Feast day: December 16

St. Adelaide

Empress · 931–999

Patron of Brides, stepparents, the exiled

A queen and Holy Roman Empress who survived imprisonment by a usurper, escaped through a tunnel, and as empress and regent used her power for the Church, the poor, and the making of peace.

Adelaide was one of the most remarkable women of the tenth century — a queen and empress whose long life carried her through romance, captivity, power, and at last a holy old age. Born about 931, the daughter of the king of Burgundy, she was married young to the king of Italy, who soon died, leaving her a widow of nineteen caught in the violent struggle for his throne.

Her refusal to marry the son of the usurper who had seized the crown brought her cruel treatment and imprisonment in a fortress, from which, the famous story goes, she escaped through a tunnel and went into hiding. She appealed for rescue to Otto the Great, king of Germany — who came to Italy, freed her, and married her, making her his queen and, in time, Holy Roman Empress.

As empress she was beloved for her charity, her founding of monasteries, and her support of the Church's reform, especially the great renewal spreading from the abbey of Cluny. Widowed again, she endured years of conflict and humiliation at the hands of her own son and his wife before being reconciled.

In her last years, after the early deaths of her son and grandson, she served as regent of the empire, governing, the chroniclers say, with wisdom and gentleness, giving herself ever more to prayer and almsgiving. She died in 999 and was later canonized — honoured as a patron of brides, second wives and stepmothers, and the exiled, having been all of these herself.

Imprisoned and abused by a man who wanted her crown, she escaped through a tunnel, married the emperor Otto the Great, and became one of medieval Europe's most powerful women.

Image: File:Adelaide skyline, December 2022.jpg: Ardash Muradian from Australia derivative work: Georgfotoart (CC BY-SA 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/01140c.htm