Albrecht III Achilles
Albrecht III (9 November 1414 – 11 March 1486) was Elector of Brandenburg from 1471 until his death, the third from the House of Hohenzollern. A member of the Order of the Swan, he received the cognomen Achilles because of his knightly qualities and virtues. He also ruled in the Franconian principalities of Ansbach from 1440 and Kulmbach from 1464 (as Albrecht I).
Albrecht III Achilles
10 February 1471 – 11 March 1486
9 November 1414
Tangermünde, Brandenburg
11 March 1486 (aged 71)
Imperial City of Frankfurt
Biography[edit]
Early life[edit]
Albrecht was born at the Brandenburg residence of Tangermünde as the third son of the Nuremberg burgrave Frederick I and his wife, the Wittelsbach princess Elisabeth of Bavaria-Landshut. His father served as governor in Brandenburg; a few months after Albrecht's birth, he was enfeoffed with the electorate at the Council of Constance by the Luxembourg emperor Sigismund.
After passing some time at the court of Emperor Sigismund, Albrecht took part in the Hussite Wars, and afterwards distinguished himself whilst assisting Sigismund's successor, the Habsburg king Albert II of Germany, against the Hussites and their Polish allies.[1] In 1435, he and his eldest brother John went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Reign in Franconia[edit]
On the division of territory which followed his father's death in 1440, Albrecht received the Principality of Ansbach, while John took over the rule of Brandenburg as its elector. Although Albrecht's resources were meager, he soon took a leading place among the German princes and was especially prominent in resisting the attempts of the towns to obtain self-government.[1]
Nevertheless, Albrecht's plans to re-unite the former Duchy of Franconia under his rule failed: in 1443, he formed a league directed mainly against the Imperial City of Nuremberg, over which his late father had formerly exercised the rights of burgrave. It was not until 1448, however, that he found a pretext for attack. After initial military successes in the First Margrave War, he was defeated at the Battle of Pillenreuther Weiher, resulting in the Treaty of Bamberg (22 June 1450), which forced Albrecht to return all of the conquered territory and to recognize the independence of Nuremberg and its associated towns.[1]
Albrecht supported the Habsburg emperor Frederick III in his struggle with the princes who desired reforms in the Holy Roman Empire, and in return for this loyalty received many marks of favour from Frederick, including extensive judicial rights which aroused considerable irritation among neighbouring rulers.[1]
In 1457, Albrecht arranged a marriage between his eldest son John, and Margaret, daughter of William III, Landgrave of Thuringia, who inherited the claims upon Hungary and Bohemia of her mother, a granddaughter of Emperor Sigismund. The attempt to secure these thrones for the Hohenzollerns through this marriage failed, and a similar fate befell Albrecht's efforts to revive in his own favour the disused title of duke of Franconia.[1]
The sharp dissensions which existed among the princes over the question of reform culminated in the Bavarian War from 1459 to 1463, when Albrecht was confronted with a league under the leadership of Elector Palatine Frederick I and his Wittelsbach cousin Duke Louis IX of Bavaria-Landshut. Though defeated in the struggle, Albrecht continued fighting against Prince-bishop Rudolf II of Würzburg and even forged an alliance with his former enemy, the Bohemian king George of Poděbrady, a step which caused Pope Paul II to place him under the ban.[1]
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