Duke of Austria (1427?1496)
Sigismund
(26 October 1427 – 4 March 1496), a member of the
House of Habsburg
, was
Duke of Austria
from 1439 (elevated to
Archduke
in 1477) until his death. As a scion of the Habsburg
Leopoldian line
, he ruled over
Further Austria
and the
County of Tyrol
from 1446 until his resignation in 1490.
Biography
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Sigismund (or
Siegmund
, sometimes also spelled
Sigmund
) was born at the Tyrolean court in
Innsbruck
; his parents were the Further Austrian duke
Frederick IV of Austria
and his second wife
Anna of Brunswick
[
de
]
, a daughter of the
Welf
duke
Frederick I of Brunswick-Luneburg
. A minor upon his father's death in 1439, the
Inner Austrian
duke
Frederick V
, Sigismund's first cousin, acted as regent until 1446. Frederick, elected
King of the Romans
(as
Frederick IV
) in February 1440, exploited all opportunities to extend his influence over the Further Austrian lands. He also interfered in the
Old Zurich War
in order to regain the former Habsburg territories lost to the
Swiss Confederacy
, while the Tyrolean nobles urged him to cede the rule to Sigismund.
The mines of Tyrol remained an important source of revenue for Frederick and not until 1446, upon the end of his regency, Sigismund could accede to rulership over the Further Austrian (
Vorderosterreich
) possessions, which also included the
Swabian
territories of the
Sundgau
in southern
Alsace
, the
Breisgau
, and numerous smaller estates. His cousin had planned to marry him off to the
French
princess
Radegonde
, a daughter of King
Charles VII the Victorious
, however, she died in 1445.
Sigismund, represented by Ludwig von Landsee, married Princess
Eleanor of Scotland
, the daughter of the
Stuart
king
James I
, on 8 September 1449, in an Augustinian church near Chinon.
Sigismund was able to acquire large parts of the former
County of Bregenz
(in present-day
Vorarlberg
) in 1451 and further estates in the
Großwalsertal
and
Kleinwalsertal
. Nevertheless, he had to cope with claims raised by Frederick's brother, Archduke
Albert VI of Austria
, and temporarily had to cede the rule over several Further Austrian territories to him. For much of his reign, he was engaged in disputes with
Nicholas of Cusa
, then
Prince-bishop of Brixen
and raised to
Cardinal
in 1449, for the control of the Tyrolean
Eisack
,
Puster
and
Inn
valleys. Sigismund sided with Nicholas' opponent
Gregory of Heimburg
and in 1460, when he marched against the bishop's residence at
Bruneck
Castle, he was excommunicated by
Pope Pius II
.
Nicholas fled to
Todi
in the
Papal States
, but fell ill and died in 1464, before the archduke surrendered in order to receive the papal pardon.
In 1469, Sigismund sold several of his Swabian lands on the
Rhine
river, including the Alsace landgraviate, the
County of Pfirt
(
Ferrette
), the Breisgau and further cities, to the
Burgundian
Duke
Charles the Bold
. Sources are unclear, whether he sold them due to his debts he had accumulated owing to his luxurious lifestyle, or just "rented" them because he wanted to have them protected better against the expansion of the Swiss Confederacy. In turn, he extended his Vorarlberg possessions, purchasing the
County of Sonnenberg
in 1474 and, together with the Swiss (with whom he had concluded a peace treaty in
Konstanz
) and the Alsatian cities, he sided against Duke Charles of Burgundy in the
Battle of Hericourt
.
In 1477, his cousin Frederick, crowned
Holy Roman Emperor
in 1452, elevated him to
Archduke
. Three years later, Princess Eleanor died, and in 1484, Sigismund married the 16-year-old
Catherine of Saxony
, daughter of the
Wettin
duke
Albert III of Saxony
. He had no offspring from either marriage.
In the later years of the 1470s and early 1480s Sigismund issued a decree that instituted a radical coinage reformation that eventually led up to the creation of the world's first really large and heavy silver coin in nearly a millennium, the
guldengroschen
, which the Habsburgs in
Bohemia
developed later into the
thaler
. This coin was the ancestor of many of the major European coin denominations to come later and also of the US dollar. Using new mining methods and technology, the largely quiescent silver mines in Tirol were brought back into production and soon numerous surrounding states were re-opening old mines and minting similar coins. This production of large coinage exploded as silver from Spain's colonies in the Americas flooded the European economy. It is from these reforms in part that Sigismund acquired the nickname of
der Munzreiche
, or "rich in coin".
Sigismund was easily swayed by the bad advice of his council and in March 1487 entered into a pointless war with the
Republic of Venice
, sometimes called the
War of Rovereto
. Tyrolean forces quickly seized silver mines in the
Valsugana
valley owned by Venice, and in April 1487 Sigismund outraged Venice further when he imprisoned 130 Venetian merchants traveling to the fair at Bozen (modern
Bolzano
) and confiscated their goods. Tyrol stormed the Pass of
Calliano
and later besieged the castle at
Rovereto
using a massive
bombard
, one of the earliest times such a large piece had been used in warfare. The war continued through summer but ended with no decisive victory for either side. One notable
casualty
of the conflict was the condottiero
Roberto Sanseverino d'Aragona
.
By 1490 the opposition of Tyrolean nobles compelled Sigismund to hand over the rulership to Frederick's son
Archduke Maximilian
, who later succeeded his father as Holy Roman Emperor. Whether Sigismund voluntarily handed over power to Maximilian or was strongly coerced by the latter is not clear. With Sigismund's death in 1496, the Tyrolean branch of the Habsburg Leopoldian line became extinct, leaving Archduke Maximilian as sole heir to all the dynasty's possessions.
Male-line family tree
[
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]
See also
[
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]
References
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- Baillie-Grohnman, William Adolph (1907).
The Land in the Mountains
. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company. pp. 93?96.
- Classen, Albrecht (2018).
Toleration and Tolerance in Medieval and Early Modern European Literature
. Routledge.
- Coxe, William (1847).
History of the House of Austria
(third ed.). London: Henry G. Bohn, New York Street, Covent Garden.
- Van Dyke, Paul (1905).
Renaissance Portraits
. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
- Watanabe, Morimichi (2011). Christianson, Gerald; Izbicki, Thomas M. (eds.).
Nicholas of Cusa: A Companion to his Life and his Times
. Ashgate Publishing.
External links
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]
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Generations are numbered by male-line descent from the first archdukes. Later generations are included although Austrian titles of nobility were abolished in 1919.
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1st generation
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2nd generation
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4th generation
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5th generation
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9th generation
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11th generation
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12th generation
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13th generation
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14th generation
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15th generation
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16th generation
| | Habsburg
Tuscany
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Palatines
of Hungary
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17th generation
| Descent of
Charles I
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Tuscany
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Palatines
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18th generation
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19th generation
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- S:
also an infante of Spain
- P:
also an infante of Portugal
- T:
also a prince of Tuscany
- M:
also a prince of Modena
- B:
also a prince of Belgium
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International
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People
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Other
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