ST. ELIZABETH appears to be an eighteenth-century tune from the Glaz area of Silesia. It has always been associated with this text. No factual data exists for the legend that this text and tune date back to the twelfth-century crusades, although those apocryphal stories explain one of the names by which this tune is known, namely, CRUSADER'S HYMN. After Franz Liszt used the tune for a crusaders' march in his oratorio The Legend of St. Elizabeth (1862), the tune also became known as ST. ELIZABETH.

The tune consists primarily of a few melodic sequences and their variations. It could either be sung gently, perhaps with guitar and flute accompaniment, or it could be sung with great power with almost full organ for stanzas 1 and 4. Try singing in harmony with no accompaniment at all for stanzas 2 and 3. Sing in four long lines rather than eight short phrases.

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook