The second patron saint of the Teutonic Order (after the Virgin Mary).
Elisabeth was the daughter of Andrew II, king of Hungary, and Gertrude of Andechs-Meran. In 1211 she was sent to Thuringia as the fiancee of Ludwig, son of Landgrave Hermann I of Thuringia, and was married to him in 1221. Ludwig joined the crusade of Emperor Frederick II, but fell ill and died in Otranto (1227). After his death, Elisabeth settled in Marburg, where she founded a hospital, dedicated to St. Francis, caring for the poor and the needy. She intensified her charitable activity under the influence of her confessor, Konrad von Marburg (c. 1180-1233). Soon after her premature death (1231), on the initiative of Konrad and her own brother-in-law, Count Konrad (d. 1240), a member of the Teutonic Order, she was canonized (1235). Due to the close ties between the ruling dynasty of Thuringia and the Teutonic Order, Elisabeth’s cult, rooted in the veneration of her shrine in Marburg, became important in the order’s life and liturgy. Many conventual churches and hospitals were dedicated to her, and her feast day (19 November) and translation were celebrated, the latter exclusively by the order.
-Zsolt Hunyadi
See also: Teutonic Order
Bibliography
Arnold, Udo, and Heinz Liebing, Elisabeth, der Deutsche Orden und ihre Kirche (Marburg: Elwert, 1983).
Elm, Kaspar, Elisabeth von Thuringen: Personlichkeit, Werk und Wirkung (Marburg: Philipps-Universitat, 1982).
Guth, Klaus, “Patronage of Elizabeth in the High Middle Ages in Hospitals of the Teutonic Order in the Bailiwick of Franconia,” in The Military Orders: Fighting for the Faith and Caring for the Sick, ed. Malcolm Barber (Aldershot, UK: Variorum, 1994), pp. 245-252.
World History
