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Elizabeth
of Hungary with the poor.
Reluctant Saint; Francis of Assisi."Don't make a saint of me," Francis of Assisi told a friend, even as his charisma and holiness were dazzling his contemporaries and generating a legend that has lasted almost a millennium.
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 hat Kind of King's Kid Was She?
To look at her, you would not have guessed
that Elizabeth was the daughter of a king and wife of a prince. In place
of the gold-cloth dresses of her youth, she wore the plain gray robe of
a Franciscan. Rather than be waited on, she washed lepers with her own
hands. Instead of rich meats and pastries, she ate bread with a little
honey, or a dry crust with a small glass of wine. She worked wool like
any peasant girl. A Magyar knight, who saw her sitting by her little cottage,
exclaimed in astonishment, "Whoever has seen a king's daughter spinning
before?"
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Well might he be astonished. Elizabeth von Thuringia was born in 1207
in the royal castle of Pozsony (Bratislava, Czechoslovakia). Her mother,
Gertrude, was a committed Christian from a long line of Christians, and
she imparted the faith to her daughter. Elizabeth's father, Andrew II,
fought valiantly in the crusades but was not an exemplary king. His nobles
forced him to sign Hungary's Magna Carta, the so-called Golden Bull. Two
aunts and an uncle set examples of faith for their niece. Aunt Hedwig
founded a convent for lepers, Aunt Mechthild became abbess of Kitzingen,
and Uncle Egbert was bishop of Bamberg.
When she was not yet two, Elizabeth was pledged in marriage to the son
of a Hungarian nobleman in Thuringia, then part of the German Empire.
When she was four years of age, Elizabeth was sent to live with her prospective
in-laws to be raised according to their customs at the Wartburg Castle.
Her Mother Killed
Gertrude was murdered in a political assassination when Elizabeth was
seven. The grieving daughter was old enough to understand that she had
a comforter in God, and she knelt with her troubles in the Wartburg chapel,
praying for the souls of the murderers, although she experienced a terrifying
dream in which she saw her mother's gory body. Shortly after, Elizabeth's
fiancee also died. So her status in Thuringia became cloudy. However,
Ludwig, the brother of her deceased fiancee, said he would like to marry
her.
Her Dream Day
So when Elizabeth was just fourteen, her dream day came. In spite of attempts
by Ludwig's family to send the beautiful olive-complexioned girl away,
declaring her too holy to make a suitable bride, she was married to him
as planned in a ceremony held in St. George's Church in Eisenach. Elizabeth
listened well as the bishop read the ceremony and understood that, although
she was entering a union with her husband, she could in some sense also
experience a mystical union with Christ. In time she would. Meanwhile,
Ludwig and she bound themselves to rule justly and to open their home
in hospitality to monks and nuns. Ludwig was a young man of noble mind
who took as his motto "Piety, Chastity, Justice." Elizabeth
adored him.
Elizabeth brought great wealth to the marriage and now possessed more.
She had the choice of five castles to live in and so she was called "Elizabeth
of many castles." But wealth did not impress her. Although she dressed
handsomely, in brocade dresses with round necks and sleeves that flared
from her elbows, or bright flowing Hungarian silks that hugged her womanly
figure, she said she did so only to please her husband. They lived at
first on the Danube, and Elizabeth rode across the shattered nation with
Ludwig, viewing firsthand the devastation left by the Golden Bull revolt
of the Hungarian nobles. But when she became pregnant, she moved to Kreutsberg
castle.
At the birth of her son, Herman, she carried him in her arms and walked
barefoot to St. Katherine's chapel where she recited Psalm 127: "Children
are a heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is his reward."
She did the same for two other children, consecrating them to the Lord.
Affected by Franciscans St. Francis of Assisi was preaching in those days,
calling people to repent, cast aside the chains of wealth, and show kindness
to the poor and lepers. Franciscans arrived in Thuringia in 1221 and their
message stirred Elizabeth. It corresponded to the goodness she had learned
from her parents. She longed to share her own blessings with the poor.
Placing herself under the instruction of Brother Rodeger, she opened eastern
Europe's first orphanage and tended lepers, undertaking even the dirtiest
jobs of their care with her own hands. This outraged her in-laws.
Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed?
According to legend, she even laid a leper in her husband's bed. "Come
my son," said her mother-in-law to Ludwig. "You shall see one
of the wonders your Elizabeth works that I cannot prevent . . . ."
When she flung back the covers, Ludwig did not see the leper, but rather
Jesus lying on the bed. Whatever the reality behind the legend, Elizabeth's
husband gave her funds to establish a leprosarium below Wartburg castle,
so that weak lepers would not have to struggle up the castle path, which
was so steep it was called "the knee-smasher." She poured relief
upon all who were in true distress, giving the able-bodied tools to work
with and the dying beds to lie on. Ludwig defended her good works against
his family's criticism, saying that such deeds would bring blessing upon
the country.
