Elizabeth of Hungary
The daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary, St. Elizabeth was born in Pressburg (now Bratislava) in 1207. At 14, she married Ludwig IV, Landgrave of Thuringa; they had three children. He joined the Fifth Crusade and died in Otranto in 1227. Henry Raspe, Ludwig's successor and later antiking to Frederick II, drove Elizabeth from Thuringa. In 1228, she became a Franciscan tertiary under the spiritual direction of Conrad of Marburg, the first papal inquisitor in Germany, who ordered her to give up her children. He is said also to have chastised her physically. She devoted herself to the care of the poor. She died in 1231 at the age of 24 and was canonized in 1235.
Karen Rae Keck
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