Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor

Sigismund of Luxembourg (15 February 1368 – 9 December 1437) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1433 until his death in 1437. As the husband of Mary, Queen of Hungary, he was King of Hungary and Croatia (jure uxoris) from 1387. He was elected King of Germany (King of the Romans) in 1410, and was also King of Bohemia from 1419, as well as prince-elector of Brandenburg (1378–1388 and 1411–1415). He was the last male member of the House of Luxembourg.

Sigismund was the son of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor and his fourth wife Elizabeth of Pomerania. He married Mary, Queen of Hungary in 1385 and was crowned King of Hungary soon after. He fought to restore and maintain authority to the throne. Mary died in 1395, leaving Sigismund the sole ruler of Hungary.

In 1396, Sigismund led the Crusade of Nicopolis but was decisively defeated by the Ottoman Empire. Afterwards, he founded the Order of the Dragon to fight the Turks and secured the thrones of Croatia, Germany and Bohemia. Sigismund was one of the driving forces behind the Council of Constance (1414–1418) that ended the Papal Schism, but which also led to the Hussite Wars that dominated the later period of his life. In 1433, Sigismund was crowned Holy Roman Emperor and ruled until his death in 1437.

Historian Thomas Brady Jr. remarks that Sigismund "possessed a breadth of vision and a sense of grandeur unseen in a German monarch since the thirteenth century". He realised the need to carry out reforms of the empire and the Church at the same time. However, external difficulties, self-inflicted mistakes and the extinction of the Luxembourg male line made this vision unfulfilled. Later, the Habsburgs would inherit this mission and imperial reform was carried out successfully under the reigns of Frederick III and especially his son Maximilian I, although perhaps at the expense of the reform of the Church, partly because Maximilian was not particularly focused on the matter.

In recent years, scholarly interest (especially from East-Central Europe) has grown greatly in the person and reign of Sigismund — the ruler who had gained and led an imperial association almost reaching the size of the later Habsburg Empire — as well as cultural developments associated with his era. The setbacks which have been seen as his major failures (like dealing with the Hussite movement) are now generally considered by most scholars to be the result of the lack of financial resources and other heavy constraints, rather than personal failings. Upon his father's death in 1378, young Sigismund became Margrave of Brandenburg and was sent to the Hungarian court, where he soon learned the Hungarian language and way of life, and became entirely devoted to his adopted country. The disagreement between Polish landlords of Lesser Poland on one side and landlords of Greater Poland on the other, regarding the choice of the future monarch of Poland, finally ended in choosing the Lithuanian side. The support of the lords of Greater Poland was, however, not enough to give Prince Sigismund the Polish crown. Instead, the landlords of Lesser Poland gave it to Mary's younger sister Jadwiga, who married Jogaila of Lithuania.

King of Hungary

thumb|left|upright=0.8|King Sigismund of Hungary, [[Chronica Hungarorum, 1488]]

thumb|Campaign of King Sigismund of Hungary against the rebellious House of Horvat in 1387, [[Chronica Hungarorum, 1488]]

On the death of her father in 1382, his betrothed, Mary, became queen of Hungary and Sigismund married her in 1385 in Zólyom (today Zvolen). The next year, he was accepted as Mary's future co-ruler by the Treaty of Győr. However, Mary was captured, together with her mother, Elizabeth of Bosnia, who had acted as regent, in 1387 by the rebellious House of Horvat, Bishop Paul Horvat of Mačva, his brother John Horvat and younger brother Ladislav. Sigismund's mother-in-law was strangled, while Mary was liberated.

