St. Elizabeth of Sconauge, Virgin and Abbess

THREE monasteries in Germany bear the name of Sconauge: one of Cistercian monks near Heidelberg, founded by Buggo, bishop of Worms in 1135; another of nuns of the same Order in Franconia; a third of monks of the Order of St. Bennet in the diocess of Triers, four German miles from Bingen, was founded by Hildelin, a nobleman, who, in 1125, took himself the monastic habit, and was chosen first abbot. Not far distant he built a great nunnery of the same Order and name which is now extinct, though the three former remain to this day. Soon after the foundation of this house, when regular discipline flourished there with great edification to the church, St. Elizabeth, who from her infancy had been a vessel of election, made her religious profession, and was afterwards chosen abbess. At twenty-three years of age she began to be favoured with heavenly visions. 1 She died in the year 1165, of her age thirty-six, on the 18th of June, on which day her name is inserted in the Roman Martyrology, though she was never solemnly beatified, as Chatelain takes notice. See her encomium by an abbot of Sconauge, &c., in the Bollandists, t. 3, Jun. ad diem 18.

Note 1. The visions printed under her name were committed to writing by her brother Egbert. Lewis du Mesnil, the learned Jesuit, complains that he confounded without discernment private opinions and histories with revelations, as is evident from what he writes of St. Ursula, and Cyriacus, whom he imagines to have been pope after St. Pontian. See on the same the remark of Papebroke: also Amort, de Revelationibus. [back]

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