Barbara from Cilli

King Sigismund and Queen Barbara on the train to Constance Minster at the Council of Constance

Barbara von Cilli ( Hungarian Cillei Borbála , Slovenian Barbara Celjska , Czech Barbora Cellská ; * around 1390 ; † July 11, 1451 in Mělník ) from the noble family of Cillier was the second wife of Emperor Sigismund . She took an active part in politics, was governor in Hungary several times in the absence of her husband and was crowned Roman-German, Hungarian and Bohemian queen. She also had a reputation as an astrologer and alchemist .

Life

She was the daughter of Count Hermann II von Cilli and Anna von Schaunberg . Hermann II had successfully pursued the release and reinstatement of Sigismund, who was temporarily deposed as the Hungarian king, whereupon Sigismund thanked Hermann for his support after his official reinstatement in 1401 by asking for his youngest daughter Barbara. The engagement to King Sigismund, who was more than twenty years his senior, was negotiated as early as 1401; they did not marry until December 1405. In 1409 she gave birth to their first daughter Elisabeth (in Czech Alžběta), who later married Albrecht von Habsburg . There was also another daughter.

In the beginning Barbara often stayed in Hungary , where she owned large estates, several times in the absence of her husband, who was on the road in political business, was governor and was crowned Queen of Hungary in 1408. On November 8, 1414, she was crowned Roman-German queen together with Sigismund, making her the last Roman-German queen to be crowned in Aachen . She made an impression on contemporaries with her liveliness and beauty when she accompanied her husband to the Council of Constance , which was in session from 1414 to 1418 , where she stayed for almost a year before she returned to Hungary in December 1415 and there until her husband returned in 1419 had sole political responsibility. An alleged mutual alienation of the couple (with respective affairs of both spouses) reported by various chroniclers is countered by the great political influence that it exerted on her husband. At the coronation of her husband as King of Bohemia in 1420, which was under the sign of the Hussite Wars that had already started , she was not present and was only crowned Queen of Bohemia in 1437 when it was about the succession of King Sigismund, who died soon afterwards. She also carried out extensive financial transactions with the imperial princes in his name.

In the dispute over the succession of Sigismund in 1437 she stood in connection with the Bohemians against her Habsburg son-in-law, Albrecht, who was designated by Sigismund, who was hated by many Bohemians as one of the main opponents in the Hussite Wars, and instead favored the Polish King Władysław III. Barbara was temporarily imprisoned by Albrecht in Bratislava, but managed to escape to Poland in 1438. She was therefore temporarily ostracized by the now "almost emperor" Albrecht II and he also confiscated her extensive estates in Hungary. The Polish king invaded Bohemia with an army, but in the end had to give up his claims to power over Bohemia. Barbara only returned from Poland a few years after Albrecht's death (1439) in 1441, lived in Mělník, where she died of the plague on July 11, 1451 ; she was buried in the royal tomb in Prague .

Reputation as an alchemist and occultist

She devoted herself to the occult sciences and dealt with alchemy, which displeased some contemporaries. This went so far that later legends arose that she was treated as a vampire during the Constance Council in Constance and that she is still feared as a bloodsucker in the Balkans today. The World Chronicle by Hartmann Schedel in 1493 is also a sign of her bad obituary as the “German Messalina ” , which was promoted by the dynastically competing Habsburgs. Schedel calls her, following the text he wrote by Enea Silvio Piccolomini , a “pretty nasty woman” and writes: She fell into such an absurd plinthait that she was called the holy iunckfrawen who cristo was obviously foolish about because of the deadly hidden hetten And says that after this life no one else lives. and the body and sele would die together.

The Bohemian alchemist Johann von Laatz (Joannes de Lasnioro) is said to have reported about their chemical experiments in a manuscript from around 1440, which the doctor Benedikt Nikolaus Petraeus reported in the foreword of his edition of the Chymische Schriften by Basilius Valentinus . Then Laatz tested her alchemical knowledge. She replied “with feminine delicacy” and, in front of his eyes, colored copper white with a powder made from mercury, arsenic and ingredients she had hidden, and thus ostensibly converted it into silver. Laatz found, however, that although the line was like silver, the metal did not pass the hammer test. She also demonstrated many similar “tricks” to him, including making “gold” with “iron saffron”, “copper lime” and other powders that lost its color again when melted. Laatz wrote that she had deceived many merchants with it. When he accused her of cheating, she threatened to imprison him, but he would have escaped again "with God's help".

