ADELAIDE (Adelheid), EMPRESS, saint. – Born c. 931, died at Selz in Alsatia on 18 Dec. 999. Daughter of Rudolf II of Burgundy, she married (947) Lothair II, king of Italy (d. 950). Imprisoned by Berengar II, she escaped and married Otto the Great at Pavia (951). A woman of extraordinary beauty, culture and piety, she exercised a beneficent influence in favour of the Church, founded monasteries, promoted the Cluniac reform, and temporarily governed the empire for her son Otto II and later for her grandson Otto III. After her death she was immediately venerated as a saint, a cult confirmed by Urban II; her name, however, does not appear in the Roman Martyrology. Feast: 16 Dec.
BIBL.: Recent information on A.: life, cult, art, sources, literature, in J. C. Clauss, Die Heiligen des Elsass, Düsseldorf 1935, pp. 23 ff., 186 ff. – The Life written by Odilo of Cluny is edited by Pertz in MGH, Scriptores, IV, pp. 637-45. Giuseppe Löw