Saint Adelaide

Adelaide was born in 931, the daughter of Rudolph II, King of Burgundy. ¹² Her father was at war with Hugh of Provence over the crown of Italy, and when the two made peace in 933 the treaty stipulated that the two-year-old Adelaide would marry Hugh's son, Lothaire. ¹ The 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia article on Otto I describes the Italy of those years as a place of disorder in which kings rose and fell. ³

The wedding took place fourteen years later. ¹ In the meantime, the 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia notes, Adelaide's mother had married Hugh himself. ¹

Berengarius, Marquis of Ivrea, then claimed Italy for himself. ¹³ He forced Hugh to abdicate in favor of Lothaire, and the 1907 article says he "is supposed to have afterwards put Lothaire to death by poison." ¹ He then proposed that the young widow marry his son, Adalbert. ¹ She refused. ¹

For that refusal she was kept "in almost solitary captivity" in the castle of Garda, on the lake of that name. ¹ The article on Otto adds that a party in Italy was growing up in her favor, and that Berengarius seized her to suppress it. ³ Her escape, as the 1907 encyclopedia tells it, was the work of a priest named Martin, who dug a tunnel under the castle, hid her in the woods, and fed her on fish he caught in the lake. ¹ Alberto Uzzo, Duke of Canossa, heard of the rescue and carried her off to his own castle. ¹

Otto was not a young man. ³ He had been king of the Germans since 936, and in 929 he had married his first wife, Edith, a daughter of King Athelstan of England. ³ The 1911 encyclopedia says he had long watched the disorders of Italy and meant to bring the peninsula under his authority. ³

The Italian nobles, tired of Berengarius, had meanwhile invited Otto into Italy. ¹ He met little resistance, went to Canossa, and married Adelaide on Christmas Day, 951, at Pavia. ¹ The article on Otto says simply that he "released Adelaide and married her." ³ The marriage gave him no new legal right to Italy, the 1907 article says, but the people's enthusiasm for a queen "whose career had been so romantic" made his work there easier. ¹

Not everyone was pleased. ³ Otto's son Ludolph, who wanted a share in the government, was "especially irritated by the influence of Otto's Burgundian consort," and led a revolt that was put down only after the Magyar invasion of 954 made the country rally to the king. ³

Rome was slower. ³ Pope Agapetus, under the influence of the Roman noble Alberich, refused Otto the imperial crown after the Italian campaign of 951. ³ It took another decade, and a new pope who needed Otto's help against Berengarius, before the coronation came. ³⁴ In 961 Otto had his and Adelaide's young son, also named Otto, elected and anointed king at Worms, and left Germany in the hands of regents to go to Rome. ¹³

On February 2, 962, Pope John XII crowned Otto emperor in St. Peter's Basilica, and Adelaide empress beside him, which the New Catholic Encyclopedia describes as the beginning of "the long association of the imperial title with the German kingdom." ⁴ In Germany, the 1907 article says, she was "the idol of her subjects, while her husband lived." ¹ The 1911 encyclopedia names her among the royal women who led the "so-called Ottonian renaissance." ³

Berengarius, her old jailer, was defeated in the end and carried off a prisoner to Bamberg. ³ Otto died at Memleben on May 7, 973, and was buried at Magdeburg. ³ Their son had already been crowned emperor in his father's lifetime by Pope John XIII, and the prospect of a Byzantine princess for his bride had already shaped his father's last policy in Italy. ³

Under her son, Otto II, Adelaide's troubles began. ¹ The 1907 article blames them chiefly on the jealousy of her daughter-in-law, Theophano, "and possibly also" on Adelaide's "excessive liberality in her works of charity." ¹ She withdrew from court and settled at Pavia, until Saint Mayeul, Abbot of Cluny, brought about a reconciliation. ¹

The same quarrel broke out again when her grandson, Otto III, came to the throne, and Adelaide was again forced into seclusion. ¹ Then Theophano died suddenly, and Adelaide was called back to carry "the burden of a Regency." ¹

The 1907 encyclopedia says her administration "was characterized by the greatest wisdom." ¹ She took no revenge on those who had driven her out. ¹ Her court, it says, "was like a religious house." ¹ She founded monasteries and churches in the provinces and worked without rest to convert the pagans of the north. ¹ Vatican News remembers her as "attentive to the poor." ²

In the last year of her life she set out for Burgundy, to reconcile her nephew Rudolph with his subjects. ¹ She died on the way, at Seltz in Alsace, on December 16, 999. ¹ Vatican News says that she had retired to a Benedictine monastery before she died. ² Saint Odilo, Abbot of Cluny, wrote her life, and the 1907 article says her relics were enshrined in Hanover. ¹

None of the sources consulted names a patronage for Saint Adelaide, and this page does not supply one. ¹² Vatican News presents her simply as an empress who cared for the poor and built churches and monasteries. ²

Saint Adelaide is remembered on December 16, the day under which Vatican News lists her and the day she died. ¹² The 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia notes that she was not in the Roman Martyrology of its day, but that "her name appears in several calendars of Germany." ¹

Her life was decided for her by others again and again: a marriage arranged in a treaty at two, a husband who may have been poisoned, a prison, a rescue, a second marriage that was also a conquest. ¹³ The sources do not suggest she chose much of it. ¹

Twice her own family pushed her out of court, and twice she withdrew. ¹ The first time it was a monk, Saint Mayeul of Cluny, who made the peace that brought her back; the second time it was Theophano's sudden death. ¹ When power came back to her as regent, the 1907 encyclopedia says, "she took no revenge upon her enemies." ¹ That is the detail its author chose to set beside her wisdom. ¹

Her charity was large enough to be held against her, which the same article offers as one of the reasons for her first exile. ¹ She kept giving anyway, to the poor, to monasteries and to churches. ¹²

She died traveling, in her late sixties, on an errand of peace for a nephew, trying to settle a quarrel between him and his own subjects. ¹ Her biographer was the Abbot of Cluny, and her court in its last years was "like a religious house." ¹