St Elizabeth of Hungary

17^th November is the saint’s day of Elizabeth of Hungary, a woman who went through many sufferings but continued to perform good deeds for those less fortunate than herself.

She married Ludwig IV, Landgrave of Thuringia, in 1221 at the age of 14. They were blissfully happy for six years, during which she bore three children and founded a hospital.

However, all this came to an end in 1227 when Ludwig went off on a crusade but died of plague on the journey. She had sworn to Ludwig that, were she to be widowed, she would not re-marry and, despite being only 20, she stuck to her promise.

Her brother-in-law refused to let her stay in the castle, so she joined the Franciscan order and lived in a very small house where she was subject to many cruelties imposed on her by the priest who was assigned as her confessor.

Instead of fleeing back to Hungary she stayed put and was subjected to beatings and insults from the priest and the woman companions that he had assigned to live with her. She was forced to send her children away. She also came under strong pressure from her own family to marry and produce heirs for her Hungarian relatives.

However, she stuck firmly to her principles and continued to minister to the patients in her hospital and give money to the poor.

She died in 1231 aged 24 and was canonised only four years later.

Her story of fortitude against overwhelming odds clearly struck a chord with people at the time, and there is a possibility that she was a source for Geoffrey Chaucer’s “patient Griselda” in his “Clerk’s Tale”.

© John Welford