Bertha of the Obertenghi
Overview
Biography
(See also Genealogical Table(s): 4.)
Bertha, daughter of the Otbertine marquis of Milan, Otbert II, married Ulric/Oldric-Manfred, marquis of Turin. Ulric-Manfred and Bertha had three known daughters, Adelaide, Immilla/Immula (or E/Irmingarde), and Bertha. If they had a son, he predeceased his father. Adelaide, heir to the mark, married three times: Hermann, Duke of Swabia, Henry, Marquis of Montferrat, and Oddo I, Count of Savoy and Marquis of Turin; Immilla married twice: Otto of Schweinfurt, Duke of Swabia, Ekbert I, Marquis of Meissen; Bertha married Teto, Marquis of Vasto. The elder Countess Bertha foiled a conspiracy against the emperor, Conrad II, in 1037, by intercepting the envoys of the conspirators who were trying to set up a meeting, and sending their letters which implicated the bishops of Vercelli, Piacenza, and Cremona, to the emperor so quickly and stealthily that he was able to seize them, pass judgment on them, and exile them without warning. 1.
Besides the charters in which the elder Bertha joins her husband and her brother-in-law, Alrico, bishop of Asti, she is mentioned in document CCLVII (HPM, 1.441-43) as confirming with her husband the foundation of a college of canons of Sant’Aniano, and in CCCIV (HPM 1.519-21) in which emperor Conrad confirms gifts of land she and her husband made to the abbey of San Giusto di Susa.