Marburg - Elisabethkirche

Marburg developed at the crossroads of two important medieval routes. The settlement was protected by a small castle built during the ninth or tenth century. Since 1140 Marburg has been a town, owned by the Landgraves of Thuringia, residing on the Wartburg above Eisenach.

In 1228, the widowed Elizabeth of Hungary (aka Elizabeth of Thuringia), chose Marburg as her dowager seat. The countess dedicated her life to the sick and would become after her early death in 1231, aged 24, one of the most prominent female saints of the era. She was canonized already in 1235.

Marburg was a provincial town in Hesse, known for the University, the oldest Protestant-founded university in the world, founded in 1527. In 1529, Philipp I of Hesse arranged the "Marburg Colloquy", to propitiate Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli.

St. Elisabeth had founded a hospital here in 1228, where she cared for sick and needy people until her death. She was buried in the hospital chapel. Immediately began a pilgrim's stream and numerous miracles of healing were witnessed.

What happened just after (or even shortly before) St. Elisabeth died, just 25 years old, is a cruel story. As she was venerated as a saint already during her lifetime, pious people (and relic merchants) are said to have literally pounced on the corpse. They tore pieces from their shroud, cutting off nails, hair, and even her ears (some say a finger).

On May 1, 1236, Elisabeth´s bones were "translated" into this golden shrine. Emperor Frederick II ("stupor mundi") attended the translatio, barfoot, wearing a penitent´s tunica. Elisabeth´s skull had been separated already from the skeleton and was taken into a special container crowned with Frederick´s "Crown of Jerusalem". This head reliquary was later on display in the church and used during processions in Marburg.

Soon after some of the bones were taken out of the shrine. Elisabeth´s daughter Sophie, married to Henry II, Duke of Brabant, had a rib of her deceased mother. An arm was given to the Premonstratensian monastery Altenberg near Wetzlar, where her youngest daughter Gertrude was abbess. This is meanwhile in the castle chapel of Sayn Castle near Koblenz.

Three hundred years after her death, Landgrave Philip I "the Magnanimous", a leader of the Protestant Reformation and a strong supporter of Martin Luther, raided the church in Marburg had Elisabeth's bones removed from the shrine and the skull removed from the head reliquary in order to end the cult of the relics. He only returned what was left, after being imprisoned by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

The skull was lost. The empty reliquary and the crown were taken as a loot by swedish troops during the Thirty Years' War and are now on display at the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm.

It is possible that the skull and two shins reached the monastery of the Elisabethines in Vienna, where they are still revered, but there are more skulls.

In the Cathedral of Udine there is an Elisabeth skull, on the tomb of Blessed Bertrand of Aquileia.

In the chapel of the Archbishop of Besançon is an Elizabeth skull.

There is a skull in Brussels, with an inscription on the reliquary "Elisabeth de radice Hesse", but it was a misreading. It is "Jesse", so that is the skull of John the Baptist´s mother.

The skull in Bogotá (Colombo), said to have been bestowed by Anna of Austria, is the skull of a young man.