Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor

So thanks for joining me.

It's Halloween week and I figured I'd talk about something that is relevant to it, namely the king of all spooks, Dracula, because I actually know a thing or two about him, the real Dracula and the fake Dracula.

And it's actually going to make for a very interesting discussion to figure out what it's all really about going on with Hollywood and The fake, fictitious Dracula, the real Dracula, how they coincide and what it all means, especially in the context of Halloween.

So actually, let's start with a few words about Halloween.

I mean, there's various theories, of course, a lot of pagan, pre-Christian sorts of things that wormed their way in.

The theories I remember coming across, one is that people would dress in scary guises in order to keep scary evil spirits away.

Another one actually does kind of include little kids and going around looking for candy and whatnot.

But anyway, it finally morphed into what it is today.

He was forced to enlist large numbers of French soldiers to fill up the gaps in his English army.

He sent envoys to the Emperor Sigismund, soliciting help in men-at-arms and archers, and a similar request was also made to John, King of Portugal.

in addition to losses in the field and by sickness four thousand of his men are said to have died of an epidemic in the course of a single march during the campaign on the loire and still it was necessary to garrison every town or fortress of military importance that might be won from the enemy arthur younger brother of the duke of brittany who had some time before been released from his long imprisonment came with a considerable reinforcement to join the army and after christmas the duke of burgundy paid a visit to the king who had by that time returned to the camp but the duke did not stay long for a serious family quarrel had arisen between the two princes jacqueline duchess of brabant had left her husband and taken refuge at the english court where henry had welcomed her with assurance of his protection the duke of burgundy on the other hand took up the cause of his kinsman the duke of brabant with much energy and a serious difference was the result meanwhile on december the sixth queen catherine had given birth to a son the unfortunate henry of windsor the king for some reason that is not explained found an augury of evil so at least runs the story in the fact that windsor was the birthplace of his heir he is reported to have said to his chamberlain i henry born at monmouth shall small time reign and get much and henry born at windsor shall long long reign and lose all but god's will be done the prophecy whether made before or after the event was certainly fulfilled with singular exactness perhaps the great conqueror already felt that his own time was short and he had certainly had sufficient proof that when his own presence was withdrawn things were not likely to go well During the winter and early spring, the siege of Meurs was vigorously prosecuted.

The king had, however, scarcely sufficient troops for the work, the more so as he was more than once obliged to detach a force to serve elsewhere.

In fact, the Holy Roman Emperor was in charge of all of this land.

The Holy Roman Emperor at the time is a man named Sigismund, and it's his brother who is actually the ruler of Bohemia.

okay so there is we're in bohemia we're in you know modern day czech republic but it's ruled by germany and this is important because hoose enters the university of prague and there's a struggle that had been going on there already between the czech locals and the germans Though there was a mixture of national demographic, you know, different nationalities that were a part of the university, the student body was still about 50% Czech, Czech locals.

But the faculty was... overwhelmingly German.

First you get crowned king of the Romans, then you get crowned Holy Roman Emperor.

His other garbage son, Sigismund, is over in Hungary and he's the king of Hungary, right? And so they are taking care of those kingdoms.

And then when Charles shuffles off the mortal coil, Wenceslas is in charge of Bohemia and he's supposed to

be the Holy Roman Emperor,

right?

And people don't like him very much.

So it sort of skips off of him and onto his brother Sigismund instead.

Okie doke.

Epitaph, you began with the father of chivalry.

if we believe the sources, is a quote that was given directly by one of the most prestigious events that he hosts, which is in 1416, when Richard is responsible for hosting, first in Calais, but then also in England, the King of the Germans, the future Holy Roman Emperor, who is Sigismund of Luxembourg.

And he was...

I suppose like a lot of Roman emperors, he had a great title and a great name, but was pretty useless himself.

So he throws these extraordinary pageants.

He takes him jousting, takes him hunting, puts on plays for him, spends an absolute fortune kind of performatively showing him how grand and illustrious the English were.

And it's said that Sigismund had been so impressed by Richard that he says, you know, no Christian prince will ever have a nobleman as glorious as the Earl of Warwick.

And he describes him then as the father of chivalry, you know, the most glorious, the most chivalric knight in all of Europe.

He was Prince Frederick, son of Herman II, Count of Sel, who ruled a large portion of modern-day Slovenia and Croatia.

Frederick's sister, Barbara, was the wife of Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund.

The prince was enchanted by the beautiful golden-haired maiden and fell in love with her.

Unfortunately, he was already married to Elizabeth Francopan.

Very small detachments of knights from the surrounding Christian countries, such as Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania, Croatia, and Wallachia, may have come to Lazar's aid, who tried to gather as large a coalition as possible.

But his primary concern was maintaining a precarious peace with Hungary, where not too long ago he meddled in the Hungarian Civil War against King Sigismund.

With his army gathered, Lazar marched off to meet the Ottomans.

Meanwhile, Sultan Murad passed through the territory of his Serbian vassal, Constantine Dijanović, and advanced to meet Lazar.