St. Elizabeth of Thuringia
Heilige Elisabeth von Thüringen
| Home Next Page  The arm reliquary created in the year 1240 comes from the Altenberg cloister near Wetzlar, Germany where Elizabeth's daughter Gertrud was abbess. |
People
Wanted Miracles
People wanted miracles, and they got them. When Elizabeth of Thuringia died in Marburg, Germany on Nov. 17, 1231 at the age of twenty-four, her pall-bearers and mourners noticed a "pleasant scent" rising up from her corpse. Her mortal remains were immediately taken possession of: scraps of her clothing, hair, nails, even her nipples were supposedly cut off by the crowds - a brutal but typical expression of medieval religious fervor. The great mass of the people had already declared Elizabeth (Elisabeth) a saint, and the canonization of the Hungarian princess was only a question of time. After all, it was to the advantage of the emperor and aristocracy, the pope and the chivalric orders of knights to do so. Elizabeth (Elisabeth) was not forced to undergo a horrible martyrdom, but she suffered nonetheless, suffered to the point of death, thanks to her selfless love for her fellow men. Following the early death of her husband, the new widow turned her back on her family, in order to live with the poorest of the poor and work with the weakest of the sick. There was no doubt about her virtuousness, but now a proof of her holiness was needed. The reports of over six hundred witnesses were carefully collected, who swore not only to the correctness of Elizabeth (Elisabeth)s belief, but also to the miracles performed during her lifetime or healings that took place at her grave. In the end, over one hundred miracles were recorded in the papal documents. Within three and a half years after her death it was official: Pope Gregory IX canonized Elizabeth (Elisabeth). Ever
since then in every epoch and for changing reasons, we have tried to
understand Elizabeth (Elisabeth) on a more personal and human level.
Over the
centuries her short life was enriched with countless legends, which
sometimes glorified Elizabeth (Elisabeth) and sometimes tried to bring
her down to
a more recognizably real life level. A high point in her adoration was
reached during the Romantic period, when Christian Europe was idealized
as the perfect harmonious society. To regard Elizabeth (Elisabeth) as
someone who
said no to contemporary standards, refused to follow the fate society
proscribed for her, and followed her goals and fought her enemies with
amazing strength, is the modern point of view. >She is a saint that enjoys above average popularity today, someone whom even Protestants find approachable. As charity made flesh, she is the patron of many churches and hospitals across Europe, celebrated as one of the great historical figures of both Thuringia and Hessen. And not least we owe to her, the many significant works of art made in her honor.
Sarospatak Castle on the Bodrog River (Hungary) Birthplace of Elizabeth Elizabeth (Elisabeth) first saw the light of the world in 1207, daughter to the Hungarian King Andreas II and Gertrud of Andechs-Meranien in Sárospatak Castle, in the northeastern part of today's Hungary near the Slovakian border. Hungary was a very powerful country in the Europe of that time, and the young girl was quickly used as an intrument of politics. In central Europe there was dissension about who should be Emperor. It placed the members of the Staufen dynasty (or the House of Hohenstaufen) against the then ruling Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV of the House of Welf (or House of Guelph). Elizabeth's mother's family belong to the Staufen party. In 1211 when the Staufen, Frederick Roger (or Frederick II) , was elected by a group of southern German princes to become the new emperor, Elizabeth was sent to the court Court of the Ludowingers (Ludovingians), under the Thuringian Landgrave Hermann I to be brought up. At the same time she was engaged to be married to one the Landgrave's sons. Elizabeth was four years old at the time. This separation from her parents was completely normal for the aristocratic class. It is the year 1221 - Elizabeth (Elisabeth) is now fourteen years old, and married to Ludwig IV. In the following year, her son Hermann is born, and two years after that, her daughter Sophie. In fact, the marriage is said to be a happy one: contemporaries repeatedly emphasize to close connection between the couple. Already in these years, Elizabeth (Elisabeth) follows her inclination towards the sick and poor. She is strongly influenced by what she hears and reads of St. Francis of Assisi. The founder of the Franciscan order believed above all in rejecting all possessions and doing penance, in order to care for the leprous and others as a beggar. Elizabeth (Elisabeth) is a creature of her time, a time when the poverty and protest movements reached a high water mark. The papal preacher, Konrad of Marburg (Conrad of Marburg), also presented these beliefs to his listeners. In 1226 he became the confessor and teacher of the landgrave's wife. With the explicit agreement of her husband, she commits herself to strict vows put to her by her confessor, and takes an oath not to marry again in the event she becomes a widow. Despite later legends to the contrary, her husband Ludwig shares her Christian ideals and supports her in her actions, even when they go against the grain of court etiquette. The Landgraves of Thuringia, relatives of the Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich II, are powerful and influential. Their main residence, Wartburg Castle, is one of the most splendid court environments of the time. Elizabeth (Elisabeth) cannot tolerate that she should live in such overweaning luxury while other abase themselves in the most bitter poverty. At the festive and regal banquets she refuses food of uncertain origin. If she cannot be sure that the food comes from her own lands, or if it she suspects it has been unfairly harvested, she would rather leave the table hungry, and she demands the same of her ladies in waiting. She dislikes wearing expensive raiments, and she forbids herself the proper and expected comforts of an aristocratic woman of her standing. Instead she gives away her clothing, and notes that the aristocratic class even goes so far as to dress their dead in fine cloth before setting them in their graves, yet will ignore the naked poor. When she does take off the scratchy wool dress she wears, and puts on something more refined, it is to "prevent her husband from being tempted into sin" (with another more finely dressed woman). Nor does she spare herself in her penance. She gives up sleep and spends half the night in prayer. Ludwig chanced one day, as he returned from a hunt, to meet his wife with a basket on her arm, descending the lofty hill upon which sat the fortress of the Wartburg. He asked her what a basket contained, she, more charitable than truthful, and stood "flowers That". She probably blushed in consciousness of uttering a falsehood; for not believing her, Ludwig alighted and opened a basket. Then lo! The bread and broken me, that she had been smuggling to the poor, had been miraculously changed into roses, to save the future saint from detection and her charitable disobedience and falsehood.Beneath Wartburg Castle Elizabeth (Elisabeth) has a hospital for the poor put up. But she does not satisfy herself simply with the role of philanthropic patroness. She washes the feet of the patients herself, and kisses their scabbed and wounded heads. At Neuenburg Castle, an auxiliary property belonging to the Ludowingers on the banks of the Unstrut river, a famous event miracle place. Elizabeth (Elisabeth) takes up a leprous patient and lays him in her own bed, the bed she shares with her husband. When Elizabeth (Elisabeth)'s horrified mother-in-law pulls Ludwig into the bedchamber and pulls back the covers of the bed, he sees there an image of Christ crucified. Once again Ludwig can only offer his wife support and encouragement for choosing the right path.  The Miracle of the Crucifix. Scene 18 From the Lübeck Elizabeth Cyle. Next Page for Saint Elizabeth (Elisabeth) of Thuringia Home |
 Sarospatak Castle in Hungary, birthplace of Saint Elizabeth. The present day castle is from the 15th-18th Century. The castle buildings built after 1150 which Elizabeth would have known, have not survived-  Pressburg Castle on the Danube River (Bratislava, Slovakia). Parts of the castle are from the 9th Century, but most today is from the 17-18th Century. In 1211 Elizabeth was handed over by her parents to representatives of the Thuringian court at Pressburg Castle.  Pressburg Castle in Bratislava, Slovakia. Across the river is Austria. |
The Year 2007 was the 800th Anniversary of St. Elisabeth's Birth
St. Elizabeth Elizabeth of Thuringia Elizabeth of Hungary
