Faith & Life

SAINT PROFILE: KUNIGUNDE OF POLAND

CIRCA 1234 – 1292; Feast – July 24

6/26/2015

The daughter of Hungarian royalty, Kunigunde, also called Kinga, was married at 16 to King Boleslaus IV of Poland. According to tradition, she told him she had vowed to live celibately. He agreed to this for a year, then they both took a vow of celibacy before the bishop. He is known as Boleslaus the Chaste, though the title may have come from a need to explain the couple’s childlessness. They ruled together for 40 years, and she was generous in supporting the Friars Minor, the poor and sick, and in ransoming Christian prisoners from the Turks. In widowhood, Kunigunde entered a Poor Clares convent she founded.