From 1412 to 1423, Sigismund campaigned against the Venetians in Italy. The king took advantage of the difficulties of Antipope John XXIII to obtain a promise that a council should be called in Constance in 1414 to settle the Western Schism. He took a leading part in the deliberations of this assembly, and during the sittings made a journey to France, England and Burgundy in a vain attempt to secure the abdication of the three rival popes. The council ended in 1418, solving the Schism and — of great consequence to Sigismund's future career — having the Czech religious reformer, Jan Hus, burned at the stake for heresy in July 1415. The complicity of Sigismund in the death of Hus is a matter of controversy. He had granted him a safe-conduct and protested against his imprisonment; and the reformer was burned during his absence.
It was also at this Council that a cardinal ventured to correct Sigismund's Latin (he had construed the word schisma as feminine rather than neuter). To this Sigismund replied, in Latin:
I am king of the Romans and above grammar.This utterance prompted historian Thomas Carlyle to give him the nickname "Super Grammaticam" from the response that he had given ("Ego sum rex Romanus et super grammaticam").
And this is what a Super Grammiticam looks like.
Sigismund (1369–1437), painted in 1433.
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