Also called Saint ELIZABETH OF THURINGIA, b. in Hungary, probably at
Pressburg, 1207; d. at Marburg, Hesse, November 17 (not November 19),
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 greatniece. 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 center 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
December 31, 1216, the oldest son of the landgrave, Hermann, whom
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,
April 25, 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 solider. 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
Land-graves 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 Aldenburg 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 chatelaine 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, September 11 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 labors, 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,
July 30, 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 (May 28) 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 cornerstone of the beautiful Gothic church of St. Elizabeth
was laid at Marburg; on May 1, 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 honor 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.
MICHAEL BIHL (Catholic Encyclopedia)
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