Upper Germany in the Reign of Sigismund of Luxemburg, c. 1410–37
The second case study shows how associative political culture shaped Upper Germany during the reign of King/Emperor Sigismund (r. 1410/11–37). What marked out these decades from earlier and later cycles of alliance-making, feuding, and mediation was the unusually prominent role played by the monarch himself, who was present in the southern Empire for most of the 1410s and 1430s. Sigismund judiciously cultivated relationships with key princely allies and tried to encourage leagues of towns and knightly societies to coalesce into peace-keeping coalitions that he could direct. The monarch proved the value of harnessing associative dynamics to his agenda in a war against his rival Duke Friedrich IV of Austria-Tyrol, who was overwhelmed and dispossessed by a network of Upper Rhenish and Swabian alliances which then turned against each other. Imperial efforts against the Hussites in the 1420s also depended upon associative coalitions, including a grand alliance of the prince-electors.