Elisabeth of Austria

Archduchess Elisabeth of Austria (1435/36/possibly 1437 – 30 August 1505), (in Polish Elżbieta Rakuszanka, Hungarian: Erzsébet), was a Polish-Lithuanian queen. In Polish, she is known as Elżbieta Rakuszanka and Elżbieta Austriaczka, both names meaning Elisabeth of Austria, or Elżbieta Habsburżanka, meaning Elisabeth of Habsburg.

She was the daughter of Albert II of Germany (1397-1439) and his wife Elisabeth (1409-42), heiress of Bohemia. She was a princess of Hungary, princess of Bohemia, and duchess of Austria. Austria had yet to be raised to an archduchy, although the Habsburgs had already begun styling themselves as archdukes.

She married on 10 March 1454 King Casimir IV of Poland (Kazimierz Jagellon, 1427-92), monarch of Poland and Lithuania. Four of her sons became king, thus she is also called "mother of the Jagiellons".

They had the following children:

• Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary (1456-1516), who became elected to thrones earlier held by Elisabeth's parents (Wladyslaw, Vladislav, Ulaszlo)
• Jadwiga (1457-1502). Duchess of Bavaria in Landshut, wife of Duke George.
• Saint Casimir (Kazimierz) (1458-84)
• John I Albert of Poland (Jan Olbracht, Jan Wojciech) (1459-1501)
• Alexander (1461-1506) of Lithuania, then also of Poland
• Sophia (Zofia) (1464-1512). Margravine of Brandenburg in Ansbach, wife of Frederick I, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach and mother of Albert of Prussia
• Elisabeth (Elżbieta) (1465-66)
• Sigismund I of Poland (Zygmunt) (1467-1548)
• Frederick (Fryderyk) (1468-1503) cardinal-archbishop of Gniezno.
• Elisabeth (Elżbieta II) (1472-80)
• Anna (1476-1503). Duchess of Pomerania, wife of Duke Bogislas X.
• Barbara (1478-1534). Duchess of Sacony, wife of Duke George.
• Elisabeth (Elżbieta III)(1482-1517). Duchess of Legnica in Silesia, wife of Duke Frederick II.

After the 1457 childless death of Elisabeth's brother, king Ladislas Posthumous, she and her family started to advance their claims to the thrones of Bohemia and Hungary. Ultimately, her eldest son became elected to both monarchies.

Her younger sons, in turn, became monarchs of Poland and Lithuania.

Upon the death of her brother Ladislas, his remaining heiresses shared the inherited rights in a way which put all their mother's rights to Polish principalities to Elisabeth and her children. Elisabeth's said mother, also named Elisabeth, was the only child of late Emperor Sigismund, himself the eldest son and heir of her mother, yet one Elisabeth, a daughter of ducal Pomeranian dynasty and the ultimate heiress of her mother, Elisabeth of Poland, the eldest daughter of Casimir III of Poland who also had inherited the principality of Kujavia (the elder branch of Masovia-Sandomir) and some rights to successions in parts of Greater Poland and Silesian principalities (Wladyslaw the Short's wife was from Poznan branch and mother from Wroclaw and Legnica branch). Since 1431, no other legitimate descendants of Casimir III survived than Elisabeth of Pomerania's. This was the way some ancient Piast estate property passed to the Jagiellons.

In 1467 she renounced her right to the Duchy of Luxembourg to Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, whose father had bought the territory in 1441 from Elisabeth, Duchess of Luxembourg.

Ancestors

See also

• Ancestors of Nicholas II of Russia

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