Having secured the support of the nobility, Sigismund was crowned King of Hungary at Székesfehérvár on 31 March 1387. Having raised money by pledging Margraviate of Brandenburg to his cousin Jobst of Moravia (1388), he was engaged for the next nine years in a ceaseless struggle for the possession of this unstable throne. It was not for entirely selfless reasons that one of the leagues of barons helped him to power: Sigismund had to pay for the support of the lords by transferring a sizeable part of the royal properties. (For some years, the baron's council governed the country in the name of the Holy Crown). The restoration of the authority of the central administration took decades of work. The bulk of the nation headed by the House of Garai was with him; but in the southern provinces between the Sava and the Drava, the Horvathys with the support of King Tvrtko I of Bosnia, Mary's maternal uncle, proclaimed as their king Ladislaus of Naples, son of the murdered Charles II of Hungary. Not until 1395 did Nicholas II Garai succeed in suppressing them. Sigismund returned by sea and through the realm of Zeta, where he ordained the local Montenegrin lord Đurađ II with the islands of Hvar and Korčula for resistance against the Turks; the islands were returned to Sigismund after Đurađ's death in April 1403.thumb|Gold coin of Sigismund of Hungary with his coat of arms (right), and the image of the King Saint [[Ladislaus I of Hungary (left).]]The disaster at Nicopolis angered several Hungarian lords, leading to instability in the kingdom. Deprived of his authority in Hungary, Sigismund then turned his attention to securing the succession in Kingdom of Germany and Kingdom of Bohemia, and was recognized by his childless half-brother Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia as Vicar-General of the whole empire. However, he was unable to support Wenceslaus when he was deposed in 1400, and Rupert of Germany, Elector Palatine, was elected King of Germany in his stead.

Possessions in Serbia

Threatened by Ottoman expansion, King Sigismund managed to strengthen the security of southern Hungarian borders by entering into a defensive alliance with Despot Stefan Lazarević of Serbia. In 1403, Hungarian possessions in northwestern regions of Serbia (the city of Belgrade and the Banate of Macsó) were given to Despot Stefan, who pledged his allegiance to King Sigismund, remaining the king's loyal vassal until death in 1427. Stefan's successor, Đurađ Branković of Serbia, also pledged his allegiance to Sigismund, returning Belgrade to the king. By maintaining close relations with Serbian rulers, Sigismund succeeded in securing the southern borders of his realm.

Order of the Dragon

Sigismund founded his personal order of knights, the Order of the Dragon, after the victory at Dobor. The main goal of the order was fighting the Ottoman Empire. Members of the order were mostly his political allies and supporters. The main members of the order were Sigismund's close allies Stefan Lazarević, Nicholas II Garay, Hermann II, Count of Celje, Stibor of Stiboricz, and Pippo Spano. The most important European monarchs became members of the order. He encouraged international trade by abolishing internal duties, regulating tariffs on foreign goods and standardising weights and measures throughout the country.

King of the Romans

After the death of King Rupert of Germany in 1410, Sigismund — ignoring the claims of his half-brother Wenceslaus — was elected as successor by three of the electors on 20 September 1410, but he was opposed by his cousin Jobst of Moravia, who was elected by four electors in a different election on 1 October. Jobst's death on 18 January 1411 removed this conflict and Sigismund was again elected king on 21 July 1411. His coronation was deferred until 8 November 1414, when it took place at Aachen.

Conference in Buda

thumb|left|upright=0.8|King Sigismund of Hungary, [[Nádasdy Mausoleum, 1664]]

