Bertha of Lotharingia

  General Notes:

She was renowned to be beautiful, spirited, and courageous. Ambition, coupled with her influence, involved her husbands in many wars.

Her second husband was Adalbert II of Tuscany and her two sons, Guy and Lambert, both ruled Tuscany later. Guy's minority was spent under her regency. When Hugh desired to marry Marozia, the widow of his half-brother Guy, he tried to eliminate the descendants of his mother by her second husband.

She also had a daughter Ermengard, who married Adalbert I of Ivrea.

Bertha is also known for her curious correspondence to Caliph al-Muktafi in 906, in which she described herself rather grandly as "Queen of the Franks". Bertha's letter is of interest in that she appears to have little knowledge of Baghdad politics or culture, and it is for this reason that details of her correspondence were recorded by one of the Muslim chroniclers. Bertha was seeking a marriage alliance between herself and the Emir of Sicily, unaware that al-Mukfati has little influence over the Aghlabid colony in Sicily. Moreover, the letter was written in a language unfamiliar to the Caliph's translators, and the accompanying gifts (among them a multicoloured woollen coat) which no doubt indicated a largesse on Bertha's part, were unlikely to have impressed al-Muktafi beyond their novelty value.

Bertha married Count Theobald OF ARLES, son of Hucbert and Unknown. (Count Theobald OF ARLES died in 925.)