St Elizabeth of Hungary (1207-1231) queen and 3rd Order Franciscan
Betrothed at four and happily married to Ludwig of Thuringia with three children, Elizabeth was widowed at twenty. Both before and after her husband's death she dedicated herself to solidarity with the sick and the poor. She died aged twenty-four.
Childhood bethrothal
Born in Bratislava in the kingdom of Hungary, Elizabeth was betrothed at the age of four to Ludwig of Thuringia (Germany) in order to reinforce political alliances between the families and sent to live at his father's court in Wartburg. Ludwig's affection for her grew steadily, and their marriage was solemnised when she was fourteen and he twenty-one. They had three children in quick succession, and seemed to have been happy together.
Franciscans arrive
In 1223, Franciscan friars arrived, and Elisabeth learned about and began to live the ideals of Francis of Assisi. She had a hospital with twenty-eight beds built below the Wartburg castle and visited the inmates every day. Ludwig was supportive of his wife prayer and works of charity.
Leper in the marriage bed
However, once when told that Elizabeth had taken in a dying leper and put him in their marriage bed, Ludwig was furious, rushed in and pulled back the covers: but when he saw the leper, he could see that for him too the leper was Christ himself.
Ludwig's death
In 1227, Ludwig died of the plague at Otranto in southern Italy en route to the Sixth Crusade. Elizabeth was devastated. She went to her aunt Matilda, who was abbess of Kitzingen, then on to her uncle, bishop of Bamberg, leaving her eldest daughter at Kiazingen. He placed a castle at her disposal and and there were enquiries about a second marriage from the emperor, Frederick II. But Elizabeth had decided never to marry again, and having buried her husband and provided for her children, she joined the Third Order of St Francis. She settled in a small house outside Marburg, to which she attached a hospice for the sick, the poor and the old.
Her spiritual director
Three years earlier, Elizabeth had, with the approval of Pope Honorius III (Cencio Camerario 1216-27), taken Konrad of Marburg as her confessor and had vowed obedience to him.
Konrad had been an inquisitor and soon began to exercise an abnormal degree of control over Elizabeth. In some ways he moderated her impetuousity, teaching her to avoid the risk of contracting leprosy.
But he deprived her of the human support of the ladies-in-waiting who had accompanied her from Hungary as a child, replacing them with two "harsh females" who spied and reported on her activities.
He is also said to have used physical violence against her in her desire for unquestioning obedience. She imposed extreme austerities on herself, and her health gave way after two years of this way of life.
Death and canonisation
Elizabeth died on 17 Nov 1231, aged 24. She was buried in the hospice chapel, and miracles through her intercession were soon widely reported. Konrad gathered a dossier of information on her sanctity and sent it to the Pope but died before her canonisation four years later.
Her relics were moved to a new church of St Elizabeth in Marburg, where they remained until the Reformation, when Lutherans removed them to a destination that has never been traced.
In art
Elizabeth soon became a figure of devotional art, and there are notable representations of her by Simone Martini, Fra Angelico, Piero dela Francesca and Jan van Eyck. She is one of a number of patron saints of hospitals. The others are: St John of God, St Camillus de Lellis and St Vincent de Paul.