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'Barbara of Celje' (
Slovenian 'Barbara Celjska';
Hungarian 'Cillei Borbála') or 'Barbara of Cilli' (c.
1390/
1395 –
11 July 1451) was
Holy Roman Empress. She received the sobriquet ''
Messalina of Germany''.
Barbara was the daughter of
Herman II, Count of Celje, and his wife
Anna, Countess of Schaunberg.
Both Barbara and her cousin and adopted sister
Anna married ruling Kings whose recently deceased wives were sisters and relatives of the Celje family. Anna married
Władysław, King of Poland and Lithuania in
1402 after the death of
Jadwiga of Poland, while Barbara married
Sigismund, King of Hungary in
1408 after the death of
Mary of Hungary.
[1] This marriage was to strengthen Sigismund's grip on the Hungarian throne, as through her father Barbara could trace her descent not only to the Slovenian rulers of Celje and the
Kotromanic of Bosnia to the
Nemanjic kings of Serbia and to King
Stephen V of Hungary).
Sigismund, a younger son of
Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor later succeded to the rule in Germany (1410), Bohemia (1419) and was crowned
Holy Roman Emperor himself in
1433.
Barbara gave birth to a daughter,
Elisabeth, Sigismund's only surviving issue and heiress, who married
Albrecht of Habsburg, Archduke of Austria. Barbara lived to see her three grandchildren,
Anna,
Elisabeth and
Ladislas. She is one of the ancestresses of modern European royal families, her blood flowing in the veins of most of today's dynasties.
Barbara's father
Hermann II, as the father-in-law of both feuding
Sigismund and
Jagiello, played a crucial role in the
1410 pre-
Battle of Tannenberg politics by helping prevent
Sigismund, who was in alliance with the Teutonic Knights, to attack
Jagiello.
Jagiello and his Slavic Allies defeated Teutonic Knights who led the combatants provided by 22 western states, including the Pope.
Genetics
Barbara of Celje is a direct
matrilineal ancestor of
Nicholas II of Russia. Provided the genealogy is correct, this implies that she and all her matrilineal relatives were members of
mitochondrial
haplogroup Haplogroup T. This includes her many female-line descendants among European nobility.
Barbara's most maternal recorded ancestor is Adelheid von Alpeck who died in 1280, daughter of Witegow Von Alpeck.
Her great-great-great-great-great granddaughter was
Anne of Denmark, the wife of
James I of England and mother of
Charles I of England, and of
Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia.
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External link
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A pedigree of her