Only twelve years after German women had been granted voting rights, the German medievalist Elisabeth Busse-Wilson, a first-wave feminist activist and scholar, challenged centuries of silence about violence against women by taking on the case of the most famous European saint, the young Elisabeth of Thuringia (1207–1231). Married at a very young age, St. Elisabeth soon fell under the spell of the notorious confessor and inquisitor Konrad von Marburg. His brutal treatment of the young woman was erased from the cult of St. Elisabeth to protect male privilege both in the church and society at large.
Published to coincide with the 700-year anniversary of her death, Busse-Wilson’s study caused a storm of controversy. Translated for the first time into English, this book reintroduces to a contemporary audience this long-forgotten but still provocative and timely classic.
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- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Introduction to the Translation
- 1 Research Objectives and Categories of Analysis
- St. Elisabeth’s Life as a Legend and Moral Cliché
- Legend and History
- The Value of Primary Sources about St. Elisabeth
- The Religious Character – A Neurosis?
- 2 Elisabeth’s Life
- A Lonely Childhood
- Landgrave Ludwig and St. Elisabeth’s Marriage
- Courtly Love and Marriage
- Christian Asceticism and Its Modern Misinterpretation
- Elisabeth’s Intentions
- Patrimonial Charity and Christian Caritas
- The Transformation of Social Ethics
- The Landgravine’s Charitable Practices
- The Franciscan Creed
- Elisabeth as a Franciscan
- Konrad of Marburg
- Konrad of Marburg’s Personality and Work
- Konrad as Pedagogue
- The Turning Point
- 3 On the Road to Sainthood
- The Art of Suffering
- Descent into Destitution
- A Wedding with Lady Poverty
- The Vision
- Capitulation
- Konrad of Marburg’s Victory
- 4 The Poverella of Marburg
- Elisabeth in Marburg: Relocation and New Status
- The Marburg Hospital and Elisabeth’s Charity
- Spiritual Marriage
- Perfect Obedience
- Honor
- Resentment
- Christian Humility as an Asceticism of Power
- An Exercise in Humility or Mere Performance?
- Mysticism of the Cross
- Elisabeth’s Death
- Konrad of Marburg’s Psychological Development after Elisabeth’s Death
- A Failed Canonization
- Konrad of Marburg as Grand Inquisitor
- Konrad of Marburg’s Death of Atonement
- Achieving Sainthood Through Politics
- Materiality and the Emergence of a Cult
- Appendix
- Chronology
- Translator’s Introduction: Select Bibliography
- Translator’s Acknowledgments
- Note on the Translator
- Annotated Bibliography (Organized According to Date of Publication)
- Primary Sources
- Medieval Biographies of St. Elisabeth
- Source Criticism
- Historiographical Studies of the Nineteenth Century
- Studies of Konrad of Marburg
- General Literature
- Translator’s Introduction: Select Bibliography
- Translator’s Acknowledgments
- Note on the Translator
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