ELIZABETH, Saint, of Hungary, daughter of Andrew II, king of Hungary, and Gertrude, daughter of the Duke of Carinthia: b. Presburg 1207; d. Marburg, 19 Nov. 1231. Early in life she displayed a dislike for things worldly, as the pomp with which she was surrounded, am bition, avlfrice and vain pleasures, and began to cultivate humility, piety and great charity. According to the custom of the times, when she was only four years old she was betrothed by her parents to Louis, the son of the Landgrave of Thuringia, who was about her own age. When Elizabeth was 14 years old they were married. Her husband admired his wife's piety and approved her great charity, especially during the famine in Germany in 1225, al though members of his own family severely censured her. She founded hospitals in Mar burg and other places within her husband's dominion. (Louis' father died the year after the betrothal, and he was the landgrave when he married Elizabeth). In 1227 Louis left home with Frederick Barbarossa to engage in the war for Palestine; but before reaching the, Holy Land Louis died from fever. Great mis fortunes soon befell Elizabeth. She was de prived of her regency by, the brother of het deceased husband and driven out of her do minion on the plea that she wasted the treasures of the state by her charities. The inhabitants
of Marburg, whose miseries she had frequently relieved, refused her any asylum, for fear of the new regent. At last she found refuge in the monastery of Kitzingen, where her aunt was abbess, and later with her uncle, bishop of Bamberg, and when the warriors who had at tended her husband in the Crusade returned from the East with his body, she gathered them around her, and recounted her sufferings and the wrongs done to her three children. Steps were talcen to restore to her her sovereign rights. She declined the regency, however, and would accept only the revenues which accrued to her as landgravine. The remainder of her days were devoted to almsgiving, mortifications and prayer. She became a member of the Third Order of Saint Francis, and in pictures she is often represented clothed in the Francis can habit. She was canonized by Gregory IX four years after her death. Consult Montalemr bert, 'Life of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary' (trans. into English by F. D. Hoyt 1904); Starr, (Patron Saints' ; Butler, (Lives of Saints' ; Bonaventure, (Sermon on Saint Eliz abeth' ; Theodoric and Montague of Spire. There are extant manuscripts on her life, by contemporaries, Conrad of Marburg, Siegfried of Mentz, and others.