Notes:

Adelaide of Susa (also Adelheid, Adelais, or Adeline; ca. 1014/1020 - 19 December 1091) was the Marchioness of Turin from 1034 to her death. She moved the seat of the march from Turin to Susa and settled the itinerant court there. She was the last of the Arduinici.

Biography

Born in Turin to Ulric Manfred II and Bertha, daughter of Oberto II around 1014/1020, Adelaide's early life is not well known. Her only brother predeceased her father in 1034, though she had two younger sisters, Immilla and Bertha. Thus, on Ulric's death, the great margraviate was divided between his three daughters, though the greatest part by far went to Adelaide. She received the counties of Ivrea, Auriate, Aosta, and Turin. The margravial title, however, had primarily a military purpose at the time and, thus, was not considered suitable for a woman.

Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor, therefore arranged a marriage between Adelaide and Herman IV, Duke of Swabia, to serve as margrave of Turin after Ulric's death (1034). The two were married in January 1037, but Herman died of the plague while fighting at Naples in July 1038.

Adelaide remarried in order to secure her vast march to Henry of Montferrat (1041), but he died in 1045 and left her a widow for the second time. Immediately, a third marriage was undertaken, this time to Otto of Savoy (1046). With Otto she had three sons, Peter I, Amadeus II, and Otto. She also had two daughters, Bertha and Adelaide. Bertha, the countess of Maurienne, married the Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor, while Adelaide married Rudolf of Rheinfeld, who opposed Henry as King of Germany.

After 1060, Adelaide acted as regent for her sons. In 1068, Henry tried to divorce Bertha and consequently drove Adelaide to an intense hatred of him and his family. However, through the intervention of Bertha, Henry received Adelaide's support when he came to Italy to submit to Pope Gregory VII and Matilda of Tuscany at Canossa. Adelaide and Amadeus accompanied the humiliated emperor to Canossa. In gratitude for her mediation, Henry donated Bugey to Adelaide and her family and took back Bertha as his wife, returning to Germany.

Adelaide later played the mediator between her two royal sons-in-law, Henry and the aforementioned Rudolf during the wars of the 1080s in Germany. She was an opponent of the Gregorian reform, though she honoured the papacy, and defender of the autonomy of abbacies.

In 1091, Adelaide died, to the general mourning of her people, and was buried in the parochial church of Canischio (Canisculum), a small village on the Cuorgnè in the Valle dell'Orco, to which she had retired in her later years. In the cathedral of Susa, in a niche in the wall, there is a statue of walnut wood, beneath a bronze veneer, representing Adelaide, genuflecting in prayer. Above it can be read the inscription: Questa è Adelaide, cui l'istessa Roma Cole, e primo d'Ausonia onor la noma.

Personality

Adelaide had passed her childhood amongst the retainers of her father and had even learned the martial arts when young, bearing her own arms and armour. She was reputed to be beautiful and virtuous. She was pious, putting eternal things ahead of temporal. Strong in temperament, she did not hesitate to punish even the bishops and grandees of her realm. She patronised the minstrels and always received them at her court, urging them to compose songs emphasising religious values. She was a founder of cloisters and monasteries that transmitted the history of the region. One failure of Adelaide's career was the loss of the County of Albon.

Family

Adelaide and Herman IV, Duke of Swabia had at least three children:

Gebhard I, Count of Sulzbach
Adalbert I, Count of Windberg
Adelaide, married Hermann von Peugen

Adelaide and Otto of Savoy had five children:

Peter I of Savoy
Amedeus II of Savoy
Otto, Bishop of Asti
Bertha of Savoy, married Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor
Adelaide (died 1080), married Rudolf von Rheinfeld

Adelaide — Otto, I Count of Savoy. Otto (son of Umberto, I Count of Savoy and Ancilla of Lenzburg) was born Between 1010 and 1020; died Abt 1057. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Bertha of Savoy (21 September 1051 - 27 December 1087), also called Bertha of Turin, was the first wife of Emperor Henry IV, and was German Queen and Holy Roman Empress. She is buried in the cathedral of Speyer.

Life

Bertha of Savoy was a daughter of Otto of Savoy (also called Eudes and Odo) and Adelaide of Susa. Her maternal grandparents were Ulric Manfred II of Turin and Bertha of the Obertenghi.

