On December 12, 1408 Sigismund and his queen, Barbara von Cilli, founded the league known today as the Order of the Dragon.Boulton, The Knights of the Crown, p. 349.Rezachevici, "From the Order of the Dragon to Dracula". Its statutes, written in Latin, call it a society (societas) whose members carry the signum draconis (see below), but assign no name to it. Contemporary records, however, refer to the order by a variety of similar if unofficial names, such as Gesellschaft mit dem Drachen, Divisa seu Societas Draconica, Societas Draconica seu Draconistarum, and Fraternitas Draconum.Boulton, The Knights of the Crown, p. 349 n. 70. It was to some extent modelled after the earlier Hungarian monarchical order, the Order of St. George (Societas militae Sancti Georgii), founded by King Charles I of Hungary in 1318, the grandfather of Sigismund's first wife Mary. The order adopted Saint George as its patron saint, whose legendary defeat of a dragon was used as a symbol for the military and religious ethos of the order.
