Cultural depictions of Adelaide of Italy


Adelaide of Italy was an important medieval ruler and holy figure, having been called "the most important woman of her century", "the most powerful of Ottonian women" and one of the most powerful queens of the entire Middle Age. As princess of Burgundy, queen of Italy and later Holy Roman empress, she had deep connections to many European regions. Having supported the Church greatly during her lifetime, she was canonized soon after her death. Historically the subject of numerous religious, artistic and scholarly works, she is now explored by modern historiography primarily as a political figure.

Historiography

Adelaide was famous across Europe in her lifetime. It is even said that no other empress had been praised as much by contemporaries as Adelaide. Despite this, Simon MacLean notes that Adelaide's fame as a spiritual figure and her nachleben as a favourite subjects of artists, in sơme ways, have done her a disservice as a political figure. In the 1930s, through her work Adelheid – Mutter der Königreiche, the scholar and politician Gertrud Bäumer utilized her myth – which combined political power, motherhood and charity – to promote the bourgeois feminist movement.
According to MacLean, even though Adelaide was without doubt powerful and influential, it was still quite hard to separate Adelaide's and Otto's individual inputs within the "black box" of rulership that they all belonged to. From the outside, the "king-plus-queen partnership" just acted together.
While Nash opines that Adelaide operated in a form of rule different from the male rulers – she worked in tandem with Otto I, supported him and legitimized his rule in Italy; she actively joined the planning and policy forming processes but relied on male actors in direct military action, Jestice hesitates in describing Adelaide's and other Ottonian female rulers' style of ruling as feminine and separate from the masculine style: during their regencies, excepting leading armies in person, the ruling practices of Adelaide and Theophanu were not different from those of the men: establishing and renewing personal alliances, negotiating peace treaties, granting favours, making use of their symbolic capital. Evidences also suggest that this was the very same fashion they operated during their husbands' reigns. Jestice also denounces the popularly accepted notion that Adelaide and Theophanu were primarily rivals – Knut Görich opines that Jestice convincingly presents the case for this by showing that passages in Odilo of Clune's Epitaphium Adelaideae are of questionable reliability. Görich also supports Jestice in defending the position that contemporary sources reveal no misogyny and basically the Ottonian society recognized the roles and abilities of women, thus the commonly deemed special status of empresses and queens actually did not stand out in this context. Buchinger points out that the Saxon tradition, that perceived the wife as having an equal role in the family, had influence too, and notes that Adelaide chose to stay at the court instead of returning to her lands as Matilda had done. Görich opines, though, that the prominent roles and visibility the Ottonian empresses attained were partly product of circumstances created by Otto III's minority, as well as the fact he and Henry II died without issue. Görich also casts doubt on Jestice's idea of the reduced importance of female regents in the eleventh century.
Modern research also tends to put the empress's piety and her support of the Church and the Christian belief in light of political considerations. Jestice opines that, "Piety was the one instrument of successful rule where the women had a distinct advantage over the male members of their family." Buchinger sees her alliance with ecclesiastic groups as her way of building a sphere of influence independent from that of the emperor as well as preserving her memory and legacy. She actively supported Cluny's reform and later, Cluny played a leading role in building her cult and supporting her canonization. Gertsman opines, though, that the devotion of Cluny towards Adelaide and the Ottonians was personal in nature, rather than ideological.
Adelaide and Theophanu are often compared and contrasted in historiography. Some modern commentators like Gunther Wolf see Theophanu as the one who looked forward to the future, to modern forms of ruling, while Adelaide was the conservative who looked to the past. Stefan Weinfurter sees a more multifaceted and positive image of Adelaide. According to Weinfurter, it was true that Theophanu significantly contributed to the model of ruling inspired by Ancient Rome and Byzantine, that Otto II and especially Otto III took over and developed, while Adelaide represented the transmission of Italian-imperial tradition to the House of Saxony. She was also attached to her Italian-Burgundian connections and finally her Alsatian-Alemannish roots. But this helped her to mediate across realms while creating new power bases in the process and constantly providing a stabilizing effect to the Ottonian Dynasty, especially in its moments of great crisis. She also played an initiating role in the development of Alsace as a hub between the Eastern Frankish kingdom, Burgundy, Italy and Upper Rhine – the latter received such a boost in traffic, politics and economy that 200 years later it would become, in the words of Otto of Freising, "the primary force of the empire". Through her daughter Emma of Italy, to whom she was an advisor, she influenced French politics. Weinfurter sees in her a European dimension, that should be characterized as "modern".

