orthodox visions (such as Christ as a woman), was rein-
terpreted by Ekbert. Similar to Hildegard, Elisabeth was
deeply concerned with the corruption in the church of
her time and pleaded for reform. Elisabeth faced strong
clerical criticism throughout her life.
While never canonized, Elisabeth enjoyed a wide-
spread saintly reputation among her contemporaries.
Her work, less complicated than that of Hildegard von
Bingen, was uniquely successful (becoming known as
far away as twelfth-century Iceland); more than 150
medieval manuscripts are extant. The twelfth-century
codex 3 of the Landesbibliothek at Wiesbaden, which
contains her complete work, was compiled under
Ekbert’s supervision.
Besides over twenty letters (most of them written
between 1154 and 1164), Elisabeth’s work comprises
the Liber visionum, a collection of her visions in three
parts (1152–1160), which contains topical themes of
interest today for the history of religion; the Liber
viarum dei (Book of the Ways of God), 1156–1157,
patterned after Hildegard von Bingen’s Scivias (Know
the Ways); and the Liber revelationum de sacro exercitu
virginum Coloniensium, an imaginative embellishment
of the then very popular Ursula legend, which had
an enormous infl uence on medieval hagiography and
iconography. While the Latin text of Elisabeth’s work
was edited (by F.W.E. Roth) in 1884, a critical edition
is still outstanding.
See also Hildegard von Bingen
Further Reading
Clark, Anne L. Elisabeth of Schönau: A Twelfth-Century Vision-
ary. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992.
Lewis, Gertrud Jaron. Bibliographie zur deutschen Frauenmystik
des Mittelalters. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 1989 [com-
prehensive list of primary texts and secondary sources up to
1988, pp. 146–158].
Ruh, Kurt. Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik, vol. 2,
Frauenmystik und Franziskanische Mystik der Frühzeit.
Munich: Beck, 1993, pp. 64–85.
Gertrud Jaron Lewis
ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY (1207–1231)
Saint Elizabeth (of Hungary, also of Thuringia) was
born in 1207 to Andreas II, king of Hungary, and his
wife, Gertrude of Andechs-Meranien. At the age of
four she was betrothed to the eldest son of Hermann,
landgrave of Thuringia, and was taken to be raised at his
court. The marriage took place in 1221, four years after
Hermann’s death and his son’s succession as Landgrave
Ludwig IV. Elizabeth bore two children, a son Hermann
and a daughter Sophie, before her husband’s departure
on Crusade with Frederick II in 1227. A third child,
Gertrude, was born three weeks after Ludwig’s death
on board ship off the coast of Italy. After her husband’s
death, Elizabeth left the court and moved to Marburg in
the western part of Thuringia, where she established a
hospital and spent the last four years of her life nursing
the sick with her own hands. She was canonized in 1235,
only four years after her death. The cornerstone for a
new, Gothic church over her burial site was laid at that
time. The testimony collected in support of Elizabeth’s
canonization soon augmented the bare facts of her life.
She is said to have been unusually pious as a child, when
she preferred praying to playing with other children and
stole bread from the court kitchens to feed the poor. She
was reputed to have tended the sick in her marriage bed
and to have organized large-scale donations of grain
from the landgraves’ stores in time of famine. Popular
legend too augmented the saint’s image. An early story
that she was chased from the Wartburg by her brothers-
in-law alter her husband’s death is now thought to be
apocryphal; it seems more likely that she left of her own
volition to lead a life of piety and charity that was not
possible at court. From the time of her death, she was
venerated as a saint; the director of her ascetic spiritual
practice during the last years of her life, Konrad of
Marburg, quickly built a stone basilica over her burial
site and began assembling testimony, particularly evi-
dence of miracles, in support of her canonization. After
Konrad’s death in 1233, Elizabeth’s powerful brothers-
in-law actively supported the canonization; additional
documentation accumulated at this time, including the
Libellus de dictis quatuor ancillarum, (a brief treatise
on her works) placed more emphasis on Elizabeth’s
earthly deeds. The pope’s interest in Elizabeth’s saint-
hood is clearly stated in the canonization documents: a
new and popular saint was perceived to be a useful tool
in the fi ght against heresy. Elizabeth’s popularity in the
eyes of the people seems to have relied not only on her
generosity but, more specifi cally, on her adherence to the
tenets of the new Franciscan order, which preached an
ascetic lifestyle in which devotion to God was refl ected
in service to the less fortunate.
Two of the earliest works of art commemorating the
new saint record scenes from her life. The roof panels
from the great gilt shrine, probably underway by 1248,
portray Ludwig’s decision to take the cross, his depar-
ture from Elizabeth, the return of his bones to his wife,
and Elizabeth clothing a beggar, taking the simple gray
robes of a hospital worker as a sign of her poverty and
devotion to others, distributing alms to the poor, feeding
the hungry, and giving drink to the thirsty and washing
the feet of a beggar. The nearly contemporary stained
glass window, also in her church at Marburg, strengthens
the emphasis on her charitable deeds by increasing their
number to six, to correspond to the canonical Acts of
Charity according to Matthew 25: 34–36, and organiz-
ing them together in the window’s left lancet. Since aELISABETH VON SCHÖNAU