Saint Hedwig of Silesia

St. Hedwig was born about 1174 AD at the castle of Andechs in Bavaria. She was one of eight children of Berthold IV, Count of Andechs, and his wife Agnes. Her sister Gertrude became Queen of Hungary and the mother of St. Elizabeth of Hungary.

St. Hedwig was educated at the monastery of Kitzingen. At twelve she was married to Henry, a son of Duke Boleslaw of Silesia. She was expecting her first child at thirteen years and thirteen weeks old.

On St. Hedwig's advice, Duke Henry built a convent for Cistercian nuns at Trebnitz, north of Breslau, at his own cost. His founding charter gave the reason: his lands had houses for men of three orders, and none for women. St. Hedwig gave the convent her dower estate of Schawoine and its villages.

While it was being built, she let no one condemned to death by the duke's court be executed. The condemned worked on the building instead. On January 13, 1203 AD, Bishop Cyprian of Wrocław installed the first nuns, who had come from Bamberg.

St. Hedwig persuaded her husband to vow lifelong continence with her before Bishop Lawrence of Wrocław. They kept the vow for nearly thirty years. Duke Henry took the tonsure and grew his beard like a Cistercian lay brother, and so he was called the Bearded.

She fasted every day except Sundays and certain great feasts. She would not wear a new garment until another woman of her household had partly worn it out. She nursed the leper women in the hospital at Neumarkt.

In 1212 AD her sons Henry and Conrad went to war with each other over the division of the duchies. Duke Henry favoured the younger son, Conrad, and St. Hedwig took the part of the elder, Henry. Conrad died young after a fall from his horse.

In 1229 AD Duke Conrad of Masovia seized her husband at Mass and carried him captive to Płock. Their son Henry raised a powerful army to free his father. St. Hedwig went to Duke Conrad in person, and she won her husband's release.

Duke Henry died at Krosno on March 19, 1238 AD, and was buried before the altar at Trebnitz. When the nuns wept at the news, St. Hedwig stayed calm and comforted them.

She made Trebnitz her home, where her daughter Gertrude was abbess. She put on the sisters' grey habit but took no vows. That left her free to spend her income on the poor.

In 1241 AD the Mongols invaded Silesia, and St. Hedwig withdrew with her nuns to the fortress of Krosno. On April 9, 1241 AD, her son, Duke Henry II the Pious, was killed fighting them at Legnica. Pope John Paul II said the invaders were then forced to retire and never again came so close to the West.

The German Legend of St. Hedwig, printed in 1504 AD, says she then went to the battlefield. She knew her son's headless body by a silk girdle she had given him.

In her last illness St. Hedwig asked for Extreme Unction before anyone else thought she was in danger. Her daughter Gertrude asked whether St. Hedwig wished to be buried beside her husband, and St. Hedwig refused. She died at Trebnitz on October 15, 1243 AD, at about the hour of Vespers.

When the sisters came to wash her body, they found a rough hair shirt against her skin and a girdle of twisted horsehair. Sister Iuttha testified that the calluses on St. Hedwig's knees were as large as two fists. St. Hedwig was buried in the nuns' cemetery at Trebnitz, as she had wished.

On October 26, 1262 AD, examiners appointed by the Holy See opened an inquiry into her life and miracles. One father told them of his son's cure and could barely speak for tears. A healed boy was brought before the examiners in good health.

Pope Clement IV declared St. Hedwig a saint by a bull given at Viterbo on March 26, 1267 AD. The bull set her feast for October 15, the day of her death.