Adelaide of Italy
| Saint Adelaide of Italy | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Holy Roman Empress | |
| Born | 931 Orbe, Upper Burgundy |
| Died | 16 December 999 Seltz, Alsace |
| Venerated in |
Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church |
| Canonized | 1097 by Pope Urban II (Roman Catholicism) |
| Feast | 16 December |
| Attributes | Empress dispensing alms and food to the poor, often beside a ship |
| Patronage | abuse victims; brides; empresses; exiles; in-law problems; parenthood; parents of large families; princesses; prisoners; second marriages; step-parents; widows |
Adelaide of Italy (931 – 16 December 999), also called Adelaide of Burgundy, was the second wife of Holy Roman Emperor Otto the Great and was crowned as the Holy Roman Empress with him by Pope John XII in Rome on February 2, 962. Empress Adelaide was perhaps the most prominent European woman of the 10th century; she was regent of the Holy Roman Empire as the guardian of her grandson in 991-995.
Born in Orbe Castle, Orbe, Kingdom of Upper Burgundy (now in modern-day Switzerland), she was the daughter of Rudolf II of Burgundy, a member of the Elder House of Welf, and Bertha of Swabia. Her first marriage, at the age of fifteen, was to the son of her father's rival in Italy, Lothair II, the nominal King of Italy; the union was part of a political settlement designed to conclude a peace between her father and Hugh of Provence, the father of Lothair. Their daughter, Emma of Italy, was born about 948.
The Calendar of Saints states that her first husband was poisoned by the holder of real power, his successor, Berengar of Ivrea, who attempted to cement his political power by forcing her to marry his son, Adalbert; when she refused and fled, she was tracked down and imprisoned for four months at Como.
According to Adelaide's contemporary biographer, Odilo of Cluny, she managed to escape from captivity. After a time spent in the marshes nearby, she was rescued and taken to a "certain impregnable fortress," likely the fortified town of Canossa near Reggio. She managed to send an emissary to Otto I, and asked the East Frankish king for his protection. The widow met Otto at the old Lombard capital of Pavia and they married in 951.Pope John XII crowned Otto Holy Roman Emperor in Rome on February 2, 962, and, breaking tradition, also crowned Adelaide as Holy Roman Empress.
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