The daughter of Andrew II, King of Hungary, and Gertrud of Andechs-Meran, Queen of Hungary, Saint Elizabeth was born in 1207. She was engaged, at the age of four, to the son of the Landgrave of Thuringia and was brought up at the castle of Wartburg. In 1221 she married her betrothed, the young Count Louis. After her husband's death in a plague in the 5th crusade in 1227, Elizabeth moved to Eisenach, then to Marburg, and established Europe's first hospital from her widow's allowance. She decided to dedicate her life to serving the sick and helping the poor. She was already regarded as a saint at the time of her death at the age of twenty-four in 1231. Although died at an early age, she had experienced all aspects of being a woman: she was a loving wife, a mother of three children, a resolute sovereign, a widow true to her husband, and – what was extraordinary at that time and even today – a patroness of the poor and distressed. In 1235 she was canonised by Pope Gregory IX. Her figure has inspired countless legends that are still alive today.

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