Sophie of Brunswick-Lüneburg

Sophie of Brunswick-Lüneburg (30 October 1563 – 14 January 1639) was a member of the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg and margravine of Brandenburg-Ansbach and Brandenburg-Kulmbach and Duchess of Krnov by marriage.

Sophie of Brunswick-Lüneburg
Sophie of Brunswick-Lüneburg
Born30 October 1564
Celle
Died14 January 1639(1639-01-14) (aged 74)
Nuremberg
SpouseGeorge Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach
FatherWilliam, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg
MotherDorothea of Oldenburg
Show gate of Wülzburg Castle with the coats of arms of Sophie and her husband

Life

Sophie was the eldest child of Duke William the Younger of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1535–1592) from his marriage to Dorothea of Denmark, a daughter of King Christian III of Denmark.

Burial monument in St. Lorenz church, Nuremberg

On 3 May 1579 she married Margrave George Frederick I of Brandenburg-Ansbach-Kulmach (1539–1603) in Dresden.[1] George Frederick was the last of the older line of Frankish Hohenzollerns and was simultaneously Margrave of the Principality of Ansbach and Kulmbach, Silesian duke of the Duchy of Krnov and guardian administrator of the Duchy of Prussia. As such, he was a powerful figure of his time. His first wife, Elisabeth of Brandenburg-Küstrin, had died in 1578, and like his first, George Frederick's second marriage remained childless, which is why his inheritance needed to be regulated by the House Treaty of Gera. Sophie's childlessness motivated her husband to increased interest in the policy of the wider House of Hohenzollern.[2]

After her husband died in 1604, Sophie returned to her birth family.[3] She survived her husband by 36 years. Sophie often stayed in Nuremberg with her sisters Clara, Countess of Schwarzburg, and Sibylle, Duchess of Brunswick-Dannenberg.[4] She died in Nuremberg in 1639 and was buried in the St. Lorenz Church there.[5]

The Renaissance portal of Wülzburg Castle shows George Frederick's coat of arms next to Sophie's.[6]

Sophie of Brunswick-Lüneburg
Born: 30 October 1563 Died: 14 January 1639
German nobility
Vacant
Title last held by
Elisabeth of Brandenburg-Küstrin		 Margravine of Brandenburg-Ansbach
3 May 1579 - 25 April 1603		 Vacant
Title next held by
Sophie of Solms-Laubach
Margravine of Brandenburg-Kulmbach
3 May 1579 - 25 April 1603		 Title changed
Christian of Brandenburg, heir to the margraviate of Brandenburg-Kulmbach, moved its seat to Bayreuth in 1604 to create Brandenburg-Bayreuth

Footnotes
  1. Adolph Friedrich Riedel: Codex diplomaticus Brandenburgensis: Collection of documents, chronicles and other documentary sources for the history of the Mark Brandenburg and its rulers, Volume 1, F.H. Morin, 1867, p. 243
  2. Andrea Baresel-Brand: Grave monuments of northern European royal houses in the Age of the Renaissance 1550-1650, volume 9 of Construction + Art, Verlag Ludwig, 2007, p. 145
  3. Erik Margraf: The marriage sermon of the early modern period, Herbert Utz Verlag, 2007, p. 274
  4. Franz von Soden: War and moral history of the city of Nuremberg, Bläsing, 1860, pp. 11, 64, 478
  5. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-12-19. Retrieved 2011-05-01.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  6. Daniel Burger: The rural fortresses of the Hohenzollerns in Franconia and Brandenburg in the Age of the Renaissance, Beck's Publishing House, 2000, p. 132
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