SIGISMUND I - KING OF POLAND -
1467-1548
Robert Nisbet Bain
Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, 1910,
vol 25, pages 67-8
SIGISMUND I. (14671548), king of Poland, the fifth son
of Casimir IV and Elizabeth of Austria, was elected grand-duke of Lithuania on
the 21st of October 1505 and king of Poland on the 8th of January 1506.
Sigismund was the only one of the six sons of Casimir IV gifted with
extraordinary ability. He had served his apprenticeship in the art of
government first as prince of Glogau and subsequently as governor of Silesia
and margrave of Lusatia under his elder brother Wladislaus of Bohemia and
Hungary. Silesia, already more than half Germanized, had for generations been
the battle-ground between the Luxemburgers and the Piasts, and was split up
into innumerable principalities which warred incessantly upon their neighbours
and each other.
Into the midst of this region of banditti Sigismund came as a sort
of grand justiciar, a sworn enemy of every sort of disorder. His little
principality of Glogau soon became famous as a model state, and as governor of
Silesia he suppressed the robber knights with an iron hand, protected the
law-abiding classes, and revived commerce. In Poland also his thrift and
businesslike qualities speedily remedied the abuses caused by the wastefulness
of his predecessor Alexander. His first step was to recover control of the
mint, and place it in the hands of capable middle- class merchants and bankers,
like Caspar Beer, Jan Thurzo, Jan Boner, the Betmans, exiles for conscience'
sake from Alsace, who had sought refuge in Poland under Casimir IV, Justus
Decyusz, subsequently the king's secretary and historian, and their fellows,
all practical economists of high integrity who reformed the currency and opened
out new ways for trade and commerce. The reorganization of the mint alone
increased the royal revenue by 220,000 gulden a year and enabled Sigismund to
pay the expenses of his earlier wars. In foreign affairs Sigismund was largely
guided by the Laskis (Adam, Jan and Hieronymus), Jan Tarnowski and others, most
of whom he selected himself. In his marriages also he was influenced by
political considerations, though to both his consorts he was an affectionate
husband. His first wife, whom the diet, anxious for the perpetuation of the
dynasty, compelled him, already in his forty-fourth year (Feb. 25,2), to marry,
was Barbara Zapolya, whose family as represented first by her father Stephen
and subsequently by her brother John, dominated Hungarian politics in the last
quarter of the 15th and the first quarter of the 16th century. Barbara brought
him a dower of 100,000 gulden and the support of the Magyar magnates, but the
match nearly brought about a breach with the emperor Maximilian, jealous
already of the Jagiello influence in Hungary. On Barbara's death three years
later without male offspring, Sigismund (in April 1518) gave his hand to Bona
Sforza, a kinswoman of the emperor and granddaughter of the king of Aragon, who
came to him with a dowry of 200,000 ducats and the promise of an inheritance
from her mother of half a million more which she never got. Bona's grace and
beauty speedily fascinated Sigismund, and contemporary satirists ridiculed him
for playing the part of Jove to her Juno. She introduced Italian elegance and
luxury into the austere court of Cracow and exercised no inconsiderable
influence on affairs. But she used her great financial and economical talents
almost entirely for her own benefit. She enriched herself at the expense of the
state, corrupted society, degraded the clergy, and in her later years was
universally detested for her mischievous meddling, inexhaustible greed, and
unnatural treatment of her children.
The first twenty years of Sigismund's reign were marked by
exceptional vigour. His principal difficulties were due to the aggressiveness
of Muscovy and the disloyalty of Prussia. With the tsars Vasily III and Ivan IV
Sigismund was never absolutely at peace. The interminable war was interrupted,
indeed, by brief truces whenever Polish valour proved superior to Muscovite
persistence, as for instance after the great victory of Orsza (Sept. 1514) and
again in 1522 when Moscow was threatened by the Tatars. But the Tatars
themselves were a standing menace to the republic. In the open field, indeed,
they were generally defeated (e.g. at Wisniowiec in 1512 and at Kaniow
in 1526), yet occasionally, as at Sokal when they wiped out a whole Polish
army, they prevailed even in pitched battles. Generally, however, they confined
themselves to raiding on a grand scale and, encouraged by the Porte or the
Muscovite, systematically devastated whole provinces, penetrating even into the
heart of Poland proper and disappearing with immense booty. It was this growing
sense of border insecurity which led to the establishment of the Cossacks (see
POLAND: History).
The grand-masters of the Teutonic Order, always sure of support in
Germany, were also a constant source of annoyance. Their constant aim was to
shake off Polish suzerainty, and in 152022 their menacing attitude
compelled Sigismund to take up arms against them. The long quarrel was finally
adjusted in 1525 when the last grand-master, after a fruitless pilgrimage
through Europe for support, professed Lutheranism and as first duke of Prussia
did public homage to the Polish king in the market-place of Cracow. The
secularization of Prussia was opposed by the more religious of Sigismund's
counsellors, and the king certainly exposed himself to considerable odium in
the Catholic world; but taking all the circumstances into consideration, it was
perhaps the shortest way out of a situation brisling with
difficulties.
Personally a devout Catholic and opposed in principle to the spread
of sectarianism in Poland, Sigismund was nevertheless too wise and just to
permit the persecution of non-Catholics; and in Lithuania, where a fanatical
Catholic minority of magnates dominated the senate, he resolutely upheld the
rights of his Orthodox subjects. Thus he rewarded the Orthodox upstart, Prince
Constantine Ortrogski, for his victory at Orsza by making him palatine of
Troki, despite determined opposition from the Catholics; severely punished all
disturbers of the worship of the Greek schismatics; protected the Jews in the
country places, and insisted that the municipalities of the towns should be
composed of an equal number of Catholics and Orthodox Greeks. By his tact,
equity, and Christian charity, Sigismund endeared himself even to those who
differed most from him, as witness the readiness of the Lithuanians to elect
his infant son grand-duke of Lithuania in 1522, and to crown him in
1529.
After his sixtieth year there was a visible decline in the energy
and capacity of Sigismund. To the outward eye his gigantic strength and
herculean build lent him the appearance of health and vigour, but forty years
of unintermittent toil and anxiety had told upon him, and during the last
two-and-twenty years of his reign, by which time all his old self-chosen
counsellors had died off, he apathetically resigned himself to the course of
events without making any sustained effort to stem the rising tide of
Protestantism and democracy. He had no sympathy with the new men and the new
ideas, and the malcontents in Poland often insulted the aged king with
impunity. Thus, at his last diet, held at Piotrkow in 1547, Lupa Podlodowski,
the champion of the szlachta, openly threatened him with rebellion.
Sigismund died on the 1st of April 1548. By Bona he had five childrenone
son, Sigismund Augustus, who succeeded him, and four daughters, Isabella, who
married John Zapolya, prince of Transylvania2 Sophia, who married the duke of
Brunswick, Catherine, who as the wife of John III. of Sweden became the mother
of the Polish Vasas, and Ann, who subsequently wedded King Stephen
Bathory.
See August Sokolowski, History of Poland (Pol.), vol. ii.
(Vienna, 1904); Zygmunt Celichowski, Materials for the history of the reign
of Sigismund the Old (Pol.) (Posen, 1900); Adolf Pawinski, The youthful
years of Sigismund the Old (Pol.) (Warsaw, 1893); Adam Darowski, Bona
Sforza (1904). (R. N. B.)