In 1412, a Knights' Tournament was held in Buda, Hungary. This was also a conference between Hungarian King Sigismund, Polish King Wladyslaw II (Jogaila) and Bosnian King Tvrtko II. 2000 knights were present from all over Europe, even England. There were many princes, lords, knights and servants at the court of Buda in Hungary. Three kings and three other monarchs, a Serbian despot, 13 herzogs and/or dukes, 21 counts, 2000 knights, 1 cardinal, 1 legate, 3 archbishops, 11 other bishops, 86 players and trumpeters, 17 messengers, and 40,000 horses. There were people from 17 countries and languages. A presumably contemporary list of the participants of the meeting has also survived. Besides the host, Sigismund, and his main guest, Władysław II, this text mentions Władysław's cousin Vytautas, Grand Duke of Lithuania, and the king of Bosnia, usually identified as Tvrtko II. Some argue convincingly that it was not Tvrtko II but Stjepan Ostoja who visited Buda at that time. Besides the king, Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić, Sandalj Hranić Kosača and Pavle Radinović also came from Bosnia, and from Serbia, the Despot Stefan Lazarević, bringing two thousand horses. From Austria, Ernest, Duke of Austria and Albert II of Germany, the latter successor of Sigismund, also took part in the Buda meeting. Also Heinrich von Plauen, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, Stibor of Stiboricz, Nicholas II Garai, Hermann II, Count of Celje and his son Frederick II, Count of Celje, Karlo Kurjaković, count of Krbava, Ivan Morović, ban of Machva. Długosz reports the arrival in Buda of the envoys of the Jalal al-Din, khan of the Golden Horde and son of Tokhtamysh, who wanted to meet Władysław II of Poland. Jalal al-Din was an ally of the Polish and Lithuanian rulers in their fight against the Teutonic Order, and according to some reconstructions of the events, Sigismund also wanted to rely on the Tatars against the Ottoman threat. A narrative source from Lübeck also mentions the proceedings in Buda in 1412. Detmar's Lübeckische Chronik continued from 1400 to 1413. The continuation also gives a detailed description of the participants at the Buda meeting. The royal meeting was accompanied by festivities and various entertainments. At the tournament, a knight from Silesia named Nemsche and a page from Austria won the joust. A Polish priest and chronicler Jan Długosz says in his Annales seu cronici incliti regni Poloniae that in the tournament there were also knights from Bulgaria, probably from the court of Prince Fruzhin, Sigismund's vasal, who was also at the conference.

Council of Constance

thumb|left|upright=0.8|Sigismund and Barbara of Celje at the Council of Constance.

From 1412 to 1423, Sigismund campaigned against the Republic of Venice in Italy. The king took advantage of the difficulties of Antipope John XXIII to obtain a promise that a council should be called in Constance in 1414 to settle the Western Schism. He took a leading part in the deliberations of this assembly, and during the sittings travelled to France, England, and Burgundy in a vain attempt to secure the abdication of the three rival popes. The council ended in 1418, having resolved the Schism and — of great consequence to Sigismund's future career — having the Czech religious reformer, Jan Hus, burned at the stake for heresy in July 1415. The complicity of Sigismund in the death of Hus is a matter of controversy. He had granted Hus a safe conduct and protested against his imprisonment, Thomas Carlyle nicknamed Sigismund "Super Grammaticam".

His main acts during these years were an alliance with England against France, and a failed attempt, owing to the hostility of the princes, to secure peace in Germany by a league of the towns. The close relationship that developed between Henry V and Sigismund resulted in him being inducted into the Order of the Garter.

Hussite Wars

thumb|left|The wars of King Sigismund against the Hussites, [[Chronica Hungarorum, 1488]]

thumb|upright=0.8|Portrait of Emperor Sigismund, painted by [[Albrecht Dürer after the emperor's death]]

In 1419, the death of Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia left Sigismund titular King of Bohemia, but he had to wait for seventeen years before the Czech Estates would acknowledge him. Although the two dignities of king of the Romans and king of Bohemia added considerably to his importance, and indeed made him the nominal temporal head of Christendom, they conferred no increase of power and financially embarrassed him. It was only as King of Hungary that he had succeeded in establishing his authority and in doing anything for the order and good government of the land. Entrusting the government of Bohemia to Sophia of Bavaria, the widow of Wenceslaus, he hastened into Hungary.

The alliance against the Hussites continued to develop, though, joined by Upper German princes and cities, even from "the regions furthest from Bohemia". In January 1424, the associative activity of the German electors led to the Union ("einunge") of Bingen, "within which the Rhenish princes were joined by the elector of Saxony and Sigismund's loyal partner, Margrave Frederick of Brandenburg, and mutual assistance, adjudication, and cooperation in the face of the Hussite threat were stipulated."

