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The saints

St. Elizabeth of Portugal

A queen with an unfaithful husband who rode between two armies to stop a war.

Feast: 4 July · 1271 to 1336 · The Middle Ages · Aragon and Portugal

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Painting of St. Elizabeth of Portugal wearing a gold crown.

User L Gonçalves on pt.wikipedia, 2006. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.

Home / The saints / St. Elizabeth of Portugal

Portugal, 1323

Elizabeth was a princess of Aragon married at twelve to King Denis of Portugal.1

He was a capable king and an unfaithful husband.1

She prayed, kept her dignity, and raised his illegitimate children with her own.

Patronage No official patronage we can cite yet. The Church remembers her as a peacemaking queen.

01St. Elizabeth of Portugal

The peacemaker

When her son rebelled against his father, she rode out between the two armies and made them stop.1

As a widow she became a Poor Clare tertiary, and she died on another journey to make peace.1

Live it this week

Stand between two people fighting

Elizabeth rode between armies. This week, when two people you know are at odds, help them talk: set up the coffee, sit with them, and keep it calm.

Notes

How we know · 1 source for this page
  1. Franciscan Media, Saint of the Day: “Saint Elizabeth of Portugal”. franciscanmedia.org. franciscanmedia.org

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: World English Bible, Catholic edition (public domain); Verse numbers are modern, with Douay-Rheims numbers in brackets where they differ. Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an errorCorrections.