Catherine of Poděbrady (11 November 1449 – 8 March 1464) was

Queen of Hungary The King of Hungary () was the ruling head of state of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1000 (or 1001) to 1918. The style of title "Apostolic King of Hungary" (''Magyarország apostoli királya'') was endorsed by Pope Clement XIII in 1758 and used ...

as the second wife of King

Matthias Corvinus Matthias Corvinus (; ; ; ; ; ) was King of Hungary and King of Croatia, Croatia from 1458 to 1490, as Matthias I. He is often given the epithet "the Just". After conducting several military campaigns, he was elected King of Bohemia in 1469 and ...

Biography

Catherine and her twin sister Sidonie were born at

Poděbrady Poděbrady (; ) is a spa town in Nymburk District in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 15,000 inhabitants. It lies on the Elbe River. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected as an Cultural monument ...

, to the Bohemian king

George of Poděbrady George of Kunštát and Poděbrady (23 April 1420 – 22 March 1471), also known as Poděbrad or Podiebrad (; ), was the sixteenth King of Bohemia, who ruled in 1458–1471. He was a leader of the Hussites, but moderate and tolerant toward the ...

and his first wife, Kunigunde of Šternberk. Kunigunde died from complications of the birth. George of Poděbrady eventually remarried; his second wife,

Joanna of Rožmitál Joanna of Rožmitál (; – 12 November 1475) was Queen of Bohemia as the second wife of George of Poděbrady. Life She was a daughter of John of Rožmitál and his wife Ludmila of Strakonice. Marriage Joanna married George of Poděbrady in 1 ...

, bore George more children, including Ludmila of Poděbrady. Matthias Corvinus had lost his wife, Elisabeth of Cilli, at a young age. On 1 May 1463 he married Catherine at

Matthias Church The Church of the Assumption of the Buda Castle (), more commonly known as the Matthias Church () and more rarely as the Coronation Church of Buda, is a Catholic church in Holy Trinity Square, Budapest, Hungary, in front of the Fisherman's Bastion ...

Matthias Church
/ref> in

Buda Buda (, ) is the part of Budapest, the capital city of Hungary, that lies on the western bank of the Danube. Historically, “Buda” referred only to the royal walled city on Castle Hill (), which was constructed by Béla IV between 1247 and ...

. Matthias was eighteen, his bride thirteen. The wedding negotiations had begun in 1458 when Catherine was nine years old. Soon after the marriage, Catherine left her family and went to live in

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

with her new husband.

Janus Pannonius Janus Pannonius ( or , , ; 29 August 1434 – 27 March 1472) was an influential intellectual in the Kingdom of Hungary, a Latinist, poet, diplomat and Bishop of Pécs. He was the most significant poet of the Renaissance in the Kingdom of Hun ...

helped teach Catherine Latin. The queen died in childbirth at the age of 14. Her child died as well. The event caused Matthias to lose hope of siring a legitimate heir. He eventually married

Beatrice of Naples Beatrice of Naples (16 November 1457 – 23 September 1508), also known as Beatrice of Aragon (; ), was twice Queen of Hungary and of Bohemia by marriage to Matthias Corvinus and Vladislaus II. She was the daughter of Ferdinand I of Naples ...

, but that marriage also failed to produce an heir. Matthias's only surviving offspring was an illegitimate son,

John Corvinus John Corvinus (, Croatian language, Croatian: ''Ivaniš Korvin'', Romanian language, Romanian: ''Ioan Corvin''; 2 April 1473 – 12 October 1504) was the illegitimate son of Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, and his ...

, by his mistress Barbara Edelpöck.

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Catherine Of Podebrady 1449 births 1464 deaths 15th-century nobility from Bohemia 15th-century Hungarian people 15th-century women from Bohemia 15th-century Hungarian women Queens consort of Hungary Podiebrad family Hunyadi family Hungarian people of Czech descent People from Poděbrady Deaths in childbirth