Saint Elizabeth of Hungary

Elizabeth was born in 1207, a princess of the Kingdom of Hungary, and at age fourteen was married to Louis IV, Landgrave of Thuringia, in what became by most accounts a genuinely happy marriage. Even as a noblewoman, she was known for personally caring for the poor and sick, reportedly carrying food to villagers herself and building a hospital below her castle. Widowed at twenty when her husband died on crusade, she was forced from her court by relatives opposed to her charitable excess, and spent her remaining years in radical poverty and service to the sick, joining the Third Order of Saint Francis. She died in 1231 at only twenty-four, and was canonized within four years — an unusually rapid process reflecting how quickly her reputation for holiness had spread.