Also called St. Elizabeth of Thuringia,
born in Hungary, probably at
Pressburg, 1207; died at Marburg, Hesse, 17 November (not 19
November), 1231.
She was a daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary (1205-35)
and his wife Gertrude, a member of the family of the Counts
of Andechs-Meran; Elizabeth's brother succeeded his father
on the throne of Hungary as Bela IV;
the sister of her mother, Gertrude, was St.
Hedwig, wife of Duke Heinrich I, the Bearded, of Silesia,
while another saint, St. Elizabeth
(Isabel) of Portugal (d. 1336), the wife of the tyrannical
King Diniz of that country, was her great-niece.
In 1211 a formal embassy was sent by Landgrave Hermann I of
Thuringia to Hungary to
arrange, as was customary in that age, a marriage between his
eldest son Hermann and Elizabeth, who was then four years old.
This plan of a marriage was the result of political considerations
and was intended to be the ratification of a great alliance
which in the political schemes of the time it was sought to
form against the German Emperor Otto
IV, a member of the house of Guelph, who had quarrelled with
the Church. Not long after this the little girl was taken to
the Thuringian court to be brought
up with her future husband and, in the course of time, to be
betrothed to him.
The court of Thuringia was at
this period famous for its magnificence. Its centre was the stately
castle of the Wartburg, splendidly placed on a hill in the Thuringian
Forest near Eisenach, where the Landgrave Hermann lived surrounded
by poets and minnesingers, to whom he was a generous patron.
Notwithstanding the turbulence and purely secular life of the
court and the pomp of her surroundings, the little girl grew
up a very religious child with an evident inclination to prayer
and pious observances and small acts of self-mortification. These
religious impulses were undoubtedly strengthened by the sorrowful
experiences of her life.
In 1213 Elizabeth's mother, Gertrude, was murdered by Hungarian nobles,
probably out of hatred of the Germans.
On 31 December, 1216, the oldest son of the landgrave, Hermann,
who Elizabeth was to marry, died; after this she was betrothed
to Ludwig, the second son. It was probably in these years that
Elizabeth had to suffer the hostility of the more frivolous
members of the Thuringian court, to whom
the contemplative and pious child was a constant rebuke. Ludwig,
however, must have soon come to her protection against any ill-treatment.
The legend that arose later is incorrect in making Elizabeth's
mother-in-law, the Landgravine Sophia, a member of the reigning
family of Bavaria, the leader of this court party. On the contrary,
Sophia was a very religious and charitable woman and a kindly
mother to the little Elizabeth.
The political plans of the old Landgrave Hermann involved
him in great difficulties and reverses; he was excommunicated,
lost his mind towards the end of his life, and died, 25 April,
1217, unreconciled with the Church. He was succeeded by his
son Ludwig IV, who, in 1221, was also made regent of Meissen
and the East Mark. The same year (1221) Ludwig and Elizabeth
were married, the groom being twenty-one years old and the
bride fourteen. The marriage was in every regard a happy and
exemplary one, and the couple were devotedly attached to each
other. Ludwig proved himself worthy of his wife. He gave his
protection to her acts of charity, penance, and her vigils,
and often held Elizabeth's hands as she knelt praying at night
beside his bed. He was also a capable ruler and brave soldier.
The Germans call
him St. Ludwig, an appellation given to him as one of the best
men of his age and the pious husband of St. Elizabeth.
They had three children: Hermann II (1222-41),
who died young; Sophia (1224-84), who married Henry II, Duke
of Brabant, and was the ancestress of the Landgraves of Hesse,
as in the war of the Thuringian succession
she won Hesse for her son Heinrich I, called the Child; Gertrude
(1227-97), Elizabeth's third child, was born several weeks after
the death of her father; in after-life she became abbess of the
convent of Altenberg near Wetzlar.
Shortly after their marriage, Elizabeth and
Ludwig made a journey to Hungary; Ludwig was often
after this employed by the Emperor
Frederick II, to whom he was much attached, in the affairs
of the empire. In the spring of 1226, when floods, famine,
and the pest wrought havoc in Thuringia,
Ludwig was in Italy attending the Diet at Cremona on
behalf of the emperor and the empire. Under these circumstances
Elizabeth assumed control of affairs, distributed alms in all
parts of the territory of her husband, giving even state robes
and ornaments to the poor. In order to care personally for the
unfortunate she built below the Wartburg a hospital with twenty-eight
beds and visited the inmates daily to attend to their wants;
at the same time she aided nine hundred poor daily. It is this
period of her life that has preserved Elizabeth's fame to posterity
as the gentle and charitable chételaine of the Wartburg.
Ludwig on his return confirmed all she had done. The next year
(1227) he started with the Emperor
Frederick II on a crusade to
Palestine but died, 11 September of the same year at Otranto,
from the pest. The news did not reach Elizabeth until October,
just after she had given birth to her third child. On hearing
the tidings Elizabeth, who was only twenty years old, cried out: "The
world with all its joys is now dead to me."
The fact that in 1221 the followers of St.
Francis of Assisi (d. 1226) made their first permanent
settlement in Germany was one
of great importance in the later career of Elizabeth. Brother
Rodeger, one of the first Germans whom
the provincial for Germany,
Caesarius of Speier, received into the order, was for a time
the spiritual instructor of Elizabeth at the Wartburg; in his
teachings he unfolded to her the ideals of St. Francis, and
these strongly appealed to her. With the aid of Elizabeth the
Franciscans in
1225 founded a monastery in Eisenach; Brother Rodeger, as his
fellow-companion in the order, Jordanus, reports, instructed
Elizabeth, to observe, according to her state of life, chastity,
humility, patience, the exercise of prayer, and charity. Her
position prevented the attainment of the other ideal of St.