Was Her Generosity Excessive?
In 1226, severe famine raged in Thuringia, and on its heels brought crime
and disease. Ludwig was away. Elizabeth feared that the people might revolt,
for they were so desperate for food they ground up pine bark as a substitute
for flour. When they crowded against the castle gate, crying for food,
she ordered her reserves emptied for them and ran the ovens day and night,
baking bread. With the help of monks and nuns, she set up soup kitchens
across the country. Churches were thrown open to house the homeless, and
she had firewood distributed to the weak. To the fury of her grasping
in-laws, she took all the ready money in the treasury and distributed
it among the sick. She even sold most of her jewels and a silver cradle
she had been rocked in.
Who Did it Belong to Anyway?
Ludwig's stewards and treasurers met him on his return, accusing Elizabeth
of bankrupting the treasury. Ludwig asked if she had lost any of his domains.
The stewards had to admit she had not. Elizabeth saw only that she had
saved precious lives and possibly Ludwig's kingdom itself. "I gave
God what was his and God has kept for us what was yours and mine,"
she told her husband. He appreciated her more than ever. To fulfill a
vow he had made, Ludwig joined Frederick II's crusade, leaving his lands
in charge of his brother, Henry Raspe IV. Elizabeth had a premonition
that Ludwig would not return, and dressed herself in widow's black. She
was pregnant. After her child's birth, she learned that her husband had
indeed died of fever. "The world is dead to me and all that was pleasant
in the world," she cried and ran through the castle, shrieking like
one crazed.
Thrown Out Without a Penny
At this point accounts differ. Some say her brother-in-law seized power,
throwing her out of the castle, others that she left on her own accord.
Claiming that she had ruined the treasury with her excessive concern for
the poor, Henry cut off her allowance. In some accounts it is said that
for spite, he forbade anyone in Eisenach, her nearby wedding town, to
assist her. Alone, separated from her children, she walked to Eisenach
on a mid-winter evening. Despite her misery, she joined the Franciscans
in singing unto the Lord. Because they feared Henry's reprisals, none
of the townsfolk would open their doors to her. Even the convent turned
her away. She was forced to spend the night in the courtyard of an inn
among jars and baskets. She prayed that Christ would forgive those who
had wronged her.
The next day some faithful ladies brought her children to her. She hugged
the little ones and said to Herman, "May God so love me, I know not
whither to turn, or where to rest your little bodies, though all the lordship
of this town is yours, dear son." Her loyal ladies promised to follow
her wherever she went. They took refuge in the church that night. A poor
priest brought them into his own home, and Elizabeth sold the few small
jewels she was wearing so that they could buy food. A few days later,
a wealthy townsman gave them a corner in his house.
As she prayed, Elizabeth reflected on Christ's sufferings. Her Lord,
too, had been outcast, and borne cruel abuse. She asked Him to be with
her, saying she desired never to be parted from Him. The Lord showed Himself
to her in a vision and said, "If you desire to be with me, I desire
to be with you." We know nothing certain about her vision except
that she refused to wear crown jewels when entering church to meditate
on Christ, because she had seen Christ crowned with thorns, and thought
it unfitting for her to enter His presence crowned in gems.
Reinstatement
The crusaders who had ridden forth with Ludwig spoke up for Elizabeth. They
demanded that her full domain be restored to her. For her part, she asked
only for the restoration of her son's rights and her dowry so that she might
have enough money to carry out good deeds. Eventually she gained her point
and her inheritance was restored. Elizabeth tried living in a castle which
was hers by dowry and later another which was hers by right of marriage,
but Henry's ill-will was so great that she finally built a simple cottage
and hospice in Wehrda, near Marburg. Later Elizabeth became a lay Franciscan
--the first in the German Empire.
She devoted the revenues from her dowry to building a hospital where
she attended the sick and spun wool. For extra income, she fished. Hers
was one of Europe's first leprosariums. Many more followed and helped
wipe out the disease from Europe. Dead of Exhaustion at 23 years old However,
she overdid her exertions and died, probably of exhaustion. As she lay
dying, she was heard singing in response to a bird upon the wall. At cock-crow
of her last day, she said, "It is now the time when [Christ] rose
from the grave and broke the doors of hell, and He will release me."
Her body was laid in the little chapel she had attached to her hospice.
The blind, the lame, the demon possessed and lepers came to her funeral.
A mere four years later, the Church named her a saint. Two hundred thousand
people gathered for the occasion, convinced that Elizabeth had entered
into a castle far grander than any of the five she had inhabited while
alive on earth. For centuries, her self-sacrifice inspired works of literature
and art. |
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