Richeza of Lotharingia (also called Richenza, Rixa, Ryksa; born about 995/1000 – 21 March 1063) was a member of the Ezzonen dynasty who became queen of Poland as the wife of Mieszko II Lambert.

Upon the death of her brother Duke Otto II of Swabia and the consequent extinction of the male line of her family, Richeza became a nun, worked to preserve the Ezzonen heritage, and funded the restoration of the Abbey of Brauweiler.

Polish historian Kazimierz Jasiński supposed that she was few years younger than her husband Mieszko II Lambert.

[2] In 1000 during the Congress of Gniezno, an agreement was apparently made between Bolesław the Brave and Richeza's uncle Emperor Otto III.

After the final peace agreement between the Holy Roman Empire and Poland, which was signed in 1018 in Bautzen, Richeza and Mieszko maintained close contact with the German court.

Mieszko's reign was short-lived: in 1031, the invasion of both German and Kievan troops forced him to escape to Bohemia, where he was imprisoned and castrated by orders of Duke Oldrich.

Mieszko II's half-brother Bezprym took the government of Poland and began a cruel persecution of the followers of the former king.

The Brauweiler Chronicle indicated that soon after the escape of her husband, Richeza and her children fled to Germany[3] with the Polish regalia, which were given to Emperor Conrad II.

After Bezprym was murdered in 1032, Mieszko II was released from captivity and returned to Poland, but was forced to divide the country between himself, his brother Otto and their cousin Dytryk.

Soon after, a barons' rebellion — coupled with the so-called "Pagan Reaction" of the commoners — forced both Casimir and Richeza to flee to Germany again.

She received Saalfeld, a possession that did not belong to the Lower Rhine area in which the Ezzonen dynasty tried to build a coherent dominion.

On 7 September 1047 Richeza's brother Duke Otto II of Swabia, the last male representative of the Ezzonen dynasty, died,[4] and with him the territorial and political objectives of his family.

At his funeral in Brauweiler, according to Bruno of Toul (later Pope Leo IX), she put her fine jewellery on the altar.

Richeza responded to Anno II's ambitions with the formal renunciation of her possessions in Brauweiler to the monastery of Moselle, while reserving the lifelong use of the lands.

In the end, Richeza only maintained direct rule over the towns of Saalfeld and Coburg, but retained the right to use until her death seven other locations in the Rhineland with their additional incomes, and 100 silver pounds per year by the Archdiocese of Cologne.

Possibly St. Maria ad Gradus was an unfinished work of Richeza's brother and completed by Anno II, who wanted to secure part of the Ezzonen patrimony in this way.

The building has distinct references to the Church of St. Maria im Kapitol in Cologne, founded by Richeza's sister Ida.

Brauweiler is seen as a copy of the Cologne Cathedral, probably thanks to the influence of Richeza's brother Hermann II, who in 1040 consecrated Stavelot Abbey.

Richeza planned to make Brauweiler the Ezzonen family crypt, in 1051 interring the remains of her sister Adelaide, Abbess of Nivelles.

It is unknown whether it remained in her possession and was used together with other relics of Anno II from her estate of St. Maria ad Gradus, or had already been donated to her brother before her death.