WAYS, FORMS AND CHANGES IN MEDIEVAL FEMALE SAINTHOOD: VIRGINS, WIVES, WIDOWS

Hagiography has always played an important role in the teaching of the church, especially with regard to women. The lives of saints offer concrete examples of conduct leading towards perfection. Throughout the centuries, hagiographic writings attest to the influence of such model saints, adding, with each new life, another testimony of a successful way to salvation. The forms of female sainthood were, to a large extent, determined by their status as virgin, wife, and widow, thus making it neccessary to select, from the wealth of different lives, an appropriate model according to the respective conditions in life, time, and place. While it may be argued that it was the hagiographer who made use of such topoi in order to propagate his new saint by placing her alongside the approved saints, in some rare cases secondary sources and historical evidence beside the literary representation suggest that the teaching of the church had indeed influenced women to take up the example of previous saints in their strive towards salvation. Due to the source material available, a strong case can be made for St. Elisabeth of Thuringia/Hungary, who indeed modelled her life after the example of certain saints. In consequence, her own life could only be described in such topicality.