Elisabet

Elisabet was born on 12 July 1198 in a village near the lakes and fields of the Mansfeld country, within the Landgraviate of Thuringia in the Holy Roman Empire. Her family spoke Middle High German and lived under a lord’s rights and dues, owing labor on demesne strips and payments in grain and small stock. The parish church ordered the week and the year: Sunday Mass when the work allowed, feast days, fasting, and short prayers learned by ear. A sprig of blessed greenery from a past feast hung near the doorbeam; holy water was kept for sickness.

Her father, Hermann, held a peasant tenancy and worked mixed fields and animals. Rye and oats stood on the higher ground; a few pigs and hens fed on scraps and mast. Her mother, Mechthild, ran the household. She spun flax when the light held, stirred pottage over the hearth, and kept the small children close while watching the yard.

Two children already lived in the house: Adelheid, five years old, and Heinrich, three. When labor came hard in midsummer heat, a neighbor woman, Liese, was sent for. The delivery was long and difficult. The child came at last but drew only shallow, gasping breaths. Hermann ran for the priest, Pfarrer Otto, but Liese did not wait—she used water at once and spoke the baptismal words over the infant.

Elisabet’s breathing failed within the hour. Mechthild held her until she was still. They wrapped her in cloth and carried her to the churchyard, where Otto recited the prayers for the dead. Because she had been baptized, she could lie in consecrated ground.