Adelaide lived a in rough and traitorous time. Her first husband, Duke Lothar of Burgundy, was poisoned by a fellow duke, Berengar. Berengar's aim was to try and get his hands on Lothar's great tracts of land in orthern Italy. He crowned himself King of Italy, ignoring Adelaide who as Lothar's widow was the rightful heir and mistress of the region. Berengar could not ignore Adelaide for long as his tyrannical rule turned the people against him. When they turned to Adelaide for help, Berengar and his wife Willa seized the young widow, imprisoned her, and tried to force her to marry their misshaped son. A noble and educated nun Hroswitha of Gandersheim, who knew Adelaide, wrote of the event: "Engorged with hatred and envy, Berengar directed his fury against Queen Adelaide. Not only did he seize her throne but at the same time forced the doors of her treasury and carried off, with greedy hand, everything he found...He even took her royal crown..."
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Though imprisoned, Adelaide managed to resist Berengar's plan to marry his son, whom she suspected had helped poison her husband. Somehow, with her two maidservants, she managed to escape. Almost at once she was found, recaptured, and punished even more. Berengar's wife Willa turned vicious. She tore off Adelaide's jewelry, pulled her hair, scratched her face, and kicked her. Then Berengar locked Adelaide up in one of his castles on an island in Lake Garda. There Adelaide languished for four months.
It was a faithful priest named Warinus who saved Adelaide by digging a hole into the castle's thick walls. Every night the hole bored a little deeper into the stone. Adelaide and her one remaining maid did the same from inside her room. At last the wall broke through. The two women squeezed out, and all three escaped in a waiting boat. Of course they were pursued, yet managed to hide in a wheat field. Through the wheat field went their pursuers, stabbing right and left with their lances. Somehow, Adelaide was not found. With Warinus' help, she found her way to the castle of Count Azzo in Canossa, Italy and put herself under his protection.
Berengar was not about to give up. He arrived at the castle and laid siege to it. The faithful Warinus was Adelaide's savior again. He slipped through the siege and fled to Germany with a letter from Adelaide to Otto I, who was the most powerful man in Europe. The letter begged Otto to come to Adelaide's rescue. In return, she offered to marry him, thus uniting her lands with his. Otto couldn't resist the offer! In 951 he entered Italy and Berengar wisely fled before him.
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Otto and Adelaide liked each other at once. Although she was a beautiful twenty year old and he was twice her age, all accounts say that they had a happy marriage. Otto let Adelaide control the lands she brought into the marriage, and even added some he owned. On February 2, 962, Otto and Adelaide were crowned emperor and empress by the pope in Rome. Adelaide now was officially empress of the "Holy Roman Empire."
Adelaide and Otto mainly ruled from Saxony (Northern Germany). They had five children. When Otto died, Adelaide became regent for her son Otto II. Greatly influenced by his mother, young Otto II included Adelaide in his decrees, arriving at decisions "with the advice of my pious and dearest mother." Then a rival appeared on Adelaide's horizon - a daughter-in-law for Otto II named Theophano.
Theophano was a Byzantine princess who in 971 was given in marriage to Otto II. When they married Theophano was only sixteen and Otto seventeen. Fresh from the glorious but treacherous court of Byzantium, Theophano brought with her a useful knowledge of the ins and outs of political intrigue. Otto began to listen to her more, and his mother less. Adelaide and her son and daughter-in-law grew apart.
Unexpectantly Otto II died young, leaving Theophano with a 3 year old son, Otto III. Immediately, both empresses overcame their feelings of ill will and united to safeguard the child king's claims to power. Theophano assumed the title "Imperator Augustus" and defended her son Otto's title both from dukes, princes and attacks by the still pagan Slavs and Danes.
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For seven years Theophano with tact and firmness administered the empire in her son's name. Then, in her early thirties she died, and Adelaide took her place as Otto III's regent. She was now sixty years old. On his fourteenth birthday, Otto III gently, but firmly, broke loose from his grandmother, making it known that he no longer wished to be ruled by a woman. For the rest of her life Adelaide lived in a nunnery. She took a last title: "Adelheida, by God's gift empress, by herself a poor sinner and God's maidservant," and died in 999 on the eve of the next millennium.
Adelaide believed that the end of the world, the apocalypse, would come to pass in the year 1,000. According to the Biblical book of Revelation, she thought that Satan would be loosed out of his prison and Christ would come again. She told the abbot of the great monastery house of Cluny, "As the thousandth year of our Lord's becoming flesh approaches, I yearn to behold this day, which knows no evening, in the forecourt of our Lord."
Adelaide of Borgogna - Adelaide of Borgogna is still a beloved and well-known figure on Lake Garda, especially in the town of Garda, where her daring escape took place. Adelaide was a mere girl at the time, but she was destined to become an important historical figure that would live part of her life on her beloved Lake Garda. Adelaide is still remembered today in a proverb that is popular on the western banks of the lake: "Adelaide, Gran Regina, porta la neve o porta la brina" [Adelaide, great queen, brings snow or brings frost]. Her saint's feast day is December 16. In Garda, there is a stained glass window honoring Adelaide in a side chapel of the parish church and the lakeside boulevard is also named after her.
