Adelaide
Part of The Encyclopedia of Southern Italy.
Adelaide di Monferrato (or di Savona; del Vasto): (b. c1075; d. Apr. 16, 1118). Countess of Sicily. Different sources identify her father as the daughter of the Marchese Manfredo or Boniface del Vasto, Marquis of western Liguria. She was the 3rd wife of Roger I, the “Great Count” of Sicily, marrying him in 1089. By him she became the mother of Sicily’s first king, Roger II. Widowed in 1101, she held the regency of Sicily until 1112, first for her oldest son, Simon, and then for the younger Roger II. King Baldwin of Jerusalem, seeking to possess her vast wealth, married her in 1113. After this marriage was annulled in 1117 she returned to Sicily, without her dowry, and died the following year. She was buried at Patti, in Sicily. Roger II became so incensed at his mother’s treatment at the hands of Baldwin, he refused to give any assistance to the Second Crusade, nearly three decades later.
Adelaide’s sister married Roger I’s illegitimate son, Jordan (Giordano), and her brother, Henry del Vasto, became lord of Paternò and Butera.