medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Sunday, May 6, 2007, at 11:42 pm, I wrote:
> 3) Heilika of Niedernburg (Bl.; d. 1020). H. (also Helga) was a
> member of the upper nobility of Bavaria. In 1010, when she was about
> fifty-five years old, she became abbess of a women's monastery near
> Passau at a place that quickly became known as Niedernburg ('Lower
> Town') and that now is a section of Passau proper. Although she is
> often said to have entered the community then as a recent widow, what
> she was doing before 1010 is unknown. It is quite possible that she
> was already in religion, for in addition to enriching her house with
> important gifts from Henry II (who removed the monastery from
> episcopal jurisdiction) and to rebuilding structures said to have been
> badly damaged by the Hungarians she is said to have introduced into it
> the Benedictine Rule.
What follows next should have read:
4) The abbey's church contains the grave of the Bl. Gisela of Hungary (d. ca. 1060), widow of king St. Stephen and that country's first queen. She is somewhat dubiously said to have been H.'s niece. While in Hungary she actively promoted the spread of Christianity. After her husband's death in 1038 she was held captive by enemies until 1042, when she was freed by Henry II. G. then entered the monastery of Niedernburg, becoming its abbess in 1057. Today is her _dies natalis_. G.'s grave with its eleventh-century tombstone was further monumentalized in the early fifteenth century in response to an increase in pilgrims from Hungary. Herewith some views:
http://www.shbapa.bayern.de/images/Giselakapelle.JPG
http://hvanilla.sakura.ne.jp/passau/image/passau33.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2lmgq5
http://tinyurl.com/2l7ubl
The thirteenth-century Gisela chapel (Gizellakapolna) at Veszprém in Hungary
http://tinyurl.com/2m3wfz
has a fresco of the royal pair, both nimbed:
http://www.hitvallas.hu/hitv0408/veszprem.jpg
http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Gisela_von_Ungarn.jpg
There's a brief, English-language description of the chapel near the bottom of this page:
http://tinyurl.com/2459w8
Best again,
John Dillon
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