Kingdom of Germany

Sigismund's rule in Germany and in the empire in general was hampered by his complete lack of Hausmacht (domestic power) within the Kingdom of Germany.

His rule relied on key allies and the culture of associative political mechanisms in Germany. Duncan Hardy remarks that "both the local and the trans-regional dimensions of the political activity displayed by the sources from throughout Sigismund's reign demonstrate that power at every level in the empire was exercised and mediated through the customary institutions and mechanisms of associative political culture. If Sigismund enjoyed considerable successes at certain junctures, it was not in spite of or independently from these institutions and mechanisms, but precisely because he devoted considerable energy to harnessing associative interactions and building strategic relationships with leading actors within elite networks. Even during his prolonged absences from the empire's core lands, Sigismund was able to make use of these partnerships, and could reasonably expect that the associative activity of princes, nobles, and towns would yield results — as indeed they did, in the form of large-scale collective activity against Duke Frederick IV of Austria — Tyrol in the 1410 and the Hussites in the 1420. Not all of Sigismund's projects came to fruition, and he could not always control the longer-term outcomes of his policies, but the notion that there were phases of an 'empire without a king' during his reign clearly does not stand up to the abundant evidence of his interactions with regional clients and associations. At the same time, the somewhat adulatory view that has developed in recent years of Sigismund as a masterly politician can be tempered by the evidence that it was often felicitous alliances as much as personal skill which made his successes possible."

The alliance between Sigismund and his two key allies in Germany, namely Frederick I, Elector of Brandenburg and Albert II of Germany (who became his son-in-law and heir through the marriage with Sigismund's only daughter Elizabeth of Luxembourg), started the rise of the Hohenzollerns and reboosted the Habsburgs (who returned to the German throne and also inherited the connection with Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia from Sigismund).

Final years

thumb|left|Calvary altar with the representation of King Sigismund of Hungary, 1427

In 1428, Sigismund led another campaign against the Ottoman Turks, but again with few results. In 1431, he went to Milan where on 25 November he received the Iron Crown as King of Italy; after which he remained for some time at Siena, negotiating for his coronation as emperor and for the recognition of the Council of Basel by Pope Eugenius IV. He was crowned emperor in Rome on 31 May 1433, and after obtaining his demands from the pope, returned to Bohemia, where he was recognised as king in 1436, though his power was little more than nominal. This was sparked by an Albanian revolt against the Ottomans, which had begun in 1432. In 1435, Sigismund sent Fruzhin, a Bulgarian nobleman, to negotiate an alliance with the Albanians. He also sent Daud, a pretender to the Ottoman throne, in early 1436. Sigismund died on 9 December 1437 at Znojmo (), Moravia (now Czech Republic), and as ordered in life, he was buried at Nagyvárad, Hungary (today Oradea, Romania), next to the tomb of the King Saint Ladislaus I of Hungary, who was the ideal of the perfect monarch, warrior and Christian for that time and was deeply venerated by Sigismund. By his second wife, Barbara of Cilli, he left an only daughter, Elisabeth of Luxembourg, who was married to Albert V, Duke of Austria (later German king as Albert II), whom Sigismund named as his successor. As he left no sons, the male line of Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor became extinct on his death.

Family and issue

Sigismund married twice but had little luck in securing the succession to his crowns. Each of his two marriages resulted in the birth of one child. His firstborn child, probably a son, was born prematurely as a result of a horse riding accident suffered by Mary, Queen of Hungary when she was well advanced in pregnancy. Mother and child both died shortly after the birth in the hills of Buda on 17 May 1395. This caused a deep succession crisis because Sigismund ruled over Hungary by right of his wife, and although he managed to keep his power, the crisis lasted until his second marriage to Barbara of Cilli. Barbara's only child, born in the purple on 7 October 1409, probably in the castle of Visegrád, was Elisabeth of Luxembourg, the future queen consort of Hungary, Germany, and Bohemia. Queen Barbara was unable to give birth to any further issue. Elizabeth of Luxembourg was thus the only surviving legitimate offspring of Sigismund.

