St. Adelaide, Holy Roman Empress (LT 03) Postcard

St. Adelaide (931-999) was born a princess of the Kingdom of Upper Burgundy, a region that today encompasses modern Switzerland. As such, early on she became a pawn in the complicated politics of her times. From the age of two, her father King Rudolf II (880-937) forged treaties and diplomatic relations by dangling her as a prospective bride in an arranged marriage. In 947, at the age of 15 or 16, she was married off to the nominal King of Italy Lothair II, son of her father’s longtime rival and successor Hugh of Provence (c. 880–947). The marriage produced a daughter before Lothair was poisoned in 950 by a rival of his own Berengar II (c. 900-966). Berenger, in turn, intended to marry the teenage widow Adelaide to his own son Adalbert, but she refused and was imprisoned at Garda in the Veneto. The resourceful Adelaide, however, escaped by boat. Now lacking a father or husband to protect her, she herself appealed from her sanctuary probably at the Castle of Canossa in Northern Italy to the East Frankish king Otto I the Great (912-973) for aid. Adelaide and Otto met at Pavia in Lombardy, Italy, and were married on 23 September 951. She was his second wife. The couple would eventually have four children but only two would reach adulthood. On 2 February 962, Otto was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope John XII, and in an unprecedented ceremony, Adelaide was crowned Holy Roman Empress. Until Otto’s death in 973, Adelaide wielded considerable power and influence which she used for the benefit of the State, the Church, and the people. Her role would be diminished but not extinguished during the reign of her son Otto II (955-983) because of her contentious relationship with her daughter-in-law Theophanu (955-991), a Byzantine princess, and because of the favouritism she showed members of her former families resulting in several temporary exiles from Court. Upon Otto II’s death in 983 and Theophanu’s in 991, Adelaide became regent for their son Otto III (980-1002) during the child emperor’s minority. In 994, her state duties complete, Adelaide, arguably the most powerful woman of her era--once Princess of Burgundy, Queen of Italy, Queen of the East Franks, Empress of the Holy Roman Empire, and finally its Regent--retired to a quiet life of prayer and contemplation at the convent she had founded at Seltz in Alsace. She died there five years later of natural causes in 999. + As here, St. Adelaide is usually portrayed as Empress, that is, wearing a purple robe with ermine trim and imperial crown and veil. She sometimes holds a boat in memory of her daring escape from Garda or a maquette of a church symbolising her various ecclesiastical foundations. St. Adelaide is patron of princesses, brides, prisoners, second marriages, stepparents, empresses, parenthood, parents of large families, against difficult in-laws, exiles, and widows. + Feast: December 16 + Image Credit (LT 03): Antique image of Ste. Adélaïde from a devotional chromolithograph, originally published by L. Turgis, Paris, France, late 19th century, from the designer’s private collection of religious ephemera. Halo added.