Adelaide of Turin was a countess of part of the March of Ivrea and of Turin in northwestern Italy. Reputedly donned armor to defend her inheritance. Adelaide of Turin has often been compared to her close contemporary Matilda of Tuscany as an example of a powerful medieval woman.
Background
Adelaide, heiress of the Ardoinid marquises of Turin, was born in 1036. She was the daughter of Ulric-Manfred, marquis of Turin, and Bertha, daughter of the Otbertine marquis Otbert II. Bertha was ruling in the mark after her husband’s death, since she was able to capture envoys who wished to cross Alps to Champagne and met in Piedmont, in 1037. Ulric-Manfred and Bertha had three known daughters, Adelaide, Irmingarde or Immula, and Bertha. If they had a son, he predeceased his father, so Adelaide was heir to the mark. Her family, an antipapal dynasty, was always closely tied to the fortunes of the German emperors.
Career
When Adelaide assumed the regency there was great controversy raging in Northern Italy concerning the obligatory celibacy of the clergy which had been discussed in several councils but never settled. The church of Milan allowed married men to take orders and continue to cohabit with their wives unless his wife died and he chose to remarry, he could not then continue to exercise his office. After a long struggle with bloodshed the married clergy of the church of Milan succeeded; the pope sending a legate to Adelaide in Milan followed with a letter from the pope expressing laudatory expressions of her piety and other virtues, witnessing her great power as “mistress of a vast territory, situated between the kingdoms of Italy and Burgundy and comprising many episcopal dioceses” relying on her to enforce clerical celibacy and protect the monasteries of Fruttuaria and San Michele della Chiusa. More than once she waged war on rebels in her territories, burning Lodi and other towns that had risen against her including in 1070 when the city of Asti rebelled against a bishop which she restored after capturing and burning the city.
In 1074, Adelaide and her son-in-law Henry IV became involved in the “Investiture Controversy,“ the most important conflict between secular and religious powers and who had the ultimate authority in medieval Europe. The dispute first began in the eleventh century between the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII. Henry continued, against numerous warnings, to name bishops at will declaring papal provisions illegitimate. After he summoned a group of bishops and princes to declare Pope Gregory VII deposed Henry was excommunicated. This was the first excommunication by a pope of a king which was followed several weeks later with the dukes confronting Henry with an ultimatum, ‘if he did not reenter the community of the faithful with a year beginning February 2, 1077, he would be replaced’. Henry realized he had no choice but to have the excommunication lifted so he sought support from his mother-in-law Adelaide, who extracted “a very wealthy province of Burgundy” as payment for her support and allowing him to travel thru her lands to the meeting site. Henry arrived late to discover Matilda of Tuscany and the pope had relocated to her castle at Canossa, a fortified castle on a summit with sheer rock faces. Traveling on to the castle he arrived to closed castle gates where he reportedly barefoot in the snow begged and pleaded for three days seeking absolution which the pope finally granted after Henry vowed to comply with certain conditions, which were soon violated.
Achievements
Adelaide's marriage to Oddone of Savoy in 1046 united a large territory on both sides of the Alps and it’s important Alpine passes resulting in control of the majority of northern Italy, making Savoy one of the most powerful houses of the empire.
In 1070 Adelaide used military force to impose a bishop of her selection upon Asti.
Religion
Adelaide made donations to the monasteries of Turin, founded the monastery of Santa Maria at Pinerolo, and received communication from many leading churchmen of the day. She furthered ecclesiastical reform and like her second cousin Matilda of Tuscany and has been described as ”the last of a race of marchional dynasts.”
Personality
Adelaide was described as a beautiful woman with the soul of a lion having learned martial arts as a girl and bore her own arms and armor. She was known for her virile strength and military aptitude. She had masculine courage and energy and knew how to rule her inheritance.
Quotes from others about the person
Peter Damian eulogized her "masculine strength," writing that "like Debora, without male help, you supported the whole weight of the state"
The chronicler Arnulf noted "the wisdom of the countess Adelaide, very much a soldierly mistress."
Connections
Adelaide was married three times, carrying the mark of Turin with her to her husbands, but retaining control of it after their deaths. Adelaide outlived her husbands. She also survived her five children, who were all dead by 1080.
Father:
Ulric-Manfred
Ulric-Manfred was the count of Turin and marquis of Susa in the early 11th century. He was the last male margrave from the Arduinid dynasty.
Mother:
Bertha
Berthawas a daughter of the Otbertine marquis Otbert II. Bertha was ruling in the mark after her husband’s death, since she was able to capture envoys who wished to cross Alps to Champagne and met in Piedmont, in 1037.
husband:
Herman
She was married by 1036 first to Herman, duke of Swabia, related by marriage to the emperor Conrad II, presumably to keep the mark of Turin allied to the crown and to counterbalance the power of the mark of Tuscany. Herman died in 1038.
That marriage united a large territory on both sides of the Alps with important Alpine passes.
Son:
Peter I
Peter married a niece of the dowager empress, Agnes of Aquitaine.
Son:
Amadeus II
Son:
Odo
Daughter:
Bertha of Savoy
Bertha married the emperor Henry IV in 1066. That marriage began badly and Henry tried to repudiate her, but was firmly dissuaded by Peter Damian as papal legate and the German princes who worried about incurring the anger of her family. Thereafter the marriage apparently worked, until she died in 1088.
Daughter:
Adelaide
Adelaide married Henry IV’s widowed brother-in-law, Rudolf of Rheinfelden, duke of Swabia
