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.
Introduction to the Translation,
Chapter One: Research Objectives and
Categories of Analysis,
Chapter Two: Elisabeth's Life,
Chapter Three: On the
Road to Sainthood,
Chapter Four: The Poverella of Marburg, Appendix,
Chronology, Annotated Bibliography, Translator's Introduction: Select
Bibliography, Translator's Acknowledgments, Note on the Translator.
Elisabeth Johanna Auguste Busse-Wilson (1890-1974) was a German historian. She was one of the first generation of German women to receive a university education.
