Katarzyna Hochstadt of Telnicz (Moravia) is known as the mistress of Sigismund the Old, mother of his illegitimate children: bishop of Vilnius John of the Lithuanian Dukes, Regina Szafraniec, and Katarzyna Montfort, and wife of Andrzej Kościelecki, castellan of Wojnicz and sub-treasurer of the Crown of Poland. Little is known about her true personality, with the exception of the universally emphasized fact of her being a genuine beauty and the mother and grandmother of beauties. As the legend has it, Katarzyna was an enchantress, a witch, a woman who intruded where she was not supposed to. The few preserved sources suggest of a more subtle picture: a woman of an unknown descent in the higher society that was strange to her was in fact dependent on the grace of men – her lover, her spouse or her son. Katarzyna, however, managed to exercise her influence as she accumulated certain wealth and formed a circle of her clients.