Jutta of Kulmsee

Who was Jutta of Kulmsee?

Saint Jutta, T.O.S.F., or Jutta of Kulmsee or Jutta of Sangerhausen or Jutta of Thuringia was born ca. 1200 at Sangerhausen in Thuringia and died in 1260 at Kulmsee in the Monastic State of the Teutonic Order. She was a German aristocrat, who became a hermit on the frontier of Prussia and is honored as the patron saint of that region.

She imitated the life of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, who was the Duchess of Thuringia during her youth, and has also been canonized a saint. She was married at the age of fifteen to a nobleman and bore children by him. She convinced her husband of, and raised her children in a contemplative and mystical form of Christianity. He died while they were on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and Jutta became a single mother. Each child eventually entered a monastery upon reaching a suitable age, and this left Jutta able to pursue a more austere religious way of life.

Like her model, St. Elizabeth, Jutta became a member of the Third Order of St. Francis. She gave away or sold her property and lived the rest of her life in contemplation and in caring for the poor and the sick. She became a figure of ridicule among her neighbors as she carried out her service to the poor of the region.