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| Reign | From December 8 1506 until April 1, 1548 |
| Coronation | On January 24 1507 in the Wawel Cathedral, Kraków, Poland. |
| Royal House | Jagiellon |
| Predecessor | Aleksander Jagiellonczyk |
| Successor | Zygmunt II August |
| Parents | Kazimierz IV Jagiellonczyk Elzbieta Rakuszanka |
| Consorts | Katarzyna Telniczanka Barbara Zapolya Bona Sforza |
| Children | with Katarzyna Telniczanka • Jan • Regina • Katarzyna with Barbara Zapolya • Jadwiga • Anna with Bona Sforza • Izabela Jagiellonka • Zygmunt II August • Zofia • Anna Jagiellonka • Katarzyna JagiellonkaCatherine Jagiellonica of Poland ( 1526 1583), was youngest daughter of Sigismund I of Poland and Bona Sforza, mother of Sigismund I of Sweden and wife of John III of Sweden. In 1563 she was imprisoned with her husband by Eric XIV of Sweden. Released in 1 • Olbracht (Wojciech) |
| Date of Birth | January 1January 1 is the first day of the calendar year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Here a calendar year refers to the order in which the months are displayed, January to December. The first day of the medieval Julian year was usually a day other, 1467Events October 29 Battle of Brusthem: Charles the Bold defeats Liege Beginning of the Sengoku Period in Japan. Circa this year, polyalphabetic cipher invented by Leone Battista Alberti. Regent of Sweden Erik Axelsson Tott supports the re-election of depos |
| Place of Birth | Kozinice , Poland |
| Date of Death | April 1, 1548 |
| Place of Death | Kraków, Poland |
| Place of Burial | Wawel Cathedral, Kraków, Poland buried on July 26, 1548 |
Sigismund I the Old ( 1467- 1548), Polish: Zygmunt I Stary, fifth ruler of the Jagiellonian dynasty, reigned as king of Poland from 1506 until his death.
Before Sigismund I ruled as Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland, he had already been invested as imperial duke of Silesia.
The son of king Casimir IV of Poland and Elizabeth Habsburg of Austria, Sigismund followed his brothers John Albert and Alexander on the Polish throne. Their eldest brother Ladislaus became the king of Hungary and Bohemia.
Sigismund faced the challenge of consolidating internal power to face external threats to the country. During Alexander's rule, a law " Nihil novi" had been instated, that forbade Kings of Poland from enacting laws without the consent of the sejm. This proved crippling in Sigismund's dealings with his szlachta and magnates.
Despite this Achilles heel, he established ( 1527) a conscription army, and the bureaucracy necessary to finance it.
Intermittantly 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). 1515 he entered an alliance with the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I.
In return for Maximilian lending weight to the provisions of the 2nd Peace of Thorn, Sigismund consented to the marriage of the children of Ladislaus 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 Prussian Tribute", oil on canvas, 1882, 388 x 875 cm, National Museum in Kraków. Albrecht Hohenzollern receives the Duchy of Prussia as a fief from the Polish King, Sigismundus I the Elder in 1525.
The Polish wars against the Teutonic Knights ended in 1525, when his nephew, the Hohenzollern Albert of Brandenburg, their marshal, converted to Lutheranism, secularized the order, and paid homage to Sigismund, who in return gave him the domains of that order, as the First Duke of Prussia. This was called the Prussian Tribut. A daughter of Sigismund I, Hedwig ( 1513- 1573), married Joachim II of Brandenburg.
In other politics, Sigismund sought a peaceful coexistence with the Khans of Crimea, but was unable to completely end border skirmishes.
Sigismund was a Humanist (c.f. David Hume). He and his 2nd wife, Bona Sforza, daughter of Gian Galeazzo Sforza of Milan, were both patrons of Renaissance culture, which began, under them, to flourish in Poland.
On Sigismund's death, his son Sigismund Augustus became the last Jagiellonian king of Poland.