# A Dictionary of Saintly Women/Rixa

​St. Rixa, Richa, Richense, Richeye, Richeza, Richissa, Ricza, Rikscha or Ryxa, May 21, queen of Poland, + 1063. Eldest of the seven daughters of Herenfried or Ezo, count palatine of the Rhine, and his wife, B. Matilda, daughter of the Emperor Otho II. The marriage of her parents had been arranged under peculiar and romantic circumstances, and her own history was no less out of the common. Dlugosch relates that in 1001 Otto III. was very ill, and hearing the fame of the miracles of St. Adalbert, archbishop of Gnesen, he vowed that if that saint would cure him, he would visit his tomb. He recovered and set out for Gnesen, intending at the same time to pay a visit to Boleslaus, duke of Poland, who had redeemed for its weight in gold, the body of St. Adalbert from his murderers, the heathen Prussians. Boleslaus gave the Emperor a magnificent reception at Posnania, and as Otto's vow obliged him to go on foot to Gnesen, seven miles, Boleslaus had the whole of the road laid with cloth of various colours, so that the Emperor and his retinue should not step on the ground. Boleslaus walked with him and had a grand gathering of bishops, nobles, and great ladies, magnificently dressed and blazing with jewels, to receive them in Gnesen. Thus Otto went to the holy tomb and returned thanks for his recovery. Boleslaus took care to entertain him and all his attendants sumptuously and hospitably during every day of their stay, and presented them with cups of gold and silver, hawks, horses, furs, jewels, and purple vestments. Otto was astonished at the grandeur of this sovereign of a people who but yesterday were heathen savages; he was like the Queen of Sheba when she beheld the grandeur of Solomon. He desired to give the duke some reward, and pay him some compliment worthy of such a splendid and hospitable reception, so he ordered him to be ​anointed King. Otto sat on his horse that all the people might see him, and with his own hands he placed the crown on the head of Boleslaus. On the same day he gave his niece Rixa for a wife to Mieczslaw, the son of Boleslaus. He also gave the new-made king a nail of the cross of Christ, and the lance of St. Maurice of the Theban legion, in order that he might vanquish all barbarians. Boleslaus, in exchange, gave Otto an arm of St. Adalbert. As the emperor was returning to Magdeburg, Boleslaus escorted him to the frontier, and sent a company of his chief men to fetch Princess Rixa and to carry rich gifts to her parents, the count and countess palatine.
The infant bride lived in Poland with her mother-in-law, Queen Judith of Hungary, for twelve years, until, in 1013, she was given to her husband, Mieczslaw, who succeeded to the throne in 1025. He was very far below his father in energy and ability. Dlugosch says he was lazy and gluttonous and was ruled by women and that the Poles despised him, and many of the newly annexed provinces threw off the Polish rule. The clergy, however, spoke well of him, as he encouraged the spread of Christianity. The Gospel was preached in Poland in his time in three languages, Latin, Greek, and Polish. Wolski says he was ruled entirely by his German wife, and her influence was prejudicial to Poland. He went mad at fifty, and Rixa was Regent during his madness. He died in 1034. Half the people elected his son Chatimir or Casimir, who was twenty years old. The coronation was deferred because many feared that he would inherit his father’s madness. Rixa gave offence by increasing the taxes and by trying to ameliorate the condition of the lower classes, and still more by mistrusting the Poles, appointing Germans to all the principal offices, and taking Germans for her advisers. After a time of great difficulty and anxiety, the nobles deposed her and she had to fly from the country with her son, and take refuge at the Court of her kinsman, the Emperor Conrad II. (Dlugosch, History of Poland.)
The Life of Rixa, by a monk of Brauwiller, says that she was divorced from her husband through the intrigues of one of his mistresses, and at that time fled in disguise, with a very small retinue, to Saxony, to Conrad, taking with her the two crowns, her husband’s and her own. This was a very important gift, as the possession of the kingdom was always supposed to go with that of the crown. Conrad therefore invaded Poland, took Mieczslaw prisoner, and laid the whole country under tribute. When, in 1034, she fled for the second time, Conrad was still reigning and she gave him the two crowns.
