Adelaide of Maurienne

Adelaide of Savoy (or Adelaide of Maurienne) (Italian: Adelaide di Savoia or Adelasia di Moriana, French: Adélaïde or Adèle de Maurienne) (1092 – 18 November 1154) was the second spouse but first Queen consort of Louis VI of France.

Biography

Adelaide was the daughter of Humbert II of Savoy and Gisela of Burgundy, and niece of Pope Callixtus II, who once visited her court in France. Her father died in 1103, and her mother married Renier I of Montferrat as a second husband.

She became the second wife of Louis VI of France (1081–1137), whom she married on 3 August 1115. They had eight children, the second of whom became Louis VII of France. Adelaide was one of the most politically active of all France's medieval queens consort. 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. She was reputed to be "ugly," but attentive and pious.

Children

She and Louis had seven sons and one daughter:

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

Queen dowager

Afer Louis VI's death, Adélaide 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.

Adélaide is one of two queens in a legend related 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.

In 1153 she retired to the abbey of Montmartre, 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 Montmarte, but her tomb was destroyed during the Revolution.

Sources

• Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Lines: 101-24, 117–24, 135–26, 274A-25
• Nolan, Kathleen D. Capetian Women

Facinger, Marion F. "A Study of Medieval Queenship: Capetian France, 987–1237" Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 5 (1968: 3–48.

Ancestry