When Ludwig returned from Italy his courtiers were loud in their complaints of his spendthrift wife, but he listened to them with good-humoured indifference. ‘Let her continue giving to the poor if God so wills it,’ he said, ‘if but the Wartburg and the Neuburg remain to us.’ He evidently appreciated and shared her philanthropic zeal; for he founded a shelter (xenodochium) for the poor, the weak and the infirm at Reinhardsbrunn, assisted his wife in founding a hospital at Gotha, and encouraged brothers of the nursing order of St Lazarus to settle in that part of the country[789]. The interest Elisabeth felt in social outcasts evidently touched a sympathetic chord in his kindly nature, even when this interest was carried to an extreme, the meaning and social fitness of which it is not easy to appreciate. For example, the story is told that Elisabeth when staying at Neuburg tended a leper with her own hands and had him placed on her husband’s bed, an action which greatly shocked Sophie, her mother-in-law. The legend-writer of later date,—not satisfied with the strong impulsiveness of feeling which alone renders such an action possible and even under certain conditions raises it above criticism, and at the same time unable to grasp the reasonableness of Sophie’s point of view,—tells us that the leper suddenly assumed the form of Christ, a miracle by which her doubts were confounded.
In 1227 Ludwig, in answer to a summons from the emperor, took the cross and left for Italy, never to return. His biographer says that having received the cross he kept it in his pocket instead of displaying it on his coat, for fear of distressing his wife, who was about to give birth to their third child. But Elisabeth came across it by chance and was bowed down by grief at the thought of losing him. Together with others she started him and his followers on their journey, and travelled on with him yet another day’s journey to delay the dreaded moment of separation. On her return to the Wartburg she devoted herself to her charitable work with increased zeal, and her inclination to self-denial became more accentuated owing to contact with members of the Franciscan order.
The attempt of the Franciscan friars to gain a foothold in Germany had at first been frustrated. Ekbert, bishop of Bamberg, Elisabeth’s uncle, was the first to give them a gracious reception. From Bamberg they spread into the adjoining districts, and Elisabeth’s favour enabled them to build a chapel at Eisenach. Konrad, one of these friars, had been nominated inquisitor by Pope Innocent III, and coming to Eisenach in 1226 soon won the affections of Ludwig and Elisabeth. At a later date Konrad of Marburg drew popular hatred on himself by his extreme rigour and anti-heretical teaching, and suffered a violent death (1233). But in earlier years he had gained much sympathy by preaching the views of St Francis on the renunciation of worldly goods and on practising unlimited charity[790]. When Ludwig departed to the south, he entrusted Konrad with considerable authority, which he turned to account by strengthening the ascendency he had gained over Elisabeth. She accepted him as her guide in all things, and upheld his views that to levy taxes is an evil and that each person should earn the food he requires by the work of his own hands. To carry this into practice she refused to accept any tribute and tried to earn money herself. Within a short time, however, came the news that Ludwig had died in Italy from a fever before setting sail for the East. The news came to Elisabeth as an overpowering shock. ‘Dead!’ she exclaimed, ‘dead! so henceforth to me is the world and all things pleasant it contains.’ Trials now came thick upon her. Her husband’s brother, Hermann, with a usurper’s determination, seized Ludwig’s possessions and expelled Elisabeth, whom he had always looked upon with disapproval. She was forced to fly from the Wartburg with her children, and in the depth of a severe winter she paced the streets of Eisenach, seeking refuge with those she had formerly befriended, but no one dared to harbour her. At last her aunt Mathilde, abbess of Kizzingen, sent for her and for her two faithful waiting-women, perhaps for the children also. Elisabeth would gladly have accepted a permanent home in the convent, but her uncle Ekbert interfered. He appointed a more suitable dwelling-place—and urged upon her the desirableness of a second marriage. Elisabeth refused, and we hardly need the assurance of the legend-writer that it was because she had taken the vow of chastity, considering how recently her husband had died. However in the meantime the band of Ludwig’s followers returned home bringing with them their leader’s corpse, and a rapid change of affairs took place in the Wartburg. Hermann the usurper was forced to yield, Elisabeth was reinstated in her rights, and was fetched back to the castle by the noble Vargila. But her stay there was not of long duration. Her position was intolerable, and she felt that nothing could bring her solace short of the renunciation of all prerogatives of station and wealth. She would have become a recluse had not the Franciscan friar Konrad prevented this excess of humility. As it was she went to the Franciscan chapel at Eisenach, publicly renounced the world and its claims, and removed to Marburg in Hessen where she would be near Konrad and devote herself to a life of sacrifice. She refused to live in the castle, and with the two waiting-women, who throughout remained faithful to her, dwelt in a hut on the hillside, devoting all her property to constructing a hospital in the town, where she spent most of her time waiting on the sick and infirm.
Her conduct at Marburg filled the people with amazement as it had done at Eisenach, and numbers pressed thither to see her and to be tended by her. Considering that she only spent about two years there, the impression she made must have been extraordinary, for the undying memory of her fame continues to this day among the people. We hear a good deal of the asceticism she practised under Konrad’s guidance during these last years of her life; how she submitted to bodily chastisement, how she admitted that her own children were not dearer to her than those of others, how she expressed regret at ever having been married, and how she suffered her faithful waiting-women, who like herself had adopted the grey dress of the order of St Francis, to be removed out of her sight. She died in 1231 at the early age of twenty-four. In accordance with the general wish she was canonized within a few years of her death by Pope Gregory IX in 1235. Immediately after her death hospitals constructed on the plan of that at Marburg and acknowledging St Elisabeth as their patron saint sprang up in many cities. With all these facts before us we cannot deny to her the achievement of lasting social importance. To this day hospitals in Germany founded both under Catholic and Protestant auspices are often dedicated to her.
The loving tribute of a later age has perpetuated her fame in many ways. It has struck medals in her memory, has surmounted fountains by her statue, and has reared to her memory the minster of Marburg, one of the finest monuments of German mediaeval architecture. In spite of the ravages of time and the robberies perpetrated during warfare her sarcophagus there remains a wondrous achievement of the art of the goldsmith. It is still an object of pious admiration and devout pilgrimage, both to the faithful believer and to the appreciative student of history and art.
Our age has witnessed a great spread of philanthropic interest and charitable zeal among women of the educated classes; a wave of feeling, similar to that which swept over mankind in the 13th century, bears down all other considerations when there are outcasts to be rescued and suffering to be alleviated. Nursing the sick has become a distinct and a respected profession; the administration of charity, an education in itself, is absorbing some of the best energies of the community, and women who seek to rescue suffering humanity are at last enabled to do so by the guiding hand of science. Certainly circumstances have changed. We live no longer in an age when the leper need display his sores to arouse pity, nor where almsgiving per se has a social value. And yet now as then the success of charitable work depends on unselfish devotion and goodness of heart in the individual, and it is in this sense that the charitable work of the women-saints of the past retains its meaning. It is not by imitating their deeds that a later age walks worthily in their footsteps and pays them the tribute of reverence, but by accepting and furthering the spirit in which these deeds were done.
CHAPTER IX.
EARLY MYSTIC LITERATURE.