:''For another Saint Adelaide, see [[Adelaide, Abbess of Vilich]]''.
{{Infobox Saint
|name=Saint Adelaide
|birth_date=[[931]]-[[932]]
|death_date={{death date|999|12|16|mf=y}}
|feast_day=[[December 16]]
|venerated_in=[[Roman Catholic Church]]
|image=Adelaide of Italy.jpg
|imagesize=200
|caption=
|birth_place=[[Burgundy]], [[France]]
|death_place=[[Selz Abbey|Seltz]], [[Alsace]]
|titles=
|beatified_date=
|beatified_place=
|beatified_by=
|canonized_date=1097
|canonized_place=
|canonized_by=Pope Urban II
|attributes=empress dispensing alms and food to the poor, often beside a ship
|patronage=abuse victims; brides; empresses; exiles; in-law problems; parenthood; parents of large families; people in exile; princesses; prisoners; second marriages; step-parents; victims of abuse; widows
|major_shrine=
|suppressed_date=
|issues=
|prayer=
|prayer_attrib=
}}
[[Image:Meissner-dom-stifter.jpg|thumb|250px|Adelaide and her second husband Otto I the Great]]
'''Saint Adelaide of Italy''', also called '''Adelaide of Burgundy''' ([[931]]/[[932]] – [[16 December]] [[999]]) was perhaps the most prominent European woman of the [[10th century]].
She was the daughter of [[Rudolf II of Burgundy]] and [[Bertha of Swabia]]. Her first marriage, at the age of fifteen, was to the son of her father's rival in Italy, [[Lothair II of Italy|Lothair II]], the nominal [[King of Italy]]; the union was part of a political settlement designed to conclude a peace between her father and [[Hugh of Provence]], the father of Lothair. They had a daughter, [[Emma of Italy]].
The Calendar of Saints states that her first husband was poisoned by the holder of real power, his successor, [[Berengar of Ivrea]], who attempted to cement his political power by forcing her to marry his son, [[Adalbert of Ivrea|Adalbert]]; when she refused and fled, she was tracked down and imprisoned for four months at [[Como]]. She escaped to the protection, at [[Canossa]], of [[Adalbert Atto of Canossa|Adalbert Atto]], where she was besieged by Berengar. She managed to send an emissary to throw herself on the mercy of [[Otto the Great]] of [[King of Germany|Germany]]. His brothers were equally willing to save the heiress of Italy, but Otto got an army into the field: they subsequently met at the old Lombard capital of [[Pavia]] and were married in [[951]]; he was crowned Emperor in Rome, [[2 February]] [[962]] by [[Pope John XII]], and, most unusually, she was crowned Empress at the same ceremony. Among their children, four lived to maturity: Henry, born in [[952]]; Bruno, born [[953]]; [[Quedlinburg Abbey|Matilda, Abbess of Quedlinburg]], born about [[954]]; and [[Otto II]], later [[Holy Roman Emperor]], born [[955]].
In Germany, the crushing of a revolt in 953 by [[Liudolf, Duke of Swabia|Liudolf]], Otto's son by his first marriage, cemented the position of Adelaide, who retained all her dower lands. She accompanied Otto in 966 on his third expedition to Italy, where she remained with him for six years.
When her husband Otto I died in [[973]] he was succeeded by their son [[Otto II]], and Adelaide for some years exercised a powerful influence at court. Later, however, her daughter-in-law, the Byzantine princess [[Theophanu|Theophano]], turned her husband Otto II against his mother, and she was driven from court in 978; she lived partly in Italy, and partly with her brother [[Conrad, king of Burgundy]], by whose mediation she was ultimately reconciled to her son; in 983 Otto appointed her his viceroy in Italy. However, Otto died the same year, and although both mother and grandmother were appointed as co-regents for the child-king, [[Otto III]], Theophano forced Adelaide to [[abdicate]] and exiled her. When Theophano died in 991, Adelaide was restored to the regency of her grandson. She was assisted by [[Willigis]], [[bishop of Mainz]]. In 995 Otto III came of age, and Adelaide was free to devote herself exclusively to works of charity, notably the foundation or restoration of religious houses.
Adelaide had long entertained close relations with [[Cluny Abbey|Cluny]], then the center of the movement for ecclesiastical reform, and in particular with its abbots [[Majolus]] and [[Odilo of Cluny|Odilo]]. She retired to a monastery she had founded in c. 991 at [[Selz Abbey|Selz]] in [[Alsace]]. Though she never became a nun, she spent the rest of her days there in prayer. On her way to [[Burgundy]] to support her nephew [[Rudolf III]] against a rebellion, she died at Selz Abbey on [[December 16]], [[999]], days short of the [[millennium]] she thought would bring the [[Second Coming]] of Christ. 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 Slavs. She was thus a principal agent—almost an embodiment—of the work of the [[Roman Catholic Church]] during the [[Middle Ages|Early Middle Ages]] in the construction of the religion-culture of western Europe. Her feast day, [[December 16]], is still kept in many German dioceses.
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{{succession box two to one|before1=[[Eadgyth|Edith of Wessex]]|before2=Vacant<br><small>''Title last held by''</small><br>[[Bertila of Spoleto]]|title1=[[List of Holy Roman Empresses and German queens|German Queen]]|years1=951–961|title2=[[List of Holy Roman Empresses and German queens|Empress of the Holy Roman Empire]]|years2=962–973|after=[[Theophanu]]}}
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==References==
*John Coulson, editor. ''The Saints: A Concise Biographical Dictionary''. Hawthorn Books, 1960.
*[http://www.genealogie-mittelalter.de/deutschland_koenige_2/adelheid_von_burgund_999_rudolfinger_hugoniden_liudolfinger/adelheid_von_burgund_999.html Genealogie-Mittelalter: "Adelheid von Burgund".]
*{{1911}}
*Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. ''The Penguin Dictionary of Saints''. 3rd edition. New York: Penguin Books, 1993. ISBN 0-140-51312-4.
==Source==
* Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Line 147-19.
[[Category:Franks]]
[[Category:Frankish people]]
[[Category:Frankish women]]
[[Category:Frankish saints]]
[[Category:931 births]]
[[Category:999 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Bourgogne]]
[[Category:French saints]]
[[Category:Female regents]]
[[Category:German saints]]
[[Category:Ottonian Dynasty]]
[[Category:Women of medieval Germany]]
[[Category:Holy Roman empresses]]
[[Category:German queens consort]]
[[Category:Women in Medieval warfare]]
[[br:Adelaid Bourgogn]]
[[de:Adelheid von Burgund (HRR)]]
[[fr:Adélaïde de Bourgogne]]
[[it:Adelaide del Sacro Romano Impero]]
[[sw:Adelaide wa Italia]]
[[nl:Adelheid (heilige)]]
[[no:Adelheid av Det tysk-romerske rike]]
[[pl:Adelajda Burgundzka]]
[[pt:Adelaide da Itália]]
[[fi:Adelheid]]