Saint Elizabeth, Princess of Hungary and Grand Countess of Thuringia, in Germany, was born in 1207, daughter of King Andrew II and Gertrude of Andechs-Merano, and was depicted by Murillo “curing the sick” in the 17th century.
Following the customs of the medieval nobility, Elizabeth was betrothed as a wife to a German prince of Thuringia. She married at the age of fourteen to Ludwig IV, Landgrave or Grand Count of Thuringia, and had three children. German, the heir to the throne, Sophia and Gertrude. The latter was born when her husband had already died (1227), victim of the plague, as a crusader on his way to the Holy Land. She was only 20 years old. St. Elizabeth died at the age of 24, in 1231, and was canonized by Gregory IX in 1235. A record of a dense and self-sacrificing life.
Elizabeth of Hungary is the female figure who most genuinely embodies the penitential spirit of Francis, according to the Franciscan saints' calendar. The preaching of the Friars Minor among the people, which they had learned from St. Francis of Assisi, consisted in exhorting them to a life of penance and to exercise themselves in the works of mercy. Elizabeth's short life caused scandal at the court of Wartburg, many considered her mad because of her mercy.
Helped the weak and promoted hospitals
When she was still grand countess and in the absence of her husband, she had to face an emergency that plunged the country into famine. She emptied the county granaries to help the needy, poor and sick. Elizabeth saw the person of Christ in those in need.
He put intelligence at the service of his welfare work. During her husband's lifetime, she contributed to the erection of hospitals in Eisenach and Gotha. Then she built the one in Marburg (1229), the favorite work of her widowhood. To take care of it, she founded a religious fraternity with her friends and maidens, and placed it under the protection of St. Francis, canonized a few months earlier.
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