William III, Landgrave of Thuringia

Who was William III, Landgrave of Thuringia?

William III, called the Brave, was landgrave of Thuringia and claimant duke of Luxemburg. He is actually the second William to rule Thuringia, and in Luxembourg; he was the third Margrave of Meissen named William.

He was a younger son of Frederick I the Warlike, elector of Saxony, and Catherine of Brunswick and Lunenburg. On 2 June 1446 he married Anne of Luxembourg, daughter of Albert II, King of Germany, Bohemia and Hungary and Elisabeth of Luxembourg. On behalf of his wife, he became Duke of Luxembourg from 1457 to 1469. They had two daughters, Margaret of Thuringia and Catherine of Thuringia, who married Duke Henry II of Münsterberg.

William minted a silver groschen known as the Judenkopf Groschen. Its obverse portrait shows a man with a pointed beard wearing a Jewish hat, which the populace took as depicting a typical Jew.