Other princes of her time also dealt with alchemy, in particular Johann von Brandenburg-Kulmbach , whom she promoted politically with her husband, how she generally had good relationships with the House of Brandenburg and used them for the benefit of her husband.

gallery

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  Barbara von Cilli at the Council of Constance (enlargement)

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  Barbara von Cilli on horseback, Konrad Kyeser

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  Barbara von Cilli, Ulrich von Richenthal

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  Your seal

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  Barbara from Cilli

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  Your coat of arms from Trencin Castle

Others

On September 26, 2014, the Post in Slovenia issued a stamp pad on the occasion of the 600th anniversary of the coronation of Barbara von Cilli as Roman-German Queen.
On November 17, 2014, Banka Slovenije issued a 2 euro commemorative coin on the same occasion .

literature

• Jette Anders: 33 alchemists. The hidden side of an ancient science. Past Publishing, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86408-204-7 .
• Heinz Dopsch: Barbara von Cilli . In: Mathias Bernath, Felix von Schroeder (Ed.), Gerda Bartl (Red.): Biographical Lexicon for the History of Southeast Europe . Volume 1. Oldenbourg, Munich 1974, ISBN 3-486-47871-0 , p. 134.
• Daniela Dvoráková: Barbara von Cilli: The black queen (1392-1451) ( Spectrum Slovakia , vol. 11). Peter Lang GmbH, Frankfurt am Main 2017, ISBN 978-3-631-67326-3 .
• Amalie Fößel : The correspondence of Queen Barbara in the Hungarian State Archives in Budapest . In: Karel Hruza, Alexandra Kaar (ed.): Kaiser Sigismund (1368–1437). On the rulership practice of a European monarch ( research on the imperial and papal history of the Middle Ages ; vol. 31). Böhlau Verlag, Vienna (et al.) 2012, ISBN 978-3-205-78755-6 , pp. 245-254. Digitized
• Amalie Fößel: Barbara von Cilli. Her early years as Sigismund's wife and Queen of Hungary . In: Michel Pauly, François Reinert (ed.): Sigismund von Luxemburg. An emperor in Europe ( proceedings of the international historical and art-historical congress in Luxembourg, June 8-10, 2005 ). von Zabern, Mainz 2006, ISBN 978-3-8053-3625-3 , pp. 95-112.
• Thomas Krzenck: Barbara von Cilli - a "German Messalina"? In: Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Salzburger Landeskunde 131, 1991, pp. 45–67.
• Heinz Quirin :  Barbara von Cilly. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 581 ( digitized version ).
• Sandi Sitar: Sto slovenskih znanstvenikov, zdravnikov in tehnikov (one hundred Slovenian scientists, doctors and technicians). Ljubljana 1987, article 8. Barbara Celjska - Cesarica z retortami - astrologinja in alkimistka (ok. 1387–1451) (Barbara von Cilli - Empress with retorts - astrologer and alchemist (around 1387–1451))
• Franz von Krones:  Barbara v. Cilli . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 48 f.

Web links

Commons : Barbara von Cilly  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Podcast time jump - ZS145: Barbara von Cilli, with Daniela Dvořáková as a guest in the episode

Remarks

1. ↑ ^{a b} Amalie Fößel: Barbara von Cilli. Her early years as Sigismund's wife and Queen of Hungary . In: Michel Pauly, François Reinert (ed.): Sigismund von Luxemburg. An emperor in Europe ( proceedings of the international historical and art-historical congress in Luxembourg, June 8-10, 2005 ). von Zabern, Mainz 2006, ISBN 978-3-8053-3625-3 , pp. 95-112.
2. ^ Claudia Zey: Imperatrix, si venerit Romam ... On the coronations of empresses in the Middle Ages. In: German Archive for Research into the Middle Ages , Vol. 60 (2004), pp. 3–51, here: p. 39.
3. ↑ Ulrich Büttner, Egon Schwär: Barbara von Cilli - Empress, Femme Fatale and Vampire. In: Ulrich Büttner, Egon Schwär: Konstanz Council History (N). Publishing house Stadler. Constance 2014. ISBN 978-3-7977-0580-8 . Pp. 63-68.
4. ^ Posselt, Bernd: Conception and compilation of the Schedelschen Weltchronik, Wiesbaden 2015, p. 507.
5. ^ Ferguson, Bibliotheca Chemica, Glasgow 1906, Volume 2, p. 10f, Karl Christoph Schmieder , Geschichte der Alchemie, Halle 1832, p. 223f. For example the edition of the Chymische Schriften by Valentinus, Hamburg 1717
6. ^ Coin design 2 euro commemorative coin Slovenia 2014: 600th anniversary of the coronation of Barbara Celjska. Accessed on November 17, 2014

Predecessors	Office	Successors
Elisabeth of Pomerania	Roman-German Empress 1433 to 1437	Eleonore Helena of Portugal
Sophie of Bavaria	Queen of Bohemia 1420–1437	Elisabeth of Luxembourg