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Sigismund
Sigismund
Archduke of Austria
	Portrait by the Master of the Mornauer Portrait, circa 1470 (Alte Pinakothek, Munich)
Born	26 October 1427; Innsbruck, Tyrol
Died	4 March 1496 (aged 68); Innsbruck
Burial	Stams Abbey
Spouse	Eleanor of Scotland; Catherine of Saxony
House	House of Habsburg
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 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-Lüneburg. 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 Zürich 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 (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 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.^[2] 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 Héricourt.

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 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.

Male-line family tree

House of Habsburg^{[n 1]}

Original line

Albert
Count of Habsburg
c. 1188–1239

Rudolf I
of Germany
c. 1218–1291

Albert I
of Germany
1255–1308

Hartmann
1263–1281

Rudolf II
Duke of Austria
1270–1290

Rudolf I
of Bohemia
1281–1307

Frederick
the Fair
c. 1289–1330

Leopold I
Duke of Austria
1290–1326

Albert II
Duke of Austria
1298–1358

Henry
the Friendly
1299–1327

Otto
Duke of Austria
1301–1339

John
Parricida
c. 1290–1312/1313

Albertinian line

Leopoldian line

Rudolf IV
Duke of Austria
1339–1365

Frederick III
1347–1362

Albert III
Duke of Austria
1349–1395

Leopold III
Duke of Austria
1351–1386

Frederick II
Duke of Austria
1327–1344

Leopold II
Duke of Austria
1328–1344

Albert IV
Duke of Austria
1377–1404

William
Duke of Austria
c. 1370–1406

Leopold IV
Duke of Austria
1371–1411

Ernest
Duke of Austria
1377–1424

Frederick IV
Duke of Austria
1382–1439

Albert II
of Germany
1397–1439

Frederick III
HRE
1415–1493

Albert VI
Archduke of Austria
1418–1463

Sigismund
Archduke of Austria
1427–1496

Ladislaus
the Posthumous
1440–1457

Maximilian I
HRE
1459–1519

Philip I
of Castile
1478–1506

Spanish / Iberian line

Austrian / HRE line

Charles V
HRE
1500–1558

Ferdinand I
HRE
1503–1564

Philip II
of Spain
1527–1598

Maximilian II
HRE
1527–1576

Ferdinand II
Archduke of Austria
1529–1595

Charles II
Archduke of Austria
1540–1590

Carlos
Prince of Asturias
1545–1568

Philip III
of Spain
1578–1621

Rudolf II
HRE
1552–1612

Ernest
of Austria
1553–1595

Matthias
HRE
1557–1619

Maximilian III
Archduke of Austria
1558–1618

Albert VII
Archduke of Austria
1559–1621

Wenceslaus
Archduke of Austria
1561–1578

Andrew
Margrave of Burgau
1558–1600

Charles
Margrave of Burgau
1560–1618

Ferdinand II
HRE
1578–1637

Maximilian Ernest
of Austria
1583–1616

Leopold V
Archduke of Austria
1586–1632

Charles
of Austria
1590–1624

Philip IV
of Spain
1605–1665

Charles
of Austria
1607–1632

Ferdinand
of Austria
1609–1641

John-Charles
of Austria
1605–1619

Ferdinand III
HRE
1608–1657

Leopold Wilhelm
of Austria
1614–1662

Ferdinand Charles
Archduke of Austria
1628–1662

Sigismund Francis
Archduke of Austria
1630–1665

Balthasar Charles
Prince of Asturias
1629–1646

Charles II
of Spain
1661–1700

Ferdinand IV
King of the Romans
1633–1654

Leopold I
HRE
1640–1705

Charles Joseph
of Austria
1649–1664

Joseph I
HRE
1678–1711

Charles VI
HRE
1685–1740

Notes:

^ "Habsburg family tree". Habsburg family website. 28 October 2023. Retrieved 28 October 2023.

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

Encyclopedia of Austria

Regnal titles
Sigismund, Archduke of Austria House of Habsburg Born: 26 October 1427 Died: 4 March 1496
Preceded by Frederick IV	Duke of Further Austria Count of Tyrol 1439–1490	Succeeded by Maximilian I