Adelheid of Meissen

Ruins of the Monastery of the Holy Cross in Meissen, where Adelheid spent her last years.

Adelheid von Meißen ( Czech Adléta Míšeňská) (* after 1160 ; † February 2, 1211 in Meißen ) was the first wife of the Bohemian prince and king Ottokar I Přemysl . When Ottokar dissolved the marriage in 1199, she filed an objection and for more than ten years led a process for recognition as a lawful wife and queen, in which the highest ecclesiastical and secular dignitaries of her time participated.

Life

Adelheid came from the Wettin family and was born after 1160 as the daughter of Otto the Rich . She met her husband in the mid-1170s. At that time Ottokar was in exile in Meissen. The marriage took place without participation and without the consent of either family. The young couple were allowed to return to Bohemia around 1179 when Ottokar's brother Friedrich took power.

Ottokar got the margraviate of Moravia as a fief, where he achieved some military successes. He was able to ascend the Prague throne for the first time in 1192 , but was deposed again in 1194 and had to go back into exile with his family, which had since grown to include their son Vratislav and daughters Markéta , Božislava and Hedwig. Adelheid went with the children to her brother Dietrich in Meißen and Ottokar served German dukes during this time.

At the end of 1197 Ottokar succeeded again in securing the ducal dignity of Bohemia, and he returned to Bohemia with his wife and children. In 1198 he obtained the title of king. A few months later he had the marriage with the margrave daughter of Wettin declared invalid by the Prague bishop Daniel Milík and married Konstanze , daughter of the King of Hungary. As the official reason for divorce, Ottokar stated that the family was too close. It is not known whether the real reason was political-dynastic or possibly personal. Once again Adelheid and her children sought refuge in Meißen. However, she did not want to renounce her rights; Above all, she had to fear that her children would be considered illegitimate and would lose all claims to inheritance and throne. The process against the dissolution of marriage, which she opened in 1199, was to drag on for more than ten years. The expelled queen counted on the help of her brother and, moreover, not only called Pope Innocent III. , but also the Hohenstaufen to help. The proceedings also influenced the controversy between the German succession to the throne at the same time, as the opposing kings Philipp von Schwaben and Otto von Braunschweig took turns taking sides for or against the Wettin woman, depending on whether the support of the Bohemian king or the Meissen margrave seemed more worthwhile.

In 1205 Adelheid managed to force Ottokar to surrender temporarily. He had just made peace with Philipp von Schwaben and the recognition of his first marriage was one of the peace conditions. In addition, Constance's firstborn son had died shortly before, which meant that Ottokar lacked a legitimate heir to the throne. As a result, Konstanze was expelled and Adelheid returned to Prague as Queen. The result of this success was only the wedding of her eldest daughter to the Danish King Waldemar II. In the same year Konstanze had a second son with Wenzel , and Adelheid was forced to go again with her children. The papal curia was still postponing the final decision because it wanted to use the pending trial as leverage against the king.

In 1207 Adelheid tried to continue the process, but in 1210 it was finally decided in favor of Ottokar. She died on February 2, 1211 in the Monastery of the Holy Cross in Meissen .

progeny

Adelheid gave birth to at least four children to Ottokar:

• Vratislav (before 1181 - after 1225)
• Markéta-Dagmar (1186? - 1213), Queen of Denmark
• Božislava (Božislava Přemyslovna) , with Henry I of Ortenburg was married
• Hedwig (Hedvika Přemyslovna) , a nun in Gernrode and later probably in the St. George Monastery in Prague

literature

• Jiřina Votočková-Joachimová: Královna Dagmar . In: Zdena Karešová, Jiří Pražák: Královny a kněžny české. Prague X-Egem, Nova Kniž. klub 1996, ISBN 80-7199-010-8 , pp. 59-68.
• Ondřej Šretr: Vliv rozvodové pře s Adlétou Míšeňskou na politiku Přemysla Otakara I. Master's thesis at the Masaryk University Brno, 2010. ( online ; MS Word ; 208 kB)
• Eduard Winkelmann:  Adela, Queen of Bohemia . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 48 f.

predecessor	Office	Successor
---	Queen of Bohemia 1197–1198	Constance of Hungary