Hedwig of Silesia was a thirteenth-century German-born noblewoman who bridged the worlds of the secular aristocracy and enclosed religious culture throughout her long life. Her exemplary displays of public and private piety, later visualized in the famous Hedwig-Codex of 1353, fit well with the ideals of the burgeoning Franciscan order and resulted in her swift canonization and eventual elevation to the patron saint of Silesia.