Saint Hedwig Glass Beaker, Twelfth Century (Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg, a.S.00652)

The 10.3 cm-high Saint Hedwig glass beaker is made of colourless cut glass with a slight hue of smoky topaz. It is ornamented in high relief. It is one of only 14 known Saint Hedwig beakers – the only such cut-glass beakers existing in central Europe during the Middle Ages. Their precise provenance remains unclear; probably they had been created in the Near East or during the Norman occupation of twelfth-century Sicily. Their name refers to a legend connected to Saint Hedwig (Saint Jadwiga, 1174–1243), duchess of Silesia who had owned glass beakers of this kind. In one of them, water is supposed to have changed miraculously into wine.

Allegedly, the Saint Hedwig beaker shown here was once owned by Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia (1207–1231), a niece of Saint Hedwig. In the fifteenth century, the Elizabeth relic was lent to pregnant women, since it was supposed to ensure safe and easy deliveries.

This Saint Hedwig glass beaker was part of the collection of relics of Elector Frederick the Wise (1463–1525, elector 1486–1525); a 1507 drawing by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553) makes it possible to identify it. The Wittenberg treasure of relics comprised almost 20,000 objects in c.1520.

After the collection had been dissolved, the Saint Hedwig beaker was probably donated to Martin Luther in whose possession it can be ascertained by 1541. For this year, Pastor Johannes Mathesius (1504–1565) reported that at table Luther handed round a drink that he had poured into a “crystal” glass which “once supposedly had been owned by Saint Elizabeth”.

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