Bertha, amatissima. L’azione politica della figlia di Berengario I, Badessa di S. Sisto e di S. Salvatore di Brescia, nel regno italico del secolo X

During the reign of Berengar I (888-924), her daughter Bertha became first abbess of S. Saveur of Brescia, the nunnery of the queens in the Italic Kingdom, and then she obtained the same role in S. Sisto of Placentia, the nunnery founded thirty years before by the empress Angelberga. In this way, she gained an outstanding responsibility because the two monasteries had collected in their assets a very big number of fiscal estates that came from different capital stocks (dowries, donations etc.) directly managed by the kings. Combining the assets of S. Saveur of Brescia with the ones of S. Sisto may be an important step to draw a first mosaic with the scattered pieces of fiscal estates in Po Valley. Berta's very long life allows us to follow for a good fifty years the attitude of the numerous Italic kings of the post-Carolingian era towards the abbess, valued by all as a blood member, and towards the wealth of the monasteries she ran.