Hungarian affiliations

thumb|Coat of arms of John Hunyadi

Sigismund was known to speak fluent Hungarian, wore Hungarian-style royal clothes, and even grew his beard in the Hungarian fashion. He also spent huge amounts of money during his reign to rebuild the Gothic castles of Buda and Visegrád in the Kingdom of Hungary, ordering the transportation of materials from Austria and Bohemia.

His many affairs with women led to the birth of several legends, as the one that existed decades later during the reign of the King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary. According to this, John Hunyadi was Sigismund's illegitimate son. Sigismund gave a ring to the boy's mother when he was born, but one day in the forest, a raven stole it from her, and the ring was only recovered after the bird was hunted down. It is said that this incident inspired the coat of arms of the Hunyadis, and later also appeared in the coat of arms of Matthias "Corvinus".

Sigismund adopted the Hungarian reverence for Saint Ladislaus I of Hungary, who was considered to be an ideal Christian knight at that time. He went on pilgrimage several times to his tomb in Nagyvárad. Before Sigismund died, in Znaim, Moravia, he ordered to be buried next to the king saint.

Through his father, Sigismund was a grandnephew of Wenceslaus III of Bohemia, one of a short-reigning monarch of Hungary between the Hungarian Árpád dynasty and Angevin dynasty. In addition, the bloodline of Sigismund connects through three princesses to the Árpád.

Reformatio Sigismundi

The Reformatio Sigismundi appeared in connection with efforts to reform the Holy Roman Empire during the reign of Emperor Sigismund (1410–1437). It was presented in 1439 at the Council of Basel, published by an anonymous author, and referred to the injustice of the German rulers. It included a vision of Sigismund's about the appearance of a priest-king, Frederick, as well as plans for a wide reform of the monarchy and emperorship and the German empire.

Historiography and cultural depictions of Sigismund

Titles

Title of Sigismund in the Hungarian first decree of 1405: "Sigismund, by the Grace of God, King of Hungary, Dalmatia, Croatia, Rama, Serbia, Galicia, Lodomeria, Cumania and Bulgaria, Margrave of Brandenburg, Chief Chamberlain of the Holy Roman Empire, Heir of Bohemia and Luxemburg."

Heraldry

{| class="toccolours" width="100%" align="center"

! style="background:#ccccff;"|Heraldry of Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor

{| class="wikitable" style="margin:1em auto; text-align:center;"

|155px

|132px

|Coat of arms as King of the Romans (1433–1437)

|Coat of arms as Holy Roman Emperor (1433–1437), king of Hungary and Bohemia

|132px

| colspan="2" |Arms of the House of Luxembourg-Hungary-Bohemia

|155px

|Coat of arms as Knight of the Garter

In popular culture

Films

King Sigismund is portrayed by Czech actor Jan Pivec in Czechoslovak movie series Hussite Revolutionary Trilogy directed by Otakar Vávra

King Sigismund is portrayed by British actor Matthew Goode in the 2022 film Jan Žižka by director Petr Jákl.

King and Emperor Sigismund are portrayed by Hungarian actor László Gálffi in the 2025 historical television series Rise of the Raven.

Video games

King Sigismund is a briefly seen antagonist in the 2018 Warhorse Studios action role-playing game Kingdom Come: Deliverance, where he leads an attack on the main character's village. The main character becomes involved in a plot which opposes Sigismund and aims to restore Wenceslaus to the Bohemian throne. Sigismund returned in Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, where he appeared at a city council meeting in Kuttenberg, accompanied by Markvart von Aulitz, was portrayed by Ondřej Vetchý.