Guda

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Guda (* probably around 1206; † after 1235) was one of the women in the wake of Elisabeth of Thuringia and one of the essential witnesses in her canonization process . Her last name is not recorded. Guda came from a Thuringian ministerial family and was given to the Hungarian king's daughter Elisabeth as a companion when she was brought to the court of the influential Landgrave Hermann von Thuringia at the age of four because she had been betrothed to the Landgrave's eldest son.

Guda remained a confidante of Elisabeth of Thuringia until the end of her life. Only the last three years of her life, in which Elisabeth von Thuringia worked as a simple hospital nurse in the Franziskushospital she founded in Marburg, she did not share with her mistress. However, they stayed in contact. Guda would probably have shared her mistress' life as a hospital nurse, but Elisabeth von Thuringia's spiritual pastor Konrad von Marburg prevented that because he was concerned that Elisabeth would be reminded of her once glorious life by her confidante.

Guda has gone down in history because her testimony is an integral part of the Libellus de dictis quatuor ancillarum sanctae Elisabeth confectus , in which the statements of the four so-called servants of Elisabeth of Thuringia (next to Guda Isentrud von Hörselgau and the two Marburg hospital nurses Irmgard and Elisabeth) are summarized. Together with the summa vitae , they are essential sources of Elisabeth's life.

The testimony of Libellus was recorded and handed down as part of the canonization process of Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia 1232–1235. Guda is the only witness to give information about the time until the Landgravine was 14 years old. Isentrud von Hörselgau only became the lady-in-waiting of Elisabeth of Thuringia when she married Ludwig von Thuringia at the age of 14 . Guda describes Elisabeth as a lively, strong-willed, and resourceful child with a keen sense of justice and religious piety. Elisabeth of Thuringia showed pious zeal from her youth and directed her thoughts and attire in play and earnest to God . Historians do not judge their stories to be false, but are convinced that they were colored by the transfiguration of retrospect and driven by the desire to recognize the sacred life of Elisabeth of Thuringia in her youth.

literature

  • Walter Nigg (Ed.): Elisabeth von Thüringen , Patmos Verlag, Düsseldorf 1967. The book contains u. a. the testimony of the four servants translated by Otto Kragel.
  • Lee Maril (Ed.): Elisabeth von Thüringen. The testimonies of their contemporaries , Benziger, Einsiedeln 1961
  • Raoul Manselli: Princely holiness and everyday life with Elisabeth of Thuringia: The testimony of the servants , in Udo Arnold and Heinz Liebing (eds.): Elisabeth, the German Order and Your Church , Elwert Verlag, Marburg 1983, ISBN 3-7708-0754- 5 , pp. 9-27
  • Paul Gerhard Schmidt: The contemporary tradition on the life and canonization of Saint Elisabeth , in Philipps University Marburg (ed.): Sankt Elisabeth: Fürstin - Dienerin - Heilige , Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Sigmaringen 1981, ISBN 3-7995-4035-0 , Pp. 1-7
  • Fred Schwind : The Landgraviate of Thuringia and the landgrave's court at the time of Elisabeth , in Philipps University of Marburg (ed.): Sankt Elisabeth: Fürstin - Dienerin - Heilige , Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Sigmaringen 1981, ISBN 3-7995-4035-0 , Pp. 29-45
  • Matthias Werner: Saint Elisabeth and Konrad von Marburg , in Philipps University of Marburg (ed.): Sankt Elisabeth: Fürstin - Dienerin - Heilige , Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Sigmaringen 1981, ISBN 3-7995-4035-0 , p. 45– 70
  • Helmut Zimmermann and Eckhard Bieger: Elisabeth - Saints of Christian Charity , Publishing Community Topos plus, Kevelaer 2006, ISBN 3-7867-8598-8

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Nigg, p. 70 - quote from the Libellus
  2. ↑ Schwind, p. 39
  3. ↑ Werner, p. 48
personal data
SURNAME Guda
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Woman in the wake of Elisabeth of Thuringia
DATE OF BIRTH around 1206
DATE OF DEATH after 1235