Legends

  • In her Gesta Ottonis, Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim tells a dramatized version of Adelaide's story before becoming Otto's queen: "When imprisoned by Berengar, she had only a maid and a priest for company. After several months of suffering, she dug her way to freedom through a tunnel. She had to hide herself in a field of grain and miraculously escaped the thrusting spears of a party sent to recapture her. She was almost discovered by Berengar himself. Finally she was rescued by Bishop Adalard of Reggio, who was her friend. Hrosvitha's version highlights Adelaide's plight, initiative and piety, which brought Otto to Italy and the Italian crown to him. MacLean comments that, "Hrotsvitha's account should not be taken at face value: her stylized narrative is designed to show the hand of God orchestrating the rise of Otto to imperial status in 962, and to that end borrows tropes from a variety of literary and biblical sources."
  • There are stories about her rivalry with Theophanu. Theophanu supposedly once said "If I shall still reign one year, Adelheid shall not rule over more ground than one can encompass with one hand." But "before one month was over", Theophanu died, while Adelheid lived a long life.

Depictions in arts

Contemporary arts

  • Otto Adelheid Pfennig is an Ottonian coin type. Numismatist opines that the coin was struck when Otto III was still a very young emperor. Adelaide was with him because she was "the Saxonian Dynasty incarnate".
  • Odilo of Cluny's Epitaphium Domine Adelheide Auguste and Hrotsvitha's Gesta Ottonis are the main medieval sources about her life. Both describe her as a powerful ruler, but Odilo is more concerned about her deeds as saint, while Hrosvitha emphasizes her political side. Hrosvitha's Adelaide, while not the main character, is more heroic and adventurous, with her main attribute being her enormous spiritual power.

Later depictions

Visual arts

Theater

Poems

Prose

  • Königin Adelheid is a Grimm story. In the story, she was besieged by Berengar in the Castle of Canusium. Arduin of Ivrea, who was with her, used a boar in a clever way to deceive the attackers. The siege was then lifted.
  • Adelaide di Borgogna. Una donna medievale is a 2009 fictional work by Giancarlo Patrucco.
  • Adelaide, imperatrice del lago: romanzo storico is a 2011 novel about the empress, written by Ketty Magni.
  • Das Lächeln der Kaiserin Adelheid: weitgehend authentischer historischer Roman über Leben, Lieben und Leiden der Kaiserin Adelheid, zweiter Gemahlin Ottos des Großen is a 2014 novel about her life.
  • Adelheid Von Burgund: Kaiserin des Mittelalters is a 2020 historical novel by Silvia Kornberger. The story is about the period Adelheid was imprisoned by Berengar together with her daughter Emma and her maid Sophia. Adelheid dreams about her childhood, her mother, her love for Lothar and her childhood heartthrob Otto.
  • She is a character in the 2022 novel Die Herrin der Päpste: Historischer Roman written by Eric Berg and Eric Walz.

Films

  • She is portrayed by in the 2010 MDR documentary Kaiserin Adelheid – Die mächtigste Frau der Ottonen.
  • Adelheid und Theophanu – Zwei Kaiserinnen is a 2021 short animation film by Ute Helmbold made for the exhibition Die Kaiser und die Säulen ihrer Macht" als Online-Ausstellung.

Commemoration

As a holy figure, she is venerated in the Catholic Church. Her feast day is December 16.
She is the co-patron of in Adelebsen, Göttingen (district), and the Theatine Church, Munich.
In 2015, there was the exhibition Adelheid? Werden, Wirken, Wunder? in Bonn.
In 2007, a FrauenOrt in Magdeburg was created and dedicated to Adelaide together with Editha and Theophanu.