Individual Details

Marriage

Adalbert was born about 936, the son of Berengar II, king of Italy, and Willa of Tuscany.

On 15 December 950, both he and his father were crowned kings of Italy after the death of King Lothar. His father forced Aelis (Adelheid) de Bourgogne, widow of the late Lothar, to marry Adalbert and cement their claim to the kingship. In 951 the German king Otto I invaded Italy and rescued Aelis, marrying her himself. He forced Berengar and Adalbert to do homage to him for their kingdom in 952.

In 953 Adalbert began besieging Count Adalbert Azzo of Canossa, in his Canossan castle, where Adelais had taken refuge two years earlier. Around this time Adalbert married Gerberga de Mâcon, daughter of Liétaud II de Mâcon, comte de Bourgogne, comte de Mâcon, and Ermengarde de Châlons. Their son Eudes Guillaume was born about 955.

In 960 Adalbert joined his father in attacking Pope John XII. Otto came down at the pope's call and defeated the two co-kings and was crowned emperor. Adalbert fled to Fraxinet, then under the Saracens. From there he fled to Corsica. When he returned, he tried to take Pavia, the Italian capital, but was defeated by another invading Swabian army, this time under Burchard III. Only the intercession of his brothers Konrad and Guy, who died fighting, saved him to fight another day, which he never did. His negotiations with the Byzantine emperor fell through and he retired with his wife Gerberga to Burgundy, where he died at Autun some time between 972 and 975. Adalbert's widow married Henri, duc de Bourgogne, and Adalbert's son Eudes Guillaume inherited the county of Burgundy through his stepfather, making him the forefather of the Free Counts of Burgundy, and the ancestor in the male line of the kings of Castile and León and princes of Orange.

Source: Leo van de Pas