Adelaide of Maurienne

Adelaide of Maurienne
Queen consort of the Franks
Tenure	1115 – 1 August 1137
Born	18 November 1092 Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, France
Died	18 November 1154 (aged 61–62)
Burial	Saint-Pierre de Montmartre
Spouse	Louis VI of France Matthieu I of Montmorency
Issue	Philip of France Louis VII of France Henry, Archbishop of Reims Robert I of Dreux Constance, Countess of Toulouse Philip, Archdeacon of Paris Peter of Courtenay
House	Savoy
Father	Humbert II of Savoy
Mother	Gisela of Burgundy
Religion	Roman Catholicism

Adelaide of Maurienne, also called Alix or Adele (1092 – 18 November 1154) was a member of the House of Savoy who became queen of France as the second wife of King Louis VI (1115-1137).

Family

Adelaide was the daughter of Count Humbert II of Savoy and Gisela of Burgundy. Adelaide's older brother Amadeus III succeeded their father as count of Savoy in 1103. Adelaide had the same name as her paternal great-grandmother Adelaide of Susa, ruler of the March of Turin, and her second cousin, Adelaide del Vasto, queen of Jerusalem. Through her father, Adelaide was also related to Emperor Henry V. On her mother's side, Adelaide's relatives included her uncle Pope Callixtus II, who visited Adelaide at court in France, and her first cousin King Alfonso VII of León and Castile.

Queenship

Adelaide became the second wife of King Louis VI of France, whom she married on 3 August 1115 in Paris, France. They had nine children, the second of whom became Louis VII of France.

Diploma issued by King Louis VI and Queen Adelaide for the canons of the cathedral chapter of Paris (1127).

Adelaide was one of the most politically active of all France's medieval queens. Her name appears on 45 royal charters from the reign of Louis VI. During her tenure as queen, royal charters were dated with both her regnal year and that of the king. Among many other religious benefactions, she and Louis founded the monastery of St Peter's (Ste Pierre) at Montmartre, in the northern suburbs of Paris.

After Louis VI's death, Adelaide did not immediately retire to conventual life, as did most widowed queens of the time. Instead she married Matthieu I of Montmorency, with whom she had one child. She remained active in the French court and in religious activities.

Death

In 1153 she retired to Montmartre Abbey, which she had founded with Louis VII. She died there on 18 November 1154. She was buried in the cemetery of the Church of St. Pierre at Montmartre. The abbey was destroyed during the French Revolution, but Adelaide's tomb is still visible in the church of St Pierre.

Legend

Adelaide is one of two queens in a legend related in the seventeenth century by William Dugdale. As the story goes, Queen Adélaide of France became enamoured of a young knight, William d'Albini, at a joust. But he was already engaged to Adeliza of Louvain and refused to become her lover. The jealous Adélaide lured him into the clutches of a hungry lion, but William ripped out the beast's tongue with his bare hands and thus killed it. This story is almost without a doubt apocryphal.

Issue

Louis and Adelaide had seven sons and two daughters:

1. Philip of France (1116–1131).
2. Louis VII (1120 – 18 November 1180), King of France.
3. Henry (1121–1175), Archbishop of Reims.
4. Hugues (b. c. 1122).
5. Robert (c. 1123–11 October 1188), Count of Dreux.
6. Constance (c. 1124–16 August 1176), married first Eustace IV, Count of Boulogne and then Raymond V of Toulouse.
7. Philip (1125–1161), Bishop of Paris. Not to be confused with his elder brother.
8. Peter (c. 1125–1183), married Elizabeth, Lady of Courtenay.
9. a daughter, whose name is not known, who died in infancy and was interred at the Abbey of Saint-Victor, Paris.

With Matthieu I of Montmorency, Adelaide had one daughter:

• Adèle (or Aelis or Alix) of Montmorency.

Sources

• Kathleen Nolan, 'The Queen’s Body and Institutional Memory: The Tomb of Adelaide of Maurienne,' in Elizabeth Valdez del Alamo and Carolo Stamatis Pendergast, eds., Memory and the Medieval Tomb (Brookfield, Aldershot, 2000), pp. 249-267.
• Nolan, Kathleen D. Capetian Women (Palgrave MacMillan, 2004).
• Kathleen Nolan, 'The Tomb of Adelaide of Maurienne and the Visual Imagery of Capetian Queenship,' in Kathleen Nolan, ed., Capetian Women (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 45-76.
• Lois L. Huneycutt, 'The Creation of a Crone: The Historical Reputation of Adelaide of Maurienne,' in Kathleen Nolan, ed., Capetian Women (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 27-43.
• Facinger, Marion F. 'A Study of Medieval Queenship: Capetian France, 987–1237,' Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 5 (1968): 3–48.
• A. Thiele, Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte Band II, Teilband 2 Europäische Kaiser-, Königs- und Fürstenhäuser II Nord-, Ost- und Südeuropa
• Laurent Ripart, 'La tradition d’Adélaïde dans la maison de Savoie,' in Adélaïde de Bourgogne, genèse et représentations d’une sainteté impériale (Actes du colloque international du Centre d’études médiévales, Auxerre, 10-11 décembre 1999), ed. P. Corbet - M. Goullet - D. Iogna-Prat (Dijon, 2002), pp. 55-77.
• Andrew W. Lewis, 'La date du mariage de Louis VI et d'Adelaïde de Maurienne', Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes 148 (1990), 5-16.
• Michel Germain, Personnages illustres des Savoie (Autre Vue, 2007).
• C.W. Previte-Orton, The Early History of the House of Savoy (Cambridge University Press, 1912).

External links

• Adelheid von Savoyen (in German)