266px|thumb|right|Poland and Lithuania in 1526Sigismund I the Old (; ; 1 January 1467 – 1 April 1548) of the
Jagiellon dynasty reigned as King of
Poland and also as the
Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1506 until 1548. Earlier, Sigismund had been invested as
Duke of Silesia.
Biography
The son of King
Casimir IV Jagiellon and
Elisabeth of Austria, Sigismund followed his brothers
John I of Poland and
Alexander I of Poland to the Polish throne. Their elder brother
Ladislaus II of Hungary and Bohemia became king of
Hungary and
Bohemia.
Sigismund was christened as the namesake of his mother's maternal grandfather,
Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, who had died in 1437.
Sigismund faced the challenge of consolidating internal power in order to face external threats to the country. During Alexander's reign, the law
Nihil novi had been instituted, which forbade Kings of Poland from enacting laws without the consent of the
Sejm. This proved crippling to Sigismund's dealings with the
szlachta and
magnates.
Despite this
Achilles heel, he established (1527) a conscription army and the bureaucracy needed to finance it.
After the death of
Janusz III of Masovia in 1526, he succeeded in annexing the
Duchy of Masovia.
Intermittently at war with
Vasily III of
Muscovy, starting in 1507 (before his army was fully under his command), 1514 marked the fall of
Smolensk (under Polish domination) to the Muscovite forces (which lent force to his arguments for the necessity of a standing army). Those conflicts formed part of the
Muscovite wars. 1515 he entered an alliance with the
Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I.
In return for Maximilian lending weight to the provisions of the
Second Peace of Thorn (1466), Sigismund consented to the marriage of the children of
Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary, his brother, to the grandchildren of Maximilian. Through this double marriage contract,
Bohemia and
Hungary passed to the House of
Habsburg in 1526, on the death of Sigismund's nephew,
Louis II.
The Polish wars against the
Teutonic Knights ended in 1525, when
Albert, Duke of Prussia, their marshal (and Sigismund's nephew), converted to
Lutheranism, secularized the order, and paid homage to Sigismund. In return, he was given the domains of the Order, as the First Duke of
Prussia. This was called the
Prussian Homage.
Sigismund's eldest daughter
Hedwig (1513-1573) married
Joachim II Hector, Elector of Brandenburg.
In other matters of policy, Sigismund sought peaceful coexistence with the
Khanate of Crimea, but was unable to completely end border skirmishes.
Sigismund was interested in Renaissance humanism and the revival of classical antiquity. He and his third consort,
Bona Sforza, daughter of
Gian Galeazzo Sforza of
Milan, were both patrons of
Renaissance culture, which under them began to flourish in Poland and in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
On Sigismund's death, his son
Sigismund II August became the last Jagiellon king of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania.
Sigismund I was a member of the
Order of the Golden Fleece.
Marriages and issue
In 1512, Sigismund married a Hungarian noblewoman named
Barbara Zápolya, with whom he had two daughters:
Barbara died in 1515.
In 1517, Sigismund married
Bona Sforza, with whom he had:
Gallery
Ancestors
Heritage
See also
|-
Category:Roman Catholic monarchsCategory:Polish monarchsCategory:Grand Dukes of LithuaniaCategory:House of JagiellonCategory:Knights of the Golden FleeceCategory:1467 birthsCategory:1548 deathsbe:Жыгімонт Старыbe-x-old:Жыгімонт Старыcs:Zikmund I. Starýde:Sigismund I. (Polen)et:Zygmunt Ies:Segismundo I Jagellón el Viejoeo:Sigismondo la 1-a (Pollando-Litovio)eu:Sigismundo I.a Poloniakoafr:Sigismond Ier de Pologneit:Sigismondo I di Poloniahe:זיגמונד הראשון, מלך פוליןka:სიგიზმუნდ Ila:Sigismundus I (rex Poloniae)lv:Sigismunds I Vecaislt:Žygimantas Senasishu:I. Zsigmond lengyel királynl:Sigismund I van Polenja:ジグムント1世pl:Zygmunt I Staryro:Sigismund I al Polonieiru:Сигизмунд Isr:Жигмунд Пољскиsv:Sigismund I av Polentr:I. Zygmuntuk:Сигізмунд I Старийbat-smg:Žīgėmonts II Senasis
