SIGISMUND OF LUXEMBOURG, Emperor. - Second son of Charles IV of Luxembourg, king of Bohemia and emperor, and of Mary of Valois, daughter of Philip VI, king of France, b. at Prague on 15 February 1361. His father secured for him the crown of Hungary, but Sigismund encountered serious opposition in Charles of Durazzo and only in 1387, after Charles's assassination, could he be crowned. The Kingdom of Hungary was under Sigismund repeatedly disturbed by the Turkish threat: in 1396 Sigismund was defeated by Sultan Murad at Nicopolis. He also had to fight repeatedly and in vain against Venice for the possession of Dalmatia and the patriarchate of Aquileia.
Elected king of the Romans on 20 September 1410, he was recognized by all on 21 July 1411. His only financial base, however, was the Kingdom of Hungary, and in order to rely upon it he was forced to have recourse to the great Magyar aristocracy and to favor the scanty bourgeoisie of the Hungarian cities in order to draw money from them; thus he did not even hesitate to assert rights over the bishoprics. The heavy tax burden weighing greatly on the rural classes produced discontent and rebellions. As for the affairs of the Empire, already in 1411 he ceded the margraviate of Brandenburg to one of his loyal supporters, Frederick of Hohenzollern, burgrave of Nuremberg, creating the foundations of that dynasty's power. Preoccupied by the fortunes of the Teutonic Order in crisis after the defeat of Tannenberg, he induced the victor Ladislaus of Poland to a mild peace at Thorn. Considering himself entitled as king of the Romans to provide, in favor of the Church, for the cessation of the schism, he came to an agreement with John XXIII at the meeting of Como (1413) for an ecumenical Council to be assembled at Constance on 1 November 1414; and indeed it was opened by John XXIII on 5 November 1414. After the conciliar decision that the three rival Popes should renounce in order to re-establish union, he acted energetically against John XXIII, who refused, and against Frederick of Austria, his protector. To convince the Avignon pope Benedict XIII to yield, the Emperor went as far as Perpignan (July-November 1415). He did not succeed in his aim, but he knew how to induce the Spanish monarchs to submit to the Council. Preoccupied by the spread of the Hussite heresy in Bohemia,
(phot. Boissonnas)
SIGISMUND, king of BURGUNDY, saint, martyr - Reliquary casket of St. S. Romanesque art (12th century) - St-Maurice, Treasury of the abbey church.
he willed that John Hus should present himself before the Council and granted him a safe-conduct. He encouraged the Council, however, to combat the heresy, attended the trial of Hus and approved the condemnation to the stake.
On the death of the king of Bohemia Wenceslaus (18 August 1419), his brother, the succession fell to Sigismund; but in Bohemia now nobles and burghers asked Sigismund to recognize the four articles proclaimed by the University of Prague, the cornerstones of their faith. The religious conflict was complicated by an antagonism of the Bohemian nation against Germany, which was headed by Sigismund. The latter ordered the rebels to return to the Catholic Church; the consequence was the open rebellion whose target was the small town of Hradiste, which the Hussites called Tabor. The military leader of the rebels was Jan Žižka. Sigismund had the crusade against the heretics preached by Martin V, and with the German princes who recognized him as king of Bohemia he organized a military expedition. He succeeded in entering Prague Castle and in having himself crowned (28 July 1420), but immediately afterward he had to withdraw. Subsequent expeditions of the German crusaders failed. In Bohemia the Diet proclaimed that it no longer recognized Sigismund as king and sought another: Vytautas of Lithuania, when invited, sent his nephew Korybut, who was made regent and then was recognized as king by a part of the Czechs; but soon a rebellion broke out against him as well, and in 1427 he was driven out. The country remained throughout all these years without a true government: among the rebels various tendencies formed: against the Taborites there were the Utraquists, and these pursued other, more advanced religious currents. Žižka was succeeded in military command by the priest Procopius, who in 1427 repelled a new German expedition led by Albert of Austria, Sigismund's son-in-law. Then Procopius went over to the offensive, and his fanatical bands invaded Germany at various points. Negotiations for an agreement took place only after 1432, through the efforts of the Council of Basel and of Sigismund, with the more moderate rebel groups. When Procopius disappeared in an internal conflict in 1434, the more moderate prevailed, and Sigismund made himself mediator between the Council and his subjects. On 5 July 1436 at Iglau the compactata were concluded, which re-established in an equivocal manner the religious peace in Bohemia. In August Sigismund was finally able to re-enter his Kingdom. In Germany too Sigismund made very brief stays, after the closing of the Council of Constance, arousing great discontent among the princes, who in 1421 threatened him with deposition. Crowned king of Italy at Milan and then emperor at Rome (31 May 1433), Sigismund thought he could assert his authority in Germany with new energy. After his death there was talk of a reformatio Sigismundi which would have reduced feudalism, secularized the ecclesiastical princes, abolished serfdom, and imposed a rigid ecclesiastical discipline. In his government Sigismund knew how to assert imperial prestige notably. He came to his death at Znaim on 9 December 1437, while that rupture between Eugene IV and the Council of Basel, which he had sought to prevent, was taking place. - See pl. XXXVII.