ELISABETTA di SCHÖNAU, saint. — Benedictine nun and visionary, born probably of a noble family in 1129 in the Rhineland, perhaps in Bonn or its vicinity; she died in the monastery of Schönau on 18 June 1165. At the age of twelve she was entrusted for her education to the double monastery of Schönau on the Rhine, near Sankt Goarshausen, where she received the veil ca. 1147 and, toward the end of her life, became teacher (superior) of the nuns, who were subject to the abbot, at that time Egberto, the Saint’s brother. In 1152, after a serious illness, she began her state of visions and ecstasy, in which she saw and conversed with celestial figures, mostly the saints of the day, Jesus Christ, and the Madonna.
At her brother’s command she put these visions in writing; they received their definitive form from her brother himself,
who exerted an influence on his sister that was not always beneficial, as in the matter of the schism between Vittore IV (antipope) and Alessandro III (1159), provoked by Federico Barbarossa, whom Egberto supported. The Saint’s death was highly edifying, and her remains were visited by a great number of the faithful from the surrounding area. She did not, however, receive liturgical veneration. Her name entered the Martyr. Romanum only under Gregorio XIII in 1584. In 1854 her liturgical office was inserted into the Proprium of the diocese of Limburgo.
Regarding the Saint’s character, all authors agree in recognizing in her a sincerely pure and ingenuous soul, as well as great zeal for souls and for the discipline of the Church. Several of her letters and the Liber cianum Dei insist on this latter point; in the composition of the latter her brother very probably had a hand. Well known is her vision of the bodily Assumption of Mary Most Holy into heaven, as well as her fantastic revelation concerning the 11,000 virgin martyrs who were companions of s. Orsola in the Liber revelationum s. Ursulæ et sociarum. All these writings, together with the three Libri visionum, which were widely circulated in the Middle Ages, were published by F. W. E. Roth, Die Visionen der hl. Elisabeth... von Schönau (Brünn 1884). L. Oliger (in Antonianum, 1 [1926], pp. 24-85) has likewise, with probability, attributed to the Saint of Schönau the Revelationes b. Elisabeth, which in manuscripts generally appear under the name of s. Elisabetta d'Ungheria.