Francis, voluntary and complete poverty. Various remarks of
Elizabeth to her female attendants make it clear how ardently
she desired the life of poverty. After a while the post Brother
Rodeger had filled was assumed by Master Conrad of Marburg,
who belonged to no order, but was a very ascetic and, it must
be acknowledged, a somewhat rough and very severe man. He was
well known as a preacher of the crusade and
also as an inquisitor or judge in cases of heresy. On account
of the latter activity he has been more severely judged than
is just; at the present day, however, the estimate of him is
a fairer one. Pope Gregory IX,
who wrote at times to Elizabeth, recommended her himself to
the God-fearing preacher. Conrad treated Elizabeth with inexorable
severity, even using corporal means of correction; nevertheless,
he brought her with a firm hand by the road of self-mortification
to sanctity, and after her death was very active in her canonization.
Although he forbade her to follow St. Francis in complete poverty
as a beggar, yet, on the other hand, by the command to keep
her dower she was enabled to perform works of charity and tenderness.
Up to 1888 it was believed, on account of the testimony of one
of Elizabeth's servants in the process of canonization, that
Elizabeth was driven from the Wartburg in the winter of 1227
by her brother-in-law, Heinrich Raspe, who acted as regent for
her son, then only five years old. About 1888 various investigators
(Börner, Mielke, Wenck, E. Michael, etc.) asserted that
Elizabeth left the Wartburg voluntarily, the only compulsion
being a moral one. She was not able at the castle to follow
Conrad's command to eat only food obtained in a way that was
certainly right and proper. Lately, however, Huyskens (1907)
tried to prove that Elizabeth was driven from the castle at
Marburg in Hesse, which was hers by dower right. Consequently,
the Te Deum that she directed the Franciscans to
sing on the night of her expulsion would have been sung in
the Franciscan monastery
at Marburg. Accompanied by two female attendants, Elizabeth left
the castle that stands on a height commanding Marburg. The next
day her children were brought to her, but they were soon taken
elsewhere to be cared for. Elizabeth's aunt, Matilda, Abbess
of the Benedictine nunnery of Kitzingen near Würzburg,
took charge of the unfortunate landgravine and sent her to
her uncle Eckbert, Bishop of Bamberg. The bishop, however,
was intent on arranging another marriage for her, although
during the lifetime of her husband Elizabeth had made a vow
of continence in case of his death; the same vow had also been
taken by her attendants. While Elizabeth was maintaining her
position against her uncle the remains of her husband were
brought to Bamberg by his faithful followers who had carried
them from Italy. Weeping bitterly, she buried the body in the
family vault of the landgraves of Thuringia in
the monastery of Reinhardsbrunn. With the aid of Conrad she
now received the value of her dower in money, namely two thousand
marks; of this sum she divided five hundred marks in one day
among the poor. On Good Friday,
1228, in the Franciscan house
at Eisenach Elizabeth formally renounced the world; then going
to Master Conrad at Marburg, she and her maids received from
him the dress of the Third Order of St. Francis, thus being
among the first tertiaries of Germany.
In the summer of 1228 she built the Franciscan hospital
at Marburg and on its completion devoted herself entirely to
the care of the sick, especially to those afflicted with the
most loathsome diseases. Conrad of Marburg still imposed many
self-mortifications and spiritual renunciations, while at the
same time he even took from Elizabeth her devoted domestics.
Constant in her devotion to God,
Elizabeth's strength was consumed by her charitable labours,
and she passed away at the age of twenty-four, a time when life
to most human beings is just opening.
Very soon after the death of Elizabeth miracles began
to be worked at her grave in the church of the hospital, especially
miracles of
healing. Master Conrad showed great zeal in advancing the process
of canonization. By papal command three examinations were held
of those who had been healed: namely, in August, 1232, January,
1233, and January, 1235. Before the process reached its end,
however, Conrad was murdered, 30 July, 1233. But the Teutonic
Knights in 1233 founded a house at Marburg, and in November,
1234, Conrad, Landgrave of Thuringia,
the brother-in-law of Elizabeth, entered the order. At Pentecost
(28 May) of the year 1235, the solemn ceremony of canonization
of the "greatest woman of the German Middle
Ages" was celebrated by Gregory
IX at Perugia, Landgrave Conrad being present. In August
of the same year (1235) the corner-stone of the beautiful Gothic church
of St. Elizabeth was laid at Marburg; on 1 May, 1236, Emperor
Frederick II attended the taking-up of the body of the
saint; in 1249 the remains were placed in the choir of the
church of St. Elizabeth, which was not consecrated until
1283. Pilgrimages to the grave soon increased to such importance
that at times they could be compared to those to the shrine
of Santiago de Compostela. In 1539 Philip the Magnanimous,
Landgrave of Hesse, who had become a Protestant,
put an end to the pilgrimages by unjustifiable interference
with the church that belonged to the Teutonic
Order and by forcibly removing the relics and
all that was sacred to Elizabeth. Nevertheless, the entire
German people
still honour the "dear St. Elizabeth" as she is called;
in 1907 a new impulse was given to her veneration in Germany and
Austria by the celebration of the seven hundredth anniversary
of her birth. St. Elizabeth is generally represented as a princess
graciously giving alms to the wretched poor or as holding roses
in her lap; in the latter case she is portrayed either alone
or as surprised by her husband, who, according to a legend, which
is, however, related of other saints as well, met her unexpectedly
as she went secretly on an errand of mercy, and, so the story
runs, the bread she was trying to conceal was suddenly turned
into roses.
