Sigismund, Archduke of Austria
Sigismund | |
---|---|
Archduke of Austria | |
![]() Portrait by the Master of the Mornauer Portrait, circa 1470 (Alte Pinakothek, Munich) | |
Born | 26 October 1427 Innsbruck, Tyrol |
Died | Innsbruck | 4 March 1496 (aged 68)
Buried | Stams Abbey |
Noble family | House of Habsburg |
Spouse(s) | Eleanor of Scotland Catherine of Saxony |
Father | Frederick IV, Duke of Austria |
Mother | Anna of Brunswick-Lüneburg |
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
Sigismund (or Siegmund, sometimes also spelled Sigmund) was born at the Tyrolean court in
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 (Vorderösterreich) 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.[1] 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.[1]
Sigismund was able to acquire large parts of the former
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1f/SigismundAustria.jpg/220px-SigismundAustria.jpg)
In 1469, Sigismund sold several of his Swabian lands on the
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.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/db/Half_Guldiner_Sigismund_1484_691929.jpg/220px-Half_Guldiner_Sigismund_1484_691929.jpg)
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 Münzreiche, 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.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8e/Zikmund_tyrolsko.jpg/170px-Zikmund_tyrolsko.jpg)
Male-line family tree
See also
- Burgundy Wars
- Sigmundskron Castle
References
- ^ a b Watanabe 2011, p. 105.
- ^ Classen 2018, p. 206-207.
References
- 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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