Louis I, Count of Sayn-Wittgenstein, nicknamed "the Elder", formally "Louis I of Sayn, Count at Wittgenstein" ruled the County of Wittgenstein, on the upper reaches of the rivers Lahn and Eder, from 1558 until his death. He converted his county to Calvinism and was an influential politician in the service to the Electoral Palatinate.
Life
He was the sixth child of William I, Count of Sayn-Wittgenstein and his wife, Johannetta of Isenburg-Neumagen. He received his first schooling at Wittgenstein Castle from the vicar of Weidenhausen. In 1543, Louis and his brothers went to Cologne to receive further education. He learned Greek and Latin, as well as English, French, Italian, and some Spanish. From 1545, Louis and two of his brothers studied at the Universities of Leuven, Paris and Orléans. Between 1553 and 1556, he made a Grand Tour, visiting Padua, Malta, Savoy, France and England. he briefly served Pope Pius IV as treasurer. When he returned to Wittgenstein Castle in 1556, Louis found that his father had issued a moderate LutheranChurch Order. He studied the new faith and converted to Lutheranism. His elderly father William I had appointed Louis' elder brother William II as Regent in 1551. In 1558, William II died in Brussels and Louis I took up the regency. Count Louis was raised in a humanist fashion. He frequently corresponded with his contemporaries, especially with other Calvinists. He travelled to the Netherlands and visited the grave of Erasmus. He began an intensive correspondence with various scholars of his time. As a result of this correspondence, he increasingly turned to the Reformed doctrine. In 1568, he travelled to Zurich, where he met numerous leading Reformed, with whom he also started an intense correspondence. Between 1574 and 1577, he served as Lord High Stewart at the Reformed court of Elector Palatine Frederick III in Heidelberg. During this period, he carried out numerous political tasks. In Heidelberg, he also came into close contact with Reformed theologicians and scholars. After the Palatinate reverted to Lutheranism under Elector Louis VI, his service in Heidelberg ended. Louis returned to his county and brought the reformer Caspar Olevian with him. Reformed church orders had been issued in 1563 and 1565; in 1578, the conversion to the Reformed faith was made official and altars and religious imagery were banned. Louis of Wittgenstein was a very close friend of his neighbour, Count John VI of Nassauburg, who was also reformed, and was almost the same age. In 1584, the two counts jointly founded Herborn Academy. From 1592 to 1594, he again served as Lord High Steward in the Electoral Palatinate, after the Palatinate had again converted to Calvinism. Parts of his extensive diaries have preserved in the Princely Archive in Berleburg. Some excerpts were printed in the 19th Century. His diaries are an important source of information about the intellectual and political history of his time. His extensive correspondence has not yet been fully evaluated by historians.
Family and children
On 14 August 1559, he married Countess Anna of Solms-Braunfels at Dillenburg Castle. The couple moved their residence from the ancestral Wittgenstein Castle on a hilltop overlooking Bad Laasphe to a former hunting lodge near Berleburg. Here he began keeping a diary. Anna died in 1565. In 1567, Louis remarried, to Countess Elisabeth of Solms-Laubach, daughter of Frederick Magnus I, Count of Solms-Laubach. Children of his first marriage were:
