St. Adelaide
Feast: December 16
Born in 931, St. Adelaide was the daughter of Rudolph of Burgundy. While still a child, she was betrothed for political reasons to Lothair of Provence, heir of King Hugh of Italy. Hugh married Adelaide’s widowed mother.
At the age of sixteen, she married Lothair, now Icing of Italy, and a daughter, Emma, was born of the marriage. It was an unhappy union but a short one, for in 950 Lothair died. His successor, Berengar, imprisoned her when Adelaide refused to marry his son.
After four months’ confinement, she escaped in August 951, and when that same year the German Emperor Otto appeared in Italy and proposed marriage, she accepted. Four children were born to them, the future Otto II and three daughters, two of whom became Nuns. A revolt led by Ludolf, Otto’s son by his first marriage, was crushed.
When her husband was succeeded in 973 by their son Otto II, Adelaide for some years exercised a powerful influence. Later, however, her daughter-in-law, the Byzantine Princess Theophano, turned her husband against his mother, and was driven from court. Finally a reconciliation was effected, and in 983 Otto appointed her his Viceroy in Italy.
He died the same year, and the new Emperor, Otto III, still a minor, was entrusted to the joint regency of his mother and grandmother. Theophano was able once again to oust Adelaide from power and the court. Her death in 991 restored the regency to Adelaide.
She was assisted by St. Willigis, Bishop of Mainz. In 995, Otto came of age, and Adelaide was free to devote herself exclusively to pious works, notably the foundation or restoration of Religious houses. She had long entertained close relations with Cluny, then the centre of the Movement for Ecclesiastical Reform and in particular with its Abbots St. Majolus and St. Odilo.
On her way to Burgundy to support her nephew Rudolph III against rebellion, she died at a Monastery she had founded at Seltz.
She had constantly devoted herself to the service of the Church and peace, and to the Empire as Guardian of both; she also interested herself in the conversion of the slaves. She was thus a Principal agent almost an embodiment of the work of the Catholic Church during the Dark Ages in the construction of the religion-culture of Western Europe.
She was canonised by Pope Urban II in 1097. She is the Patron of Abuse Victims; Brides; Empresses; Exiles; In-law Problems; Parenthood; Parents of large families; Princesses; Prisoners; Second Marriages; Step-Parents and Widows.
