Adela Capet, Adèle of France or Adela of Flanders, known also as Adela the Holy or Adela of Messines; (1009–Messines 8 January 1079) was the second daughter of Robert II (the Pious), and Constance of Arles. She was buried in the monastery at Messines, near Ypres. Other forms of her name are Adela, Adélaïde, Adelheid, Aelis and Alix.
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Her family
She was a member of the House of Capet, the rulers of France. As the wife of Baldwin V, she was Countess of Flanders from 1036 to 1067. She married first 1027 Richard III Duke of Normandy (997 † 1027). They had no children. As a widow, she remarried in 1028 in Paris to Baldwin V of Flanders (1012 † 1067). Their children were:
- Baldwin VI of Flanders, (1030 † 1070)
- Matilda of Flanders (1032 † 1083). In 1053 she married William Duke of Normandy, the future king of England
- Robert I of Flanders, (1033-1093)
- Henry of Flanders (c. 1035)
Political influence
Adèle’s influence lay mainly in her family connections. On the death of her brother, Henry I of France, the guardianship of his seven-year-old son Philip I fell jointly the boy's mother and to Adèle’s husband so that from 1060 to 1067, they were Regents of France.
Church influence
Adèle had an especially great interest in Baldwin V’s church-reform politics and was behind her husband’s founding of several collegiate churches. Directly or indirectly, she was responsible for establishing the Colleges of Aire (1049), Lille (1050) and Harelbeke (1064) as well as the abbeys of Messines (1057) and Ename (1063). After Baldwin’s death in 1067, she went to Rome, took the nun’s veil from the hands of Pope Alexander II and retreated to the Benedictine convent of Messines. There she died. Her commemoration day is 8 September.