Casimir studied for two years in Paris, and then became a monk at Cluny (Wolski says at Liége).
When the queen and the young king were gone, the Poles fell to fighting among themselves. The people rose against the nobles, the serfs against their lords, the laymen against the clergy; the towns and churches lay in ruins, the fields were untilled, bands of robbers infested the country, famine and brigandage were rife. Yaroslav, duke of Russia, attacked Poland, carrying away great spoil and many captives. Then the Poles knew that anarchy was the worst of all conditions. They sent to various countries in search of their proscribed king. For a long time his mother would not reveal to the messengers the place of his retreat. She thought he would be happier in a peaceful and law-abiding country than on the stormy throne of Poland. When at last the messengers found him, in 1041, he refused to leave the peaceful cloister where he had lived for five years. He had renounced the world and was not only a Cluniac monk, but also a deacon and was intending soon to be ordained a priest.
The Emperor also, who, before he be came a monk, had advised him to be content with the rich inheritance of his mother and uncles and not to tempt the uncertain fortune that awaited him in Poland, approved of his remaining in the monastery. The abbot, however, and Rixa, were both moved to compassion at the miserable state of Poland, and ​persuaded him to return. Pope Benedict IX. approved of the step, and absolved him from his monastic and clerical vows. Casimir kissed every one of the monks and begged them all to pray for him and his kingdom. He went back to Poland, and was set on the throne in his habit and cowl. The courtiers shaved their heads in compliment to him; and the shaven crown came to be the height of fashion and sign of nobility. He drove out the Pomeranians, Prussians, and all heathen invaders. He married Mary Dobrogneva, a good and pious woman, daughter of St. Vladimir sister of Yaroslav, grand-prince of Russia, and perhaps grand-aunt of St. Margaret of Scotland. (See St. Anna (14).) Casimir was surnamed the Pacific. He died in 1058, and was succeeded by his son Boleslaus II.
Meantime, Rixa seems to have found her chief solace in a religious life and in the society of her brother. She declined to return with her son, but gave him all the jewels that ought to belong to him, and begged the Emperor Henry III. to restore to him the crowns which she had given into the keeping of his father Conrad II.; and he did so. Rixa nearly died of grief for the death of her brother Otto, count palatine, and duke of Suabia, which occurred in the same year as her son's restoration. She offered all her jewels and golden ornaments on the altar, and took the veil from the hands of Bruno, bishop of Toul, afterwards Pope Leo IX., and she charged all her friends and dependents to bury her beside her brother. Her remaining brother Herman, archbishop of Cologne, died in 1056, and was succeeded by Anno.
Rixa gave immense estates to the Church, subject to her use of them during her life. The monastery of Brauwiller, founded by her parents, was completed in 1061, and endowed by her with the lands of Clotten and other great estates. She built another monastery near Wurtzburg, on the spot consecrated by the martyrdom of St. Kilian and his companions, and at the same time she gave the lands of Soltz in Henneberg, to the bishop of Wurtzburg.
She died at Salevelt and was buried, according to her wish, in the church of St. Mary ad Gradus, at Cologne. She was represented on her tomb by the side of her brother, the archbishop, both wearing halos like saints, and in one of the windows of the church she is pictured between two of its tutelary saints, her uncle Anno and Agilulph, and is called in the inscription, Sancta Richeza, and her body is exhibited for veneration on certain great festivals.
Ferrarius, Molanus and Cratepol call her Saint, but the Bollandists do not. No miracles are recorded of her.
Besides her son Casimir, Rixa had a son Boleslaus, who died in childhood, and two daughters, one of whom, Risa, married Bela, brother of Andrew I. of Hungary, and was the mother of St. Ladislaus, king of Hungary.
Palacky, Gesch. von Böhmen. Karamsin. Hist. de Russie, Salvandy, Hist. de Pologne, Dunham, Hist. of Poland. An account by a monk of Brauwiller, in Leibnitz Scriptores. Kalixt Wolski, Poland, her Glories, etc.