page_title: Hedwig of Silesia
section_title: Widow
hierarchical_section_title: Hedwig of Silesia / Life / Widow
context_page_description: Hedwig of Silesia, also Hedwig of Andechs, a member of the Bavarian comital House of Andechs, was Duchess of Silesia from 1201 and of Greater Poland from 1231 as well as High Duchess consort of Poland from 1232 until 1238. She was reported in the two-volume historical atlas of Herman Kinder and another author to have been great in war and defended from the Teutonic Knights. She was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1267 by Pope Clement IV.
context_section_description: Upon his death in 1238, Henry was buried at a Cistercian monastery of nuns, Trzebnica Abbey (Kloster Trebnitz), which he had established in 1202 at Hedwig's request. Hedwig accepted the death of her beloved husband with faith. She said:
  Would you oppose the will of God? Our lives are His.
  The widow moved into the monastery, which was led by her daughter Gertrude, assuming the religious habit of a lay sister, but she did not take vows. She invited numerous German religious people from the Holy Roman Empire into the Silesian lands, as well as German settlers who founded numerous cities, towns and villages in the course of the Ostsiedlung, while cultivating barren parts of Silesia for agriculture.
  Hedwig and Henry had several daughters, though only one surviving son, Henry II the Pious, who succeeded his father as Duke of Silesia and Polish High Duke. The widow, however, had to witness the killing of her son, vainly awaiting the support of Emperor Frederick II, during the Mongol invasion of Poland at the Battle of Legnica (Wahlstatt) in 1241. The hopes for a re-united Poland were lost, and even Silesia fragmented into numerous Piast duchies under Henry II's sons. Hedwig and her daughter-in-law, Henry II's widow Anna of Bohemia, established a Benedictine abbey at the site of the battle in Legnickie Pole, settled with monks coming from Opatovice in Bohemia.
  Hedwig and Henry had lived very pious lives, and Hedwig had great zeal for her faith. She had supported her husband in donating the Augustinian provostry at Nowogród Bobrzański (Naumburg) and the commandery of the Knights Templar at Oleśnica Mała (Klein Oels). Hedwig always helped the poor, the widows and the orphans, founded several hospitals for the sick and the lepers and donated all her fortune to the Church. She allowed no one to leave her uncomforted, and one time she spent ten weeks teaching the Our Father to a poor woman. According to legend, she went barefoot even in winter, and when she was urged by the Bishop of Wrocław to wear shoes, she carried them in her hands.On 15 October 1243, Hedwig died and was buried in Trzebnica Abbey with her husband, while relics of her are preserved at Andechs Abbey and St. Hedwig's Cathedral in Berlin.
caption: Scene from an altar of St. Hedwig of Silesia, Breslau, around 1430, restored in 1929, National Museum Warsaw
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