Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/117

Rh with the emperor, whom he attended to Rome on the occasion of his coronation; and to Naples, at the celebration of his marriage. During a second progress of the emperor into Italy he received the honour of knighthood in Rome, and in his later years became governor of Adelsberg and bailiff of Wippach. Sigismund’s mother was Barbara, the daughter of Niclaus Luegger, burgrave of Linz and Lueg.

Such records of the noble family of Herberstein as are indisputable ascend to the thirteenth century. Petrus Paganus speaks of it as “familiam ultra memoriam hominum nobilem et equestris ordinis dignitate conspicuam”; and the details of the history of this distinguished family were found sufficient to fill a thick and closely printed octavo volume, published by J. A. Kumar, in three parts; Vienna, 1817. Herberstein traces the names of his ancestors up to the middle of the thirteenth century, and relates various circumstances connected with them after the year 1400. Of the early times of his family, he relates the following droll anecdote, which may be repeated here for the sake of the practical conclusion which he draws. “I have heard,” says he, “from my parents, who also had it from hearsay, that once there were seven knights who lived at Herberstein, who had only one pair of breeches amongst them. I have also been told, that nine ladies of the Herberstein family were married in the same mantle. For the certainty of this, I will not answer; but it is not improbable. It only shows