In Norwich there is a certain street in which are mixed redundant churches, half-timbered houses, pawn shops, office blocks and slums in a happy mix. Off this street runs an alleywall into a group of sixteenth century buildings called ‘Elizabeth of Hungary Yard’. This intrigued me for many years – I now know it was named after a quondam pub of that name which stood there. Today, the Church recalls the woman who gave her name and image to that forgotten drinking-house, S. Elizabeth, and the affection with which she has been regarded throughout Europe.

Born a princess, she spent her time working in the hospital she had founded; so, she in Patron of nursing homes. When famine struck Germany, she sent grain as a form of aid relief; so, she is Patron of bakers; when she declared her intention of nursing the poor, she was ill-treated by the courtiers who were presumably rather worried what the neighbouring potentates would think; so, she is Patron of those ridiculed for faith – not actively persecuted, but ridiculed… I think there’s enough of us in that category amongst the Anglican world, so she may be quite busy. The women of her family seem to have been noted for their piety – her aunt and niece are also regarded as saints, as his her husband, to whom she was betrothed at the age of four.

As might be expected from her work with the poor, she was a member of the Franciscan Third Order, newly established in Germany. After being widowed, she was expelled from her castle, and died at the age of just 24, exhausted by exile, her ceaseless ministration to the poor and the harsh spiritual disciplines of her confessor, which apparently involved corporal punishment. Buoyed by reports of healing miracles, her grave soon became a great shrine, and she swiftly became one of the best loved of the saints, her fame apparently reaching even the publicans of Norwich!