Oda of Meissen

To do this, they sought a close relationship with the neighboring Polish ruler Bolesław I the Brave, the most powerful friend and ally of the Holy Roman Empire.

On 30 January 1018 the Peace of Bautzen was signed between Emperor Henry II and the Polish ruler; during the preliminary negotiations of this treaty in Ortenburg Castle, was decided that the widower Bolesław I would reinforced his dynastic bonds with the German nobility through a marriage.

The chosen bride was the much younger Oda,[4] whose eldest brother Margrave Herman I of Meissen gave his consent as the head of the Ekkehardiner family.

[5] Accompanied by her brother and Bolesław I's son Otto, Oda traveled to Cziczani (also spelled Sciciani, at the site of either modern Groß-Seitschen[6] or Zinnitz[7] or Zützen[8]) Castle, the residence of the Piasts in Lower Lusatia.

[10] According to his comments, he criticizes the marriage and paints a gloomy picture of Oda's future: he says that "from now she has lived outside the law of matrimony and thus in a manner unworthy for a noble lady like her",[11] because the wedding was celebrated into against the rules of the Church and without its consent during Lent.

With this treaty, their almost two decades-long disputes about rank, honor and reputation, but also about territorial claims over the March of Lusatia, the Milceni land and the adjacent Sorbian Meissen finished.

[18] On Henry II's campaigns against Bolesław I, Oda's family was part of a "Polish-friendly alliance party",[19] alongside the powerful Billunger dynasty, who only hesitantly involved.

The marriage renewed the traditional friendship between Piast and Ekkehardiner dynasties after the daughter of Bolesław I, Regelinda, who was married with Oda's brother Margrave Herman I of Meissen, died in 1016.

[20] In the Peace of Bautzen, Bolesław I was as the clear winner, as he was able to maintain his sovereignty over the March of Lusatia and the Milceni land, to which he was entitled because of his third marriage to Emnilda, a daughter of the Lusatian prince Dobromir,[21] just as claimed as the Ekkehardiner family.

[1] Considerations that she returned to the ancestral seat of the Ekkehardiner dynasty in Naumburg with her daughter in the turmoil after Bolesław I's death on 17 June 1025,[24] can not be substantiated by contemporary written sources.

German Historian Gerd Althoff came to the conclusion that one of the two is dedicated to Oda's memory, because Bolesław I and many members of the Ekkehardiner dynasty were also included in the necrology.