Adelaide of Burgundy: The Sainted Empress

There’s a peculiar temptation today to imagine medieval courts as grim theaters dominated by cruel warlords, scheming queens, and gossiping courtiers—where power was seized by the ruthless and held by the sword. It’s a caricature that sells books and fuels Netflix dramas; we may remember when Game of Thrones was in vogue, a fantasy program that popularized a conception of medieval courts as places of endless intrigue, vice, and treachery.

While real-life history certainly affords us a fair share of scheming kings and queens, this caricature wilts in the brilliance of the Church’s many saintly monarchs, holy rulers who were known not for their cunning or duplicity but for their piety, forthrightness, and charity. An excellent example is St. Adelaide of Italy (931–999), wife of Holy Roman Emperor Otto I, a mother of emperors and woman whose life was a tapestry of virtues in an age of tumult. St. Adelaide was a living testament to the Gospel’s call to humility, patience, and charity.

Adelaide (sometimes called Matilda) was born in 931 to King Rudolf II of Burgundy. Adelaide entered the world at a chaotic time in European history. The old Carolingian Empire founded by Charlemagne in 800 was in its death throes; Germany and France had devolved into a patchwork of kingdoms wrestling for autonomy. It was a period of continual conflict and shifting borders.

Her father King Rudolf died young, thrusting Adelaide into a betrothal at five years old to Lothar, the future King of Italy. Adelaide was married to Lothar at age fifteen but was almost instantly widowed in 950 by Lothar’s untimely death. The royal teenage widow found herself a pawn in the ruthless game of Italian politics. Berengar II, the ambitious margrave of Ivrea, violently seized the throne and imprisoned Adelaide in a tower on Lake Garda, hoping to wed her to his son in order to legitimize his usurpation.

It was a dark hour for the pious girl, but God aided Adelaide in her tribulation. Adelaide escaped her prison-tower in an exploit worthy of a chivalric romance: disguised and aided by loyalists, she crossed Lake Garda, taking flight across the Alps to the court of Otto I, the Saxon king, then campaigning in northern Italy.

Otto was no stranger to the ironies of divine providence and was enamored with the girl. He soon fell deeply in love, and Adelaide returned his affection. The two were married in 951 at Pavia, and Adelaide became Queen of Italy and later empress when Otto was crowned by Pope John XII in 962.

The marriage of Otto and Adelaide was no mere political alliance; it was a partnership of souls, characterized by the deepest love, devotion, and mutual respect. Otto leaned heavily on Adelaide’s counsel; her piety sometimes tempered his warrior zeal. She bore him four children (including Otto II, who would succeed him) and blessed their court with a culture of learning and prayer. Adelaide followed in the footsteps of previous holy queens in founding monasteries and convents throughout the empire. A notable example of one of Adelaide’s foundations was Selz in Alsace, a beautiful Romanesque structure that survived for almost a thousand years until it was regrettably destroyed during World War II.

Otto I died in 973, leaving Adelaide co-regent for their son Otto II—a role she embraced with zeal. When Otto II himself passed prematurely in 983, leaving a mere three-year-old Otto III on the throne, Adelaide was again compelled to enmesh herself in German imperial politics to assert her grandson’s claims against the nobility, who continually schemed against the boy-emperor. Adelaide, now in her fifties, navigated the political chaos resolutely until 991, when Otto III began to rule in his own right, enabling Adelaide to retire from politics.

Her political achievements as regent were not inconsequential: she negotiated a peace treaty with the Hungarians, reconciling feuding dukes, and successfully ensured Otto III’s smooth ascension. Yet, in all this, it was neither by threat of force nor scheming that she attained success, but through her honesty, fortitude, and piety.

Adelaide would die in 999 at the age of 68. Sensing her end was near, she retired to her beloved Selz Abbey where she took ill and died on December 16th, surrounded by nuns while chanting the psalms. She was buried in the Abbey, and there her body remained for centuries until the tomb was destroyed by a flood in 1307.

Today, St. Adelaide is not remembered as a political figure so much as a role model of sanctity. Humility defined her: though empress, she called herself “the handmaid of the Lord,” dressing simply and kneeling in the dirt of cloisters for prayer with the other religious sisters. Her charity was legendary even in her own day. She fed the poor from her own table, ransomed captives, and clothed orphans. She rose at midnight for Matins and founded many monastic establishments, some of which endure to this day.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. (Mt. 5:5)

Image from Wikimedia Commons