Order of Medieval Women
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PictureSt. Adelaide of Burgundy, ca. 19th century CE Stained glass, Church of Toury, France by Nicholas Lorin
© Kanho Mitsuki CC BY-SA 4.0.
​St. Adelaide of Burgundy, 932 - 999
Royalty for Commoners 323:34

Daughter of Rudolph II king of Burgundy and Bertha of Swabia, consort to Lothair II, King of Italy, secondly to Otto I “the Great”, Holy Roman Emperor.  Adelaide educated at the court of Pavia and was at the center of the political scene and perhaps the most prominent European woman of the tenth century; daughter, sister, and aunt of three consecutive kings of Burgundy, sister-in-law, mother-in-law, and grandmother to three consecutive kings of France, and wife, mother, and grandmother to three Ottonian emperors. 

In 950,  three years after their marriage, Lothair was poisoned by a rival for the Italian crown.  Adelaide ruled alone until the following year when she refused to marry the murder’s son and became the center of a struggle for the Italian crown, imprisoned and treated brutally.  After four months of captivity she managed to escape through a secret tunnel she and her companions had dug and made her way north to the castle of Canossa, sending a plea for help to emperor Otto I of the Holy Roman Empire.  A beautiful woman of strong character there were many willing to help but when Otto received the message he quickly responded leading an army from Germany down to Italy, defeated the murder in battle and freed Adelaide taking her back to Germany were they were married in 951 and she crowned empress, enabling her to exert a visible influence in Italian politics.  Otto also added additional lands to the lands she brought into the marriage to make Adelaide more financially independent . 

When Otto died in 973, she became regent for her son Otto II who included her in his decrees and after arriving at decisions would state "with the advice of my pious and dearest mother.” In 976 and 985 she presided over the hearings of the Royal Court in Italy. After her son’s death in 983 she became joint regent with daughter-in-law Theophano, a Byzantine princess until her death eight years later followed by assuming the regency on behalf of her grandson Otto III until 995 when he came of age at  fourteen. She was adviser to her daughter Emma, queen of West Francia influencing French politics and involved in correspondence about benefices, excommunications, political plots and shifting alliances and requests for preference and promotion. 

She was loved by her people, gave money to the religious foundations, personally distributed food and clothing to the poor and made several pilgrimages to religious sites in France, Germany, and Italy.  After her grandson Otto III’s coronation she lived in a nunnery using the title "Adelheida, by God's gift Empress, by herself a poor sinner and God's maidservant”.  She devoted herself to the service of the church, peace and to the empire as the guardian of both.  Adelaide was also interested  in the conversion of the Slavs, a principal agent of the work of the pre-schism Orthodox Catholic Church and construction of the religious culture of Central Europe, canonized by the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church.  Adelaide was one of the most important political figures of her time, a mater renorum (mother of several kingdoms).  

Map of Kingdom of Burgundy
Picture
Read her letters:  https://epistolae.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/woman/19.html
​​

