Elizabeth of Schönau

Saint Elisabeth of Schönau
Born	c.1129 Germany
Died	June 18, 1164 Schönau Abbey, Strüth, Germany
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Canonized	Not canonized
Feast	June 18

Elisabeth of Schönau (c. 1129 – 18 June 1164) was a German Benedictine visionary.

In the mid 12th century, Elisabeth of Schönau blurred the conventional gender roles of the time through the dissemination of her astonishing and debilitating visions. Elisabeth lived during a time when women were viewed as the weaker sex, both mentally and physically. Unless a woman were to join a convent or a religious movement, she would be expected to marry and to bear children. If a woman did choose the life of celibacy, she would be freed from her association with female weakness, thus exempting her from the charge of corrupting males through seduction. While celibacy offered women a sense of freedom, a woman could not officiate in the central practices of the Christian religion, leaving women essentially powerless. Elisabeth of Schönau, however, was far from powerless, as her visions led her to acquire enough notoriety to be known far and wide. Elisabeth became not only a local celebrity as a result of her visions, but gained popularity throughout other parts of Germany, as well as in France and England. This enabled Elisabeth to have her own voice, to be known as an individual, and to be sought after in an effort to acquire heavenly advice by high order men, including bishops and abbots. For men of such high order to call upon Elisabeth, a mere woman, is extremely significant given the time period in which Elisabeth lived. Elisabeth’s visions, as well as her twenty-two letters to bishops, abbots, and abbesses, enabled her to transcend the traditional gender roles of the time by making her widely known and giving her an individual voice.

Elisabeth was born about 1129, of an obscure family named Hartwig. She was educated at the double monastery of Schönau in Nassau and made her profession as a Benedictine in 1147. In 1157 she became abbess of the nuns under the supervision of Abbot Hildelin. F.W.E. Roth points out that in the 12th century only women of noble birth were promoted to spiritual offices in the Benedictine order; it seems probable that Elisabeth was of noble birth.

Her hagiography describes her as given to works of piety from her youth, much afflicted with bodily and mental suffering, a zealous observer of the Rule of Saint Benedict and of the regulation of her convent, and devoted to practices of mortification. In the years 1147 to 1152 Elisabeth suffered recurrent disease, anxiety and depression as a result of her strict asceticism. St. Hildegard of Bingen admonished Elisabeth in letters to be prudent in the ascetic life.

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