Catherine of Brandenburg-Küstrin (German: Katharina von Brandenburg-Küstrin) (10 August 1549 – 30 September 1602) was a Margravine of Brandenburg-Küstrin by birth and Electress of Brandenburg by marriage.
On 8 January 1570, she married Joachim of Brandenburg, later Elector Joachim III Frederick of Brandenburg (1546–1608) in Küstrin. Due to the marriage, her husband no longer had a legitimate claim on the position of bishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Magdeburg[1] and Pope Pius V put in a request to Emperor Maximilian for his dismissal.[2]
Catherine tried to improve the fate of the poor and the needy. She built a dairy in Wedding and sold its produce on the Molkenmarkt ("Milk Market"), a square in Berlin. She used the proceeds to finance a pharmacy in the Stadtschloss that provided medicine free of charge to those in need.[3]
Catherine died on 30 September 1602. On 13 October, she was buried in the Hohenzollern crypt (now part of the Berliner Dom).
Descendants
From her marriage with Joachim Frederick, Catherine had the following children:
married secondly, in 1650, Countess Barbara Eusebia of Martinice (d. 1656)
married thirdly, in 1657, Countess Maximiliane of Salm-Neuburg (1608–1663)
References and sources
Dieter Brozat (1985), Der Berliner Dom und die Hohenzollerngruft, Berlin: Haude und Spener, ISBN3-7759-0271-6
Ernst Daniel Martin Kirchner: Die Kurfürstinnen und Königinnen auf dem Throne der Hohenzollern, part 2: Die letzten acht Kurfürstinnen, Berlin, 1867, pp. 68–106.
Ludwig Hahn: Geschichte des preussischen Vaterlandes, W. Hertz, 1858, p. 132
Adolf Müller: Preußens Ehrenspiegel, Gebauer, 1851, p. 65
Footnotes
^Cornelius Hantscher: Die preußische Frage – Personalunion Brandenburg-Preußen, GRIN Verlag, 2007, p. 14
^Historisch-Politische Blätter für das Katholische Deutschland, vol. 35, 1855, p. 137 (Digitized)
^K. W. Kutschbach: Chronik der Stadt Küstrin, Enslin, 1849, p. 118
