Women in medieval Silesia
Not only men were at the centre of all the action in the Middle Ages. There were many important women in Silesia who played an important role in political, church or social and everyday life.
Hedvika of Silesia (1174–1243), patroness of Silesia
The daughter of Bertold IV, Margrave of Baden and Duke of Merania, and Agnes of Rochlitz was born at Andechs Castle near Lake Ammer in Bavaria. She married Henry I the Bearded, prince of Wrocław and Opole from the Silesian Piast family. She was the mother of the unifier of Poland and the most powerful Piast – Prince Henry II the Pious. Throughout her life she devoted herself to caring for the needy; in 1202, she founded the first convent in Silesia; it was a convent in Třebnice. In 1267, Hedwig was canonized by Pope Clement IV.
Kunigunda of Hungary (probably 1245–1285)
The granddaughter of the Hungarian king Béla IV and the daughter of the Russian prince Rostislav from the Rurik dynasty and the Hungarian princess Anna from the Árpád dynasty made her mark in the history of Silesia after the death of her husband, King Přemysl Otakar II (1278), when she set up her court as a queen-dowager in the castle in Hradec nad Moravicí. Opava was given to her by her husband's conqueror, Rudolf of Habsburg, who imprisoned Přemysl's illegitimate son Nicholas I, to whom Opava belonged, in Hungary for three years after the battle on the Moravian Field near Dürnkrut. After his return, the widowed queen had to leave Opava together with her lover and later husband Záviš of Falkenstein.
Adelheid of Opava (died in 1313)
A relative of the Roman King Rudolf I of Habsburg; she came from the family of Burgraves of Nuremberg, Counts of Hohenzollern (coat of arms with ox horns). She was the wife of the founder of the Opava family of Přemyslids, Nicolas I, and the mother of the first Opava duke, Nicolas II of Opava, and his brothers, Wenceslas and John. She is buried next to her husband in the crypt in the church of St. John the Baptist in Brno.
Viola of Těšín (1290–1317)
The youngest of the three
children of the Duke of Raciborz and Těšín, Měšek I from the less important
Silesian branch of the Piast family. Palacký said Viola was "one of the
greatest beauties of her age". She married Wenceslas III, who, together
with his resignation to the Hungarian throne, cancelled the previously agreed
betrothal to Elizabeth, the daughter of Hungarian King Andrew III. After the
marriage, Viola took the name Elizabeth. However, the marriage was short-lived
and ended on August 4, 1306, with Wenceslas's murder in Olomouc. Her fate for
the next ten years is unknown; in 1316, with the consent of Elizabeth
Přemyslid, she was married to the highest chamberlain Peter of Rosenberg, who had previously cancelled his engagement to the
daughter of Henry of Lipá. Viola,however, died childless on September 21, 1317, and was buried in the
Rosenberg family tomb in the Cistercian Monastery in Vyšší Brod.
Margaret of Opava (1325/1330–1363)
Daughter of Nicholas II of Opava and Anna of Raciborz. Her marriage to the Moravian Margrave John Henry, the younger brother of the king and emperor Charles IV, brought about the union of the Přemyslid dynasty with the ruling Luxembourgs. She was the mother of the Moravian Margrave and the elected Roman king Jobst of Moravia and the Moravian Margrave Prokop. She is buried in Brno, in the necropolis of the Moravian Luxembourgs, in the church of St. Thomas, on the grounds of the Augustinian Monastery.
Barbara of Krnov (1446–1512)
Daughter of Prince Nicolas V of Krnov and Rybnik, married to Prince John IV of Auschwitz. A brave, emancipated and fearless princess who, after the death of the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus in 1490, took over the government of the Principality of Krnov, which her brother John IV of Krnov had previously lost for the support of King George of Poděbrady. But Vladislav Jagiellon declared the principality a dead fief and granted it to the Czech chancellor John of Šelmberk. However, Barbara did not recognize this decision and, after her daughter Helen of Auschwitz married the son of George of Šelmberk, she ruled the Krnov region together with him.