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[tree_and_leaf]

So you get the unstructured squee here, as I notice that today is the (Anglican) feast of S. Elisabeth of Thuringia (or Hungary), who is very possibly my favourite saint. She didn't want political power, but she used it when she had it; she was passionate about God, but also about her husband (she shocked the court by actually running out to greet him and hugging him before he got off his horse), and she was heart-broken by his death but seized the opportunity to do what she really wanted, nursing work with the poor and outcast, following God's call to leave everything and follow him. She was concerned with social justice and an early form of fair trade, refusing to eat food obtained by violence and oppression (well, by the standards of the day, anyway). She was also horribly, cheerfully, absent-minded, and given to letting the soup burn.

I don't think the church of the day quite knew what to do with her. I'm not sure we'd do all that much better now. But she was an amazing woman and a great saint.

Comments

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

How did she hug him before he got off his horse, levitation? ;-)

[tree_and_leaf]

Of course! IT WAS A MIRACLE!

Well, either that or I should proof read more carefully before I hit post. It's your choice, really...

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

Maybe it was a small horse?

[tree_and_leaf]

Shetland ponies, a la the Scots at Bannockburn in the 1066 And All That version?

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

She sounds fantastic, thanks for telling us about her. In fact she sounds a lot like a (male) friend who was training for the priesthood when I was a student and was very leftwing, an activist, and one of the most scatterbrained people I have met...

[themolesmother.livejournal.com]

If there were more saints like that I might have remained a Catholic! Thanks for the info.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

LOL :-)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

an activist

I somehow read that as "alchemist" ... ;-)

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I thought I remembered reading about her in and around the schloss in Marburg, and looking at her biography in Wikipedia I see that I was right. I think we visited the Elisabethkirche, in fact. She's an ancestress of Prince Philip, via the Battenberg/Mountbattens and the bigamous sixteenth-century landgrave of Hesse, Philip the Magnanimous.

[tree_and_leaf]

Elisabeth is love (her husband was obviously a thoroughly good guy, too) - and you're right, it's very easy to see her in modern terms, though a bit misleading, as she's obviously a product of her time too. I think it's partly because the sources are so abnormally vivid - it's really rare for a mediaeval saint to seem like a genuine human being, much less someone you can imagine would be a good friend and you'd want to be around (I mean, clearly lots of these people were massively attractive, because they did attract people - you just often can't see why, because they all get pushed through the hagiographical sausage factory).

[tree_and_leaf]

You're welcome! And yes - the church (and the world) needs more Elisabeths.

[tree_and_leaf]

... o_0.

I wonder what she'd make of the Windsors. Mind you, while I daresay she'd disapprove strongly of certain things Charles has done (though at least he was never a bigamist!), I think she'd sympathise with his chafing at some of the constraints of the role, and approve of things like the Prince's Trust.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

The Windsors are part of the Wettin dynasty who won Thuringia proper in the War of the Thuringian Succession, with Elisabeth's descendants, the House of Brabant, having to be content with Hesse. The Wettin claim came from a sister of her husband Ludwig IV, so they are all family - and Elizabeth II will have lines of descent from Elisabeth too, given the reliance of the Hanoverian dynasty on solidly protestant German consorts. So they are all family.

The Wikipedia article seems hostile to her, but I suspect she would be alarmed at the existence of the Church of England (though the modern Catholic church is probably more monolithic than the institution she knew).

[segh.livejournal.com]

Forgive me for wandering in - I'm a friend of wellinghall's. I originally took my name, Elisabeth, from this saint, though when I became Orthodox I adopted Elisabeth the New Martyr instead. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchess_Elizabeth_Feodorovna_of_Russia) But I'm glad to see someone else loves her!