Adelaide of Maurienne - Queen Dowager

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.