Сrown divorce: the case of Europraxia (Adelgeide) Vsevolodivna

The purpose of the article is to analyze the reasons, circumstances and the process of divorce of Eupraxia (Adelheid) Vsevolodivna, to identify the forms and methods of her opposition to the established medieval marriage traditions. The methodological basis of the work is the method of «case study». The scientific novelty is the clarification of certain facts of the biography of Eupraxia Vsevolodivna, her psychological portrait, which allowed to understand better the reasons and circumstances of her divorce, as well as the impact of this event on the further reign of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV. Conclusions. In the process of the analysis of sources and the latest historiography, a number of clarifications were made about the circumstances and peculiarities of the divorce of Eupraxia Vsevolodivna, known in the Catholic tradition as Adelheid, or Praxedis, the wife of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV. It is established that the concept «divorce» in relation to medieval Europe, and in particular the Holy Roman Empire of the XI century, had a significantly different content from the modern one and consisted of the following trajectories: divorce could take either the form of annulment or separation (living without the possibility of re-marriage to another person). An analysis of the divorce process of the imperial spouses Henry IV and Adelheid suggests that the divorce was initiated by the wife under the influence of the set of circumstances, both personal and political. However, the personal factor was decisive – the circumstances of marriage without parental blessing, abuse and open violence from the husband, the death of a newborn son, the uncertainty of her imperial status, devotion to the canons of the Christian church and unwillingness to support the husband in his confrontation with the legitimate popes. The divorce, approved by the church council and Pope Urban II personally, took form of the separation (divortium a mensa et thoro). The severance of relations accelerated the deconstruction of Henry’s sacred status as an emperor, but did not become decisive in his conflict with the church, as Henry had previously been twice excommunicated from the Church. Educated on traditional Christian values, Eupraxia gained personal freedom and the opportunity to return to her homeland, which became an example of an unprecedented opposition of a woman to the established medieval marriage traditions.