Rupert of Germany

Rupert (ruled 1400–10) lacked the skill and resources necessary to revive the drooping power of the German monarchy. His title was not beyond dispute while Wenceslas lived, and the territorial princes and cities were therefore slow to acknowledge him. Pope Boniface IX, maintaining that only a pope might legally depose a German monarch, withheld his approbation of Rupert. An expedition against Wenceslas in 1401 failed before the walls of Prague. Rupert then embarked upon an Italian expedition (1401–02), hoping to obtain the imperial crown from the pope and thus dispel the cloud of uncertainty that hung over his title. The enterprise was crippled by lack of financial means, Boniface’s conditions were exorbitant, and Rupert returned to Germany without the coveted imperial coronation. Fortunately, he had little to fear from Wenceslas, who was fully occupied in protecting his Bohemian throne from the machinations of his ambitious younger brother Sigismund. Far more dangerous was the degeneration of Rupert’s relations with the Rhenish electors. In 1405 he offended Archbishop John of Mainz by refusing him military aid in his war against Hesse and Brunswick. Consequently the archbishop united all the enemies of Hesse and Brunswick in the League of Marbach, which included 18 imperial cities. Rupert contended that coalitions of cities were prohibited by the Golden Bull, and he denounced the league as illegal. The dispute was arrested by the mediation of the archbishop of Cologne, but the memory rankled. Rupert’s prospects darkened still further in 1408, when he lent his support to Pope Gregory XII against the cardinals who wished to summon a general council to end the Great Schism in the church. The archbishops of Mainz and Cologne and the vast majority of the German prelates favoured the conciliar solution and strongly approved the policy of the cardinals. Wenceslas shrewdly followed suit and in return received assurances from the cardinals that the future general council would recognize him as German king. The powerful proconciliar party in the German church proceeded to agitate openly for the restoration of Wenceslas to the throne. The threat of civil war, however, was averted by Rupert’s death on May 18, 1410.

Sigismund

On the death of Rupert, the movement for the reinstatement of Wenceslas immediately lost headway. The Rhenish electors, having deposed Wenceslas 10 years previously on ground of his unfitness, could not reelect him without admitting their inconsistency. Nonetheless, the house of Luxembourg was powerful and would assuredly throw its full weight against any non-Luxembourg candidate to the German throne. The four electors agreed on the expediency of selecting Rupert’s successor from the Luxembourg dynasty but disagreed on the choice of candidate. The count palatine and the archbishop of Trier elected Wenceslas’s brilliant but unreliable brother, Sigismund, at Frankfurt on September 20, 1410. Eleven days later, the archbishops of Cologne and Mainz elected Wenceslas’s turbulent and treacherous cousin, Jobst of Moravia. Jobst died in the next year, and Wenceslas agreed to accept Sigismund on condition that he himself retained the title of German king. But Sigismund ignored the reservation and assumed the disputed title. Wenceslas’s protests were greeted with indifference in Germany and quickly died away. A second election of Sigismund at Frankfurt (July 21, 1411) gave him an ample majority and removed all doubt concerning the validity of the previous election.

Sigismund was energetic, versatile, and intelligent; but long experience never blunted his rashness in rushing into new projects, and his financial incapacity never ceased to astonish his contemporaries. His pursuit of personal power and dynastic possessions was unceasing and unscrupulous. His kingdom of Hungary and his later acquisition, Bohemia, were his primary concerns, and the interests in Germany were constantly set aside in their favour. The disastrous reigns of his predecessors, Wenceslas and Rupert, had emphasized Germany’s basic problems: the weakness of the monarchy, the friction between princes and cities, and the unchecked growth of lawlessness and disorder. During his long reign (1410–37) Sigismund appeared less and less frequently in Germany and did little to correct these evils.