Sigismund (1368-1437) was king of Hungary from 1385 to 1437, Holy Roman emperor from 1411 to 1437, and king of Bohemia from 1420 to 1437.

Born on Feb. 15, 1368, Sigismund was the second son of the emperor Charles IV and the brother of the emperor Wenceslaus. His reign as king of Hungary and Holy Roman emperor witnessed three of the most crucial events in later medieval history: the Turkish invasion of Hungary and the defeat of the ill-fated Crusade of Nicopolis in 1396; the burning of John Hus as a heretic and the subsequent revolution of the Hussites in Bohemia; and the important Council of Constance (1415-1417), over which Sigismund presided and which ended the Great Schism in the Roman Catholic Church (1378-1415). His complicity in Hus's death alienated Sigismund from the Czechs and deprived him of the Bohemian resources of the imperial house of Luxemburg, of which he was the last member.

King of Hungary...