St. Adelaide of Italy

St. Adelaide of Italy (c. 931 – 16 December 999) was a Burgundian princess whose life spanned the turbulent politics of tenth-century Europe. Married young to the king of Italy, she was widowed and then imprisoned by a usurper who sought to force her into marriage with his son; escaping through a tunnel, she appealed to the German king Otto the Great, who rescued her, married her, and with her was crowned Holy Roman Emperor and Empress at Rome.

A woman of deep faith and political ability, Adelaide exercised great influence through the reigns of her husband, her son Otto II, and, as regent, her grandson Otto III. She was celebrated for her generous almsgiving, her care for the poor, and her lavish support of the Church — founding and endowing monasteries, notably favoring the reforming abbey of Cluny, whose abbots St. Majolus and St. Odilo were her friends and advisers. Retiring at last to a monastery she had founded, she died in 999 and was canonized in 1097, honored as a model of Christian rule and charity.