Elisabeth of Hungary

St. Elizabeth (Erzsebet) of Hungary (1207 - 17 November, 1231) was the daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary (1175-1235) and his wife Gertrude of Andechs-Meran (murdered in 1213). Elizabeth was widowed while young, relinquished her wealth to the poor, and built hospitals, and thus became a symbol of Christian charity. She is the patron saint of hospitals, nurses, bakers, brides, countesses, dying children, exiles, homeless people, lacemakers, tertiaries and widows. Her feast day is 17 November (formerly 19 November).

Related Topics:
1207 - 17 November - 1231 - Andrew II of Hungary - Gertrude of Andechs-Meran - 1213 - Patron saint - 19 November

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She is best known for a legend which says that she was taking bread secretly to the poor, when her husband caught her on the way and asked what was in her pouch. Elisabeth opened her pouch and the bread turned into roses. While impressive, this story has no basis in fact. This miracle is commemorated with a statue in Budapest, in front of the neo-Gothic church dedicated to her at Roses' Square (Rózsák tere) http://rozsaktere.uw.hu/. The architect of the church was Imre Steindl, architect of the Budapest Parliament.

Related Topics:
Budapest - Neo-Gothic - Imre Steindl - Budapest Parliament

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At the age of four, Elizabeth was betrothed to Bd. Ludwig IV of Thuringia, son of Hermann I, Landgrave of Thuringia, and was raised with his family in the magnificent court kept at Wartburg. This betrothal embodied a great alliance against the Emperor Otto IV, a member of the house of Guelph, who had quarreled with the Church. Some have suggested that his brother Hermann was the eldest, and that she was first betrothed to him until his death in 1216, but this is doubtful. An event of this magnitude would almost certainly be mentioned at least once in all the original sources we have at our disposal, but on this magnitude they are absolutely silent. In addition, the only source document that might support this by putting Hermann?s name before Ludwig?s deals with a monastery in Hesse. This actually supports the theory that Hermann was younger, as Hesse was traditionally the domain of the second son. It would therefore be natural to put his name first, as it deals with his territory.

Related Topics:
Ludwig IV of Thuringia - Hermann I, Landgrave of Thuringia - Wartburg - Otto IV

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Elizabeth and Ludwig were married in 1221. The marriage appears to have been happy: Ludwig was not upset by the distribution of his wealth but rather believed that his wife's charitable efforts using his money enhanced his chances of eternal reward; he is venerated in Thuringia as a saint. Ludwig was a staunch supporter in Germany of the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick II. In the spring of 1226, when floods, famine, and plague wrought havoc in Thuringia, Ludwig was representing Frederick at the Diet at Cremona. 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 hospice with twenty-eight beds and visited the inmates daily to attend to them. It was also about this time that the inquisitor Konrad von Marburg, became her spiritual director. He was a harsh man, a true product of his age, and was very severe to Elizabeth. The next year, however, her life changed when Ludwig died of the plague on September 11, 1227, at Otranto, Italy en route to join the Sixth Crusade.

Related Topics:
1221 - Thuringia - Hohenstaufen - Frederick II - Plague - Inquisitor - Konrad von Marburg - September 11 - 1227 - Otranto - Italy - Sixth Crusade

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With Ludwig's death, his brother Henry assumed the regency during the minority of Elizabeth's elder son, Hermann II landgrave of Thuringia (1222-41). After bitter arguments over the disposal of her dower, Elizabeth left the Wartburg. The popular tradition is that she was ejected by Henry, but this cannot stand up to critical examination. After unsuccessful attempts to force her to remarry, she joined the Third Order of St. Francis, a lay Franciscan group, and built a hospice at Marburg for the poor and the sick.

Related Topics:
Third Order of St. Francis - Franciscan - Marburg

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The two daughters of the marriage were Sophia and Gertrude. Sophia (1224-84), 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. Bd. Gertrude (1227-97), Elizabeth's third child, was born several weeks after the death of her father; she became abbess of the convent of Altenberg near Wetzlar.

Related Topics:
Duke of Brabant - War of the Thuringian Succession

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Elizabeth died, either from physical fatigue or from disease, when only 24 years of age, in Marburg. She was canonized by Pope Gregory IX in 1235. Her body was enshrined in a magnificent golden shrine - still to be seen today - in a church in Marburg which was named for her (it is now a Protestant church, but with Catholic spaces for worship). Marburg then also became the center of the Teutonic Order, whose second patroness St. Elizabeth became; the Teutonic Order remained in Marburg until its dissolution by Napoleon in 1803. Due to the cult of St Elizabeth, Marburg became one of the main German centers of pilgrimage of the 14th and early 15th century. During the course of the 15th century, the popular cult of St. Elizabeth slowly faded away, but it was to some extent replaced by an aristocratic one, possibly because through her daughter Sophia, St Elizabeth is the ancestor of many leading German families.

Related Topics:
Canonized - Pope Gregory IX - 1235 - Teutonic Order - Napoleon - 1803 - Pilgrimage

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Three hundred years after her death, one of Elizabeth's many descendants, the Landgrave Philip "the Magnanimous" of Hesse, a leader of the Protestant reformation and one of the most important supporters of Martin Luther, raided the church and demanded the surrender of Elisabeth's bones from the Teutonic knights, in order to disperse the relics and thus put an end to the declining pilgrimages to Marburg.

Related Topics:
Landgrave - Philip "the Magnanimous" of Hesse - Protestant - Reformation - Martin Luther

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Philip also took away the crowned agate chalice in which St. Elizabeth's head rested, but had to give it back after being imprisoned by the Emperor. The chalice was subsequently seized as war booty by Swedish troops during the Thirty Years War and is today to be seen in the National Museum in Stockholm. St Elizabeth's skull and some of her bones are displayed in Vienna's Convent of St Elizabeth; some relics also survive in the shrine in St. Elizabeth in Marburg today.

Related Topics:
Swedish - Thirty Years War - Stockholm - Vienna

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