This work is a study and translation of the testimony given by witnesses at the canonization hearings of St. Elizabeth, who died at age twenty-four in 1231. The depositions offer vivid anecdotes about her life as well as the healing miracles that were associated with her shrine in Marburg.

Though St. Elizabeth of Hungary lived over 800 years ago, she has a unique appeal for Christians today. Love, rather than ideology or politics, was the basis of her whole life. Born in 1207, the daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary and married to Ludwig IV, the Landgraf of Thuringia, Elizabeth was a happily married woman who loved her husband and children. As a lover of the poor, she not only practiced charity, but protested the injustices practiced against the poor in the feudal world, even her husband's own policies. Above all, Elizabeth hungered for God and found him in her everyday activities as a noblewoman, ruler, wife and mother before she found him in religious life and service to the poor in imitation of St. Francis. Originally published in 2007 to coincide with the 800th anniversary of St. Elizabeth's birth, this life, now revised and expanded, is based on the most up-to-date research and is accompanied by the testimonies given at her canonization process, including some that have never before been translated into English.

The collection of articles gathered in this volume grew naturally and spontaneously out of the Second International Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Thought hosted by Sam Houston State University in April 2016. This anthology reflects the diverse fields of study represented at the conference. The purpose of the conference, and consequently of this book of essays, is partially to establish a place for medieval and renaissance scholarship to thrive in our current intellectual landscape. This volume is not designed solely for scholars, but also for generalists who wish to augment their knowledge and appreciation of an array of disciplines; it is an intellectual smorgasbord of philosophy, poetry, drama, popular culture, linguistics, art, religion, and history.

The twenty-four studies in this volume propose a new approach to framing the debate around the history of medieval art and architecture to highlight the multiple roles played by women, moving beyond today's standard division of artist from patron.

Married Life in the Middle Ages, 900-1300 contains an analysis of the experience of married life by men and women in Christian medieval Europe, c. 900-1300. The study focusses on the social and emotional life of the married couple rather than on the institutional history of marriage, breaking it into three parts: Getting Married - the process of getting married and wedding celebrations; Married Life - the married life of lay couples and clergy, their sexuality, and any remarriage; and Alternative Living - which explores concubinage and polygyny, as well as the single life in contrast to monogamous sexual unions. In this volume, van Houts deals with four central themes. First, the tension between patriarchal family strategies and the individual family member's freedom of choice to marry and, if so, to what partner; second, the role played by the married priesthood in their quest to have individual agency and self-determination accepted in their own lives in the face of the growing imposition of clerical celibacy; third, the role played by women in helping society accept some degree of gender equality and self-determination to marry and in shaping the norms for married life incorporating these principles; fourth, the role played by emotion in the establishment of marriage and in married life at a time when sexual and spiritual love feature prominently in medieval literature.

When the First Crusade ended with the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, jubilant crusaders returned home to Europe bringing with them stories, sacred relics, and other memorabilia, including banners, jewelry, and weapons. In the ensuing decades, the memory of the crusaders' bravery and pious sacrifice was invoked widely among the noble families of western Christendom. Popes preaching future crusades would count on these very same families for financing, leadership, and for the willing warriors who would lay down their lives on the battlefield. Despite the great risks and financial hardships associated with crusading, descendants of those who suffered and died on crusade would continue to take the cross, in some cases over several generations. Indeed, as Nicholas L. Paul reveals in To Follow in Their Footsteps, crusading was very much a family affair.Scholars of the crusades have long pointed to the importance of dynastic tradition and ties of kinship in the crusading movement but have failed to address more fundamental questions about the operation of these social processes. What is a "family tradition"? How are such traditions constructed and maintained, and by whom? How did crusading families confront the loss of their kin in distant lands? Making creative use of Latin dynastic narratives as well as vernacular literature, personal possessions and art objects, and architecture from across western Europe, Paul shows how traditions of crusading were established and reinforced in the collective memories of noble families throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Even rulers who never fulfilled crusading vows found their political lives dominated and, in some ways, directed by the memory of their crusading ancestors. Filled with unique insights and careful analysis, To Follow in Their Footsteps reveals the lasting impact of the crusades, beyond the expeditions themselves, on the formation of dynastic identity and the culture of the medieval European nobility.

This work is a study and translation of the testimony given by witnesses at the canonization hearings of St. Elizabeth, who died at age twenty-four in 1231. The depositions offer vivid anecdotes about her life as well as the healing miracles that were associated with her shrine in Marburg.