Cymburgis of Masovia

Who was Cymburgis of Masovia?

Cymburgis of Masovia in January 1412 became the second wife of the Habsburg Duke Ernest the Iron of Austria and thus a Duchess/Archduchess of the Inner Austrian line in Styria, Carinthia and Carniola.

Cimburgis was born at Warsaw in the Duchy of Masovia to Duke Siemovit IV of the Masovian Piast dynasty and his wife Alexandra of Lithuania, daughter of Grand Duke Algirdas, a scion of the Gediminid dynasty, and sister of Władysław II Jagiełło, King of Poland.

Though his elder brother William's engagement with the Polish princess Jadwiga had mortifyingly failed, Ernest after the death of his first wife Margaret of Pomerania proceeded to Kraków to court Cymburgis. The wedding took place in 1412 in Buda, at the residence of Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor. At the time the Emperor mediated negotiations between her uncle Władysław II Jagiełło and the Teutonic Knights. Though not approved by the Habsburg family, the marriage turned out to be a happy one. As the mother of the later Emperor Frederick III, Cymburgis, after Gertrude of Hohenburg, became the second female ancestor of all later Habsburgs, as only his branch of the family survived in the male line.