Adelaide of Italy

Yesterday I mentioned the need to explain Adelaide of Italy to understand how she affected the marriage of her son.

Adelaide was born to King Rudolph II of Upper Burgundy (now Switzerland) and Bertha of Swabia. Her parents became king and queen of (northern) Italy after the death of Berengar I. Later, after her father's death, Adelaide was married to the new King of Italy, Lothair II. She was 15 years old. They had a daughter, Emma of Italy, who married King Lothair of France.

After Lothair died, his successor Berengar II tried to force a marriage between Adelaide and Berengar's son, Adalbert. Adelaide refused and fled, but was caught and imprisoned for four months. She managed to escape and (we believe) found while in hiding by a priest who took her to a safe refuge. From there she wrote to Otto I asking for protection, for which he had an idea. They met and married on 23 September 951. (See the two at Meissen Cathedral in the illustration.)

Otto had been married before, but when his son from that wife, Liudolf Duke of Swabia, led a revolt  that was quelled, Otto dispossessed Liudolf of his title. This was a good sign for any future children of Otto's and Adelaide's. They had a couple sons who died while young, but they continued producing children, including Otto II.

Otto I was crowned Holy Roman Emperor on 2 February 962 by Pope John XII, whom Otto (accompanied by Adelaide) had come to Rome with an army to protect against John's enemies. In a first for the Holy Roman Empire, John crowned Adelaide as Holy Roman Empress.

Adelaide's influence in the Empire was significant. She was named alongside Otto in papal bulls. She was involved in 75 charters. She received requests for help and protection separate from requests to her husband. Her daughter Emma wrote, asking for help against enemies, as did future Pope Sylvester II, Gerbert of Aurillac.

After a later expedition to Rome to support Pope John XIII, Adelaide remained in Rome with her son Otto for six years. In 967, Otto II was crowned co-emperor, and in April 972 Otto married Theophanu, daughter of a former Byzantine Emperor. When Otto I died in 973 and Otto II became Holy Roman Emperor in his own right, Adelaide did not relinquish any of the authority she was accustomed to wield, which interfered with her son's rule and clashed with her daughter-in-law.

Tomorrow we'll go back to Theophanu and see how things were between her and her mother-in-law.

Liudprand of Cremona

We are grateful that some people in the past chose to record what they saw and heard, or what they were told by others. Surviving histories help to build a picture of what life was like centuries ago. Unfortunately, many wrote with an agenda. Liudprand of Cremona certainly had opinions he wanted to get across with his writings, along with his histories.

He was born c.920 in Pavia, in northern Italy, and was a page to Hugh of Arles who was styled King of (northern) Italy and married Marozia of Rome. Hugh died in 947, after which Liudprand became confidential secretary and then chancellor to Berengar II, King of Italy from 950 - 961.

Liudprand, by then a deacon, was sent by Berengar to the court of Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus where he learned Greek and became one of the first Western writers to use the lettering style called Greek minuscule. Liudprand's father and stepfather had both visited Constantinople as ambassadors, and Liudprand praised Byzantine hospitality.

Liudprand also brought gifts to the emperor. In his account of Constantinople in his work Antapodosis ("Retribution"), he says:

I offered, therefore, nine excellent breastplates, seven excellent shields with gilt bosses, two gilt silver cups, swords, spears, skewers, and four carzimasia slaves, to this emperor the most precious of all these things. For the Greeks call a child-eunuch, with testicles and penis cut off, a carzimasium. The merchants of Verdun do this on account of the immense profit they can make, and they are accustomed to bring them to Spain.

Back in Italy, Liudprand and Berengar had a falling out, so Liudprand joined Holy Roman Emperor Otto I, who became king of Italy after the death of Berengar's son Lothair. In 961 Liudprand went to Italy with Otto. A year later he became Bishop of Cremona.

While with Otto he met Recemund, a Mozarabic Bishop of Elvira and ambassador for Abd al-Rahman III. Recemund persuaded Liudprand that he should write a history of his times. The result was the Antapodosis.

In 963, Liudprand attended the Synod of Rome that deposed Pope John XII. His account of the events around that Synod is the only source we have.

In 968 he went to Constantinople again, this time to arrange a marriage between Otto I's son, Otto, and Anna Porphyrogeneta, daughter of (former) emperor Romanus II. This visit was not as happy as his first, for many reasons, and I'll share those and some of his account tomorrow.