References and Further Reading
  • “Adelaide of Burgundy."  Foundation for  Medieval Genealogy.  Italy, Emperors & Kings, Chapter 9.  King of Italy 926-947 (Marchese of Tuscany, Comtes d’Arles), 2.  Lothar.   Web. 17 September 2016.  //fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ITALY,%20Kings%20to%20962.htm.
  • Koman, Alan J.  A Who’s Who of Your Ancestral Saints.  Genealogical Publishing Co., 2010.
  • Jackson-Laufer, Guida M.  Women Who Ruled: A Biographical Encyclopedia.  Barnes & Noble Books, 1998
  • Medieval Women’s Latin Letters   https://epistolae.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/women.
  • “Regent Dowager Empress Adelheid in Italy, Regent of the Holy Roman Empire.”  Worldwide Guide to Women  in Leadership, Women in Power 750-1000, Female leaders and women in other positions of political authority of independent states and self-governing understate entities.  //www.guide2womenleaders.com/ womeninpower/Womeninpower03.htm.
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  • Home
  • About
    • Mission
    • Membership >
      • Genealogical Sources
  • Women of Consequence
    • Early Middle Ages (500-1000) >
      • St. Adelaide of Burgundy
      • St. Bathilde
      • St. Bertha of Kent
      • St. Clothilde
      • St. Olga of Kiev
      • St. Theophana
    • High Middle Ages (1000-1300) >
      • Adelaide of Turin and Susa
      • St. Adela of Normandy & England
      • Anne of Kiev
      • Berengaria of Castile
      • Blanche of Castile
      • Ela, Countess of Salisbury
      • Eleanor of Aquitaine
      • Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd
      • Margaret de Quincy
      • Matilda, the Empress
      • Matilda (Eadgyth) of Scotland
      • Nicholaa de la Haye
      • Sikelgaita, heiress of Salerno
    • Late Middle Ages (1300-1500) >
      • Caterina Sforza
      • Dorothea of Brandenburg
      • Elizabeth de Clare, 11th Lady of Clare
      • Isabella d’Este
      • Isabella I of Castile
      • Isabella of France
      • Jeanne de Belleville
      • Joanna of Flanders
      • Lucrezia Tornabuoni
      • Margaret Beaufort
      • Philippa of Hainault
  • Roll of Honor
    • Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians
    • Anna Comnena, Princess of Byzantium
    • Beatriz Gallindo, La Latina
    • Christine de Pizan
    • Emma of Normandy
    • St. Hildegard von Bingen
    • Hrotsvit von Gandersheim
    • Jacqueline Felice de Almania
    • St. Joan of Arc
    • Matilda of Tuscany
    • St. Rodegunda (Radegund)
    • St. Theodora, Byzantine Empress
    • Trota of Salerno
  • Connections
  • Genealogical Charts
    • House of Sforza
    • Welsh Ancestry of English Royalty
    • Descendants of Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd
    • Houses of della Rovere and Gonzaga
    • House of Este
    • House of Trastamara
    • Lords of Clisson
    • Descendants of Jeanne la Flamme
    • House of Medici
    • Genealogy of Nicholaa de la Haye
    • Welsh Kings
  • Maps
    • Early Middle Ages >
      • Kingdom of Burgundy
      • Merovingian Kingdoms
      • Kent England
      • Principality of Kiev, Drevlyans
      • Thuringi & Franci, 6th century Europe
      • Quedlinburg, Germany, circa 962 AD
    • High Middle Ages >
      • Turin & Susa, Italy circa 1050 AD
      • Europe circa 1000 AD
      • Spanish Kingdoms 1210 AD
      • France & Burgundy circa 1032 AD
      • England & France 1152-1327 AD
      • Salisbury, England
      • England & France in the Reign of Henry I
      • Wales
      • Lincoln, England
      • Norman Lands in Italy & Sicily
    • Late Middle Ages >
      • Forli, Italy
      • Sweden circa 1658
      • Usk, Wales and Cambridge, England
      • Ferrera & Mantuga, Italy
      • Iberian Peninsula 1257-1492
      • England & France 1152-1327
      • Clisson, Anjou, France
      • Brittany, France
      • Florence, Italy
      • England & Wales circa 1399
      • Hainault
    • Roll of Honor >
      • Kingdom of Mercia and Surrounding Kingdoms
      • Byzantine Empire 1000-1100
      • Iberian Peninsula 1257-1492
      • Paris, France
      • Dominions of Cnut
      • Bingen, Germany circa 962 AD
      • Gandersheim, Germany circa 962 AD
      • Military Campaign of Joan of Arc
      • Canossa & Tuscany, Italy
      • Eastern Roman Empire circa 565 AD
      • Duchy of Salerno
  • Members Only
    • The Board
    • Bylaws
    • Meetings
    • Minutes
    • Newsletter
    • Pictures
  • Contact