urg on the 9th of January 1499,
and was succeeded by his son Joachim I.

Joachim.

When Joachim undertook the government of Brandenburg he had to deal with
an amount of disorder almost as great as that which had taxed the
energies of Frederick I. a century before. Highway robbery was general,
the lives and property of traders were in continual jeopardy, and the
machinery for the enforcement of the laws was almost at a standstill.
About 1504 an attack of unusual ferocity on some Frankfort traders
aroused the elector's wrath, and during the next few years the execution
of many lawbreakers and other stern measures restored some degree of
order. In this and in other ways Joachim proved himself a sincere friend
to the towns and a protector of industry. Following the economic
tendencies of the time he issued sumptuary laws and encouraged
manufactures; while to suppress the rivalry among the towns he
established an order of precedence for them. Equally important was his
work in improving the administration of justice, and in this direction
he was aided by scholars from the university which he had founded at
Frankfort-on-Oder in 1506. He gave a new organization to the highest
court of justice, the _Kammergericht_, secured for himself an important
voice in the choice of its members, and ordered that the local law
should be supplemented by the law of Rome. He did not largely increase
the area of Brandenburg, but in 1524 he acquired the county of Ruppin,
and in 1529 he made a treaty at Grimnitz with George and Barnim XI.,
dukes of Pomerania, by which he surrendered the vexatious claim to
suzerainty in return for a fresh promise of the succession in case the
ducal family should become extinct. Joachim's attitude towards the
teaching of Martin Luther which had already won many adherents in the
electorate, was one of unrelenting hostility. The Jews also felt the
weight of his displeasure, and were banished in 1510.

Joachim II.

Ignoring the _Dispositio Achillea_, the elector bequeathed Brandenburg
to his two sons. When he died in July 1535 the elder, Joachim II.,
became elector, and obtained the old and middle marks, while the
younger, John, received the new mark. John went definitely over to the
side of the Lutherans in 1538, while Joachim allowed the reformed
doctrines free entrance into his dominions in 1539. The elector,
however, unlike his brother, did not break with the forms of the Church
of Rome, but established