzburg, 25 April 1695 – d. Moritzburg, 18 June 1696) died young. #Maria Josephina (b. Moritzburg, 3 January 1699 - d. London, 19 November 1774), married to James Wilhelm Hesse-Pye. #Frederick Augustus (b. Moritzburg, 12 August 1700 – d. Halle, 17 February 1710) died young. He died at Weida without surviving male issue. Because his two remaining heirs, his brother Christian August and his nephew Maurice Adolf, were ordained priests, Zeitz was merged back to the Electorate of Saxony. Google Books website, ''The Penny-Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, Volume 27'', p758
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moritz Wilhelm of Saxe-Zeitz, Duke 1664 births 1718 deaths House of Wettin People from Moritzburg Dukes of Saxe-Zeitz Albertine branch