to undertake with his brother John Ernest the government of his principality. Reign In 1596 the brothers divided their Principality in two. John Ernest was given the Principality of Saxe-Eisenach and Casimir continued to reign alone in Coburg. His dominions were composed of the districts of Coburg with the subdivisions of Lauter, Rodach and Gestungshausen bei Sonnefeld, Heldburg with a subdivision of Hildburghausen, Römhild, Eisfeld, Schalkau, Sonneberg, Neustadt, Neuhaus, Mönchröden and Sonnefeld. Under John Casimir, the city of his residence, Coburg, had its first cultural peak with a boost to construction. The Schloss Ehrenburg was rebuilt in the Renaissance style as the Stadtschloss (town castle). The former Schloss Callenberg, was expanded into a hunting lodge; its chapel was consecrated in 1618 as the first Protestant sanctuary in the Coburger Land. The Veste Coburg was converted to a ducal fortress, and the arsenal as well as the government buildings (Stadthaus) were rebuilt at the Marktplatz (Market Square). The choir of Morizkirche was endowed by John Casimir in 1598 in the honor of his parents with a huge Renaissance epitaph – a 12-meter-tall (39-feet-tall) alabaster monument with a richly sculptured series of pictures. In addition, he founded the Gymnasium Casimirianum, extended the castle’s library to include his inheritance of book collections and in 1603 hired the composer Melchior Franck as the Hofkapellmeister (court master of music). The court’s household, for a time, held 213 people and 130 horses. Politically John Casimir succeeded in getting the Reichsritterschaft (Community of the Imperial Knights) to submit to his sovereignty by guaranteeing the jurisdiction over their country estates. He issued the order to establish the State Lutheran Church with the Duke as the summus episcopus (Latin, “highest bishop”), the tactic later adopted by many of the Thuringian states. As the only supreme authority of justice and religion in the Principality, he built in Coburg in 1589 an Hofgericht (Special Court for the Nobles), an Appellationsrat (Court of Appeals), a Schöppenstuhl (Court of Justice) and in 1593 added for the Lutheran Church a consistory, which also covered Saxe-Weimar but remained in Jena. Above all, he built, as the core of his government of Coburg, an administrative apparatus, which persisted after his death and survived many political upheavals. Duke Casimir managed to remain neutral in the Thirty Years War until 1631. After he joined the Protestant side under Sweden, the Imperial and Bavarian troops under Wallenstein carried out