Adelaide of Burgundy

Saint Adelaide of Burgundy (also called Adelaide of Italy), the devout empress, was the wife of the emperor Otto the Great and was crowned with him at Rome in 962. She was known for her almsgiving, her support for the Church and the monasteries, and the wisdom with which she helped govern the empire. She is honoured as a saint of the undivided Church. She departed to the Lord on 16 December 999, and her commemoration is on the same day.

Youth

She was born in 931 at Orbe Castle in Upper Burgundy, the daughter of King Rudolf II and Bertha of Swabia. From childhood she was caught up in the struggles for Burgundy and Italy. After her father died in 937, Hugh of Provence, who wished to control Upper Burgundy, married her in 947, at fifteen or sixteen, to his son Lothair II, the nominal king of Italy. A daughter, Emma, was born of the marriage. Lothair died on 22 November 950, poisoned, it is said, by Berengar II, who took his power.

Berengar wished to force Adelaide to marry his son Adalbert. She refused and fled to the castle of Como, but was tracked down and imprisoned for four months at Garda. According to her biographer Odilo of Cluny, she managed to escape. After a time in the nearby marshes, she was rescued by a priest and taken to a strong fortress, probably Canossa. From there she sent to ask the help of Otto I, king of the East Franks. They met at Pavia and were married on 23 September 951.

Empress

At Rome, on 2 February 962, Pope John XII crowned Otto as emperor and Adelaide as empress. She had a notable part in government: between 962 and 972 her name appears in seventy-⁠five charters, and she often protected church institutions. She was the mother of Otto II and of Matilda, later abbess of Quedlinburg. After Otto I died in 973, disagreements arose between her and her daughter-⁠in-⁠law, the Byzantine princess Theophanu, and in 978 her son sent her into exile in Burgundy. She was reconciled with him through her brother Conrad, king of Burgundy, and in 983, shortly before he died, Otto II named her his viceroy in Italy.

After Otto II died in 983, she helped Theophanu secure the inheritance for her grandson, the three-⁠year-⁠old Otto III. When Theophanu died in 991, Adelaide was regent until Otto came of age in 994.

Almsgiving

From 994 Adelaide gave herself to works of charity, above all the founding and restoring of monasteries, churches and abbeys. She had close ties with Cluny, then the centre of church reform, and with its abbots Majolus and Odilo. She withdrew to the nunnery at Selz in Alsace, which she had founded about 991.

Repose

Adelaide died at Selz Abbey on 16 December 999, on her way to Burgundy to support her nephew Rudolf III against a rebellion, days before the year 1000, in which she believed the Second Coming of Christ would take place. She was buried in the abbey and was canonized by Pope Urban II in 1097. After a great flood in 1307 her relics were moved elsewhere. Her veneration has been kept above all in Germany, and her name is also found in Orthodox calendars of the saints of the West, on 16 December.