The story of Adelaide of Borgogna's life is an incredible adventure which took place in an exceptional and complex period of European history in late Middle Ages during which time she, the Queen of Italy, became the Empress of the Holy Roman Empire. In the second half of the 10th century Adelaide became a protagonist of European history and helped establish the Barbaric-Christian culture which became the foundation of European culture, of the entire western world and the Holy Roman Empire, of which she was one of its greatest empresses.
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Her life (Timeline):
931 A.D. - Adelaide is born in a castle in the Orbe Valley (France). She is the daughter of Rudolph II, King of Borgogna, and Berta of Tuscany.
937 A.D. - When Adelaide is six years old and her brother Corrado is ten, their father is murdered by one of his vassals. After this tragedy, Ugo of Provence, fearing that young Corrado might fall under the protection of powerful feudal lords, offers to become Corrado's guardian. He therefore travels to Borgogna in December of the same year and marries Queen Berta, Rudolph's widow, in Colombier on Lake Geneva. Ugo's son Lothario II (a five year old child at the time) and Adelaide become engaged.
938 A.D. - Entering the court of Pavia, Adelaide is educated at the Palatina school of the Lombard city. Documents of the time mention Adelaide as being educated and beautiful, a virtuous and gentle soul, but also intelligent, ambitious, astute, pugnacious and courageous.
945 A.D. - Lothario II is crowned King of Italy.
947 A.D. - Adelaide marries Lothario at sixteen years of age and is crowned Queen of Italy. Although it is an arranged marriage, it is, surprisingly enough, a true, loving union. Their daughter, Emma, would later become the future Queen of France.
950 A.D. - Adelaide becomes a widow before she is twenty. Her husband is poisoned by Berengarius, Duke of Ivrea, so that he can seize the royal crown. He immediately crowns himself Berengarius II, King of Italy.
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951 A.D. - To legitimize his ascent to the throne, Berengarius II orders Adelaide to marry his son, Adalbert. Adelaide refuses and, with the help of the bishops, organizes opposition against the usurper. Berengarius seeks revenge. As he waits for Adelaide to change her mind, he decides to humiliate her by shaving her head in contempt and imprisoning her in the Rocca citadel of Garda, where she is cared for by a servant and a friar named Martin. According to sources, she remained prisoner from April 19 to August 16 in a tower of the Garda Castle, a place from which it was impossible to escape. Adelaide, however, is able to escape thanks to the help of her servant who bare-handedly digs a passage beneath the threshold of her cell. Some say Friar Martin helped Adelaide escape by lowering her with a rope to the foot of the citadel, where a fisherman ferried her across the lake to a safe haven. After crossing the friendly territory of Mantua and hiding at the court of Mantua, Adelaide finds refuge in the impenetrable fortress of Canossa in Emilia-Romagna (the future Matilde of Canossa was her niece). The clamorous news of the escape spreads throughout Europe so quickly that Ottone I of Saxony comes to Italy with an army, defeats Berengarius II, who was uselessly laying siege to the fortress, and arrives in Canossa as Adelaide's liberator and aspiring groom. The wedding, celebrated on Christmas night of that same year, allows Ottone I to unite Italy with the German Empire, and Adelaide once again becomes Queen of Italy. Three children are born to the couple, including the future emperor Ottone II.
962 A.D. - Adelaide, a brilliant woman, actively takes part in the affairs of state, and Pope John XII crowns her, with her husband Ottone I, as Empress of the Holy Roman Empire.
973 A.D. - Ottone I dies. Adelaide, once again a widow, travels to the Benedictine monastery of Cluny (of which she would later become a fervent supporter), leaving her son Ottone II to guide the German empire. Adelaide starts her new mission, building churches and monasteries in various parts of the empire.
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983 A.D. - Ottone II dies of an illness at 28 years of age. Due to the premature death of her son and young emperor, Adelaide is once again forced to take the future of the empire into her hands. She rules with great wisdom and also personally follows the education of her grandson Ottone III, who is just three years old, but would later become emperor and reign from 987 to 1002. During these years, Adelaide must deal with an unpleasant family situation due to the problems she continues to have with the Greek-Byzantine princess Theophanous, her ambitious daughter-in-law and the widow of her son Ottone II. Nevertheless, Adelaide always determinedly fulfills her duties as queen, queen mother and ruler.
994 A.D. - Adelaide hands over the kingdom to her grandson and retires from court. She devotes her life to religion and passionately supports the reformation movement of Cluny against the spreading corruption in the Catholic Church, especially against the sin of "simony" (the sin of selling spiritual things such as indulgences, absolution of sin, consecrations and/or inherent temporal goods such as ecclesiastic appointments or benefits). Adelaide later founds several convents in Alsace, including the Saints Peter and Paul convent in Selz, where she is supposedly buried.
December 16, 999 A.D. - As the millennium draws to a close, Adelaide dies "in odor of sanctity" in Selz sul Reno, near Strasburg in Alsace. Her tomb becomes a site of pilgrimage because it is said that she grants miracles, appears in visions and foretells the future.
1097 A.D. - Adelaide is proclaimed a saint by Pope Urban II. December 16 is named the feast day of Saint Adelaide Empress.
