1446 Diet of William III the Brave

Thuringia owes its first constitution to Landgrave William III, also known as William the Brave, who lived from 1424 to 1482. Before hostilities broke out between him and his brother in the Saxon Fratricidal War, William III convened a general Diet in Weissensee, Thuringia, on January 9, 1446. There he had himself acclaimed as the new sovereign and renewed the feudal enfeoffments of the counts and lords in Thuringia. The aim was to secure the necessary support of the estates. After all, William III feared a military invasion by his brother Frederick II, which is why a state constitution was hastily passed at the Diet of Weissensee in 1446, the first in the history of Thuringia and one of the earliest in the German-speaking world. In its essence, this first Thuringian state constitution has the status of a common state constitution today. As the forerunner of modern parliamentarianism in Thuringia and the founding assembly of a Thuringian constitutional tradition that now goes back over 550 years, the state parliament of 1446 is commemorated annually in January with the “Day of the Brave” in the historic town hall of Weißensee.