As children, during the lifetime of Emperor Henry III, Bertha and Henry were betrothed on 25 December 1055 in Zürich. The wedding took place on 13 July 1066 in Trebur. While Bertha was apparently in love with Henry from the outset, Henry initially viewed his wife with aversion. Although she was apparently a pretty young woman, the Saxon chronicler Bruno, an avowed opponent of Henry IV, reported on the Emperor's continual unfaithfulness: "He had two or three Kebsweiber (concubines) at the same time, in addition [to his wife], yet he was not content. If he heard that someone had a young and pretty daughter or wife, he instructed that she be supplied to him by force. (...) His beautiful and noble wife Bertha (...) was in such a manner hated by him that he never saw her after the wedding any more than necessary, since he had not celebrated the wedding out of free will."

In 1069, Henry began procedures for a divorce, supplying what was for the time an unusually honest reason for the divorce: "The king explained publicly (before the princes), that his relationship with his wife was not good; for a long time he had deceived others, but now he did not want to do so any longer. He could not accuse her of anything that justified a divorce, but he was not capable of carrying out conjugal relations with her any longer. He asked them for the sake of God to remove him from the bonds of a marriage closed under bad signs ... so that the way to a luckier marriage might be opened. And nobody knowing any objection to raise, and his wife being an obstacle to a second marriage ceremony, he then swore that she was as he received her, unstained and her virginity intact." (Bruno of Merseburg)

The German episcopacy dared not submit to the King's demands, and called on Pope Alexander II for assistance. He sent Petrus Damiani as his Legate to the Synod in Frankfurt, and rejected the divorce. Henry then apparently submitted to his fate, his first daughter by Bertha being born in the year after the divorce attempt.

Bertha also accompanied her husband on his dangerous journey to Canossa, carrying her three-year-old son Conrad. She remained with her husband between 25 January and 28 January 1077 in freezing cold weather before the walls of the castle, in order to reach the solution to Henry's dispute with the Pope. Together with Henry, Bertha later also journeyed to Rome, and on 31 March 1084 was crowned Empress.

On 27 December 1087, Bertha died in Mainz.

Children

From her marriage with Henry there were eventually five children:

Adelheid (1070 - 4 June 1079)
Henry (1071 - 2 August 1071)
Agnes of Germany (1072/73 - 24 September 1143)
Conrad (12 February 1074 - 27 July 1101), later Roman-German King and King of Italy
Henry V (8 January 1086 - 23 May 1125), later Roman-German King and Holy Roman Emperor

Bertha married Henry, IV Holy Roman Emperor 13 Jul 1066, Trebur, Hesse, Germany. Henry (son of Henry, III Holy Roman Emperor and Agnes of Poitou) was born 11 Nov 1050; died 07 Aug 1106; was buried Rhineland-Palatinate, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Agnes of Germany (1072 - 24 September, 1143) was an Austrian margravine consort.

Family

She was the daughter of Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor and Bertha of Savoy. Her maternal grandparents were Otto, Count of Savoy and Adelaide of Susa.

Agnes married firstly, in 1089, Frederick I, Duke of Swabia. They had several children:

Heilica (1088-1110)
Bertha (1089-1120)
Frederick II of Swabia
Hildegard
Conrad III of Germany
Gisela
Henry (1096-1105)
Beatrix (1098-1130)
Kunigunde (1100-1120/1126), wife of Henry of Bavaria (1100-1139)
Richilde
Gertrude

Following Frederick's death in 1105, Agnes married Leopold III (born 1073; died 15 Nov. 1136), the Margrave of Austria (1095 till 1136). According to a legend, a veil lost by Agnes and found by Leopold years later while hunting instigated him to found the monastery of Klosterneuburg.

Their children were:

Leopold IV
Henry II of Austria
Berta, who had issue
Agnes, "one of the most famous beauties of her time"
Ernst
Uta, wife of Liutpold von Plain
Otto of Freising, bishop and biographer
Conrad, Bishop of Passau, and Archbishop of Salzburg
Elizabeth
Judith, m. c. 1133 William V of Montferrat. Their children formed an important Crusading dynasty.
Gertrude

According to the Continuation of the Chronicles of Klosterneuburg, there may have been up to seven others (possibly from multiple births) stillborn or died in infancy.

In 1125, Agnes' brother, Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor, deceased childless, leaving Agnes and her children as heirs of the Salian dynasty's immense allodial estates, including Waiblingen.

In 1127, Agnes' eldest surviving son, Konrad III, was elected by opposition as rival king of Germany against Saxon party's Lothar III. When Lothar died in 1137, Konrad won the position.

Agnes — Frederick, I Duke of Swabia. Frederick (son of Frederick von Büren, Count in the Riesgau and Hildegard of Egisheim-Dagsburg) was born Abt 1050; died 21 Jul 1105. [Group Sheet]

Heilika — Frederick, III of Pettendorf-Lengenfeld-Hopfenohe. Frederick died Between 1112 and 1119. [Group Sheet]