Leopold III, Saint, Margrave of Austria

LEOPOLDO III, SANTO, MARGRAVIO DI AUSTRIA

Feast day: 15 November

LEOPOLD III, Saint, Margrave of Austria. - B. at Melk in 1073, of the house of Babenberg, d. 15 Nov. 1136. Educated by St. Altmann, bishop of Passau, he took over the government of the margraviate in 1095, after the death of his father, and held it for 40 years. At the beginning of his reign he favored the passage of the first Crusaders through Austria. He endowed churches and monasteries with munificence, especially the abbey of Melk; he founded others, such as Klosterneuburg (Canons Regular, today Lateranensians), in whose crypt he was buried, Heiligenkreuz (Cistercians) and Klein-Mariazell (Benedictines).

LEOPOLD III, saint, margrave of Austria - The finding of the veil. Scene from the legend of the founding of the abbey of Klosterneuburg. Panel of the altar of L. by Rueland Frucauf the Younger (ca. 1501) - Klosterneuburg.(phot. Bildarchiv d. Ö. Nationalbibliothek)

Although faithful to the Church and the papacy, he sided with Henry IV against his rebellious son Henry V, to whose side he passed in 1105 in order to have as his wife the latter's sister Agnes. He had 18 children by her, among them Otto, bishop of Freising, the famous historian, Conrad, archbishop of Salzburg, Leopold and Henry (Jasomirgott), who succeeded him in the government.

He was canonized in 1485 by Innocent VIII and declared patron of Austria in 1663 by the emperor Leopold I. Feast 15 Nov. In iconography he is represented in princely costume, with the crown and a model of a church, and sometimes with two baskets of bread for the poor.

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: BHL. 726; B. Poltzmann, Compendium vitae et miraculorum s. L., Klosterneuburg 1591; Hier. Pez, Historia s. L., Vienna 1747; V. D. Ludwig, Der Kanonisationsprozess des Markgrafen L., ivi 1919; id., Die Legende vom milden Markgrafen L., ivi 1925; H. Maschek, Kaiser Heinrich IV. und die Gründung des Chorherrenstiftes Klosterneuburg, in Mittel. d. Inst. f. Öster. Gesch., 47 (1933), pp. 186-211.

Lucchesio Spätling

@incollection{ec7_leopoldo_iii_santo_margravio_d, author = {Spätling, Lucchesio}, title = {Leopoldo III, santo, margravio di austria}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VII}, pages = {1176--1177}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/leopoldo-iii-santo-margravio-di-austria} }

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