Gone Medieval - Matilda of Canossa: Medieval Italy's Iron Countess

Episode Date: May 12, 2026

What if one medieval woman could outwit emperors, shape popes, and force Henry IV to stand barefoot in the snow?Dr. Katherine Harvey joins Dr. Eleanor Janega to tell the astonishing story of Matilda of Canossa, the Iron Countess of Tuscany, whose fortress at Canossa became the stage for the famous Walk to Canossa. Discover her political brilliance, brutal family dramas, papal alliances, failed marriages, and the legacy that kept her name alive for centuries.MOREMedieval ItalyListen on AppleListen on SpotifyPope vs. Emperor: An 11th Century CrisisListen on AppleListen on SpotifyGone Medieval is presented by Dr. Eleanor Janega. Audio editor is Amy Haddow, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanorianica and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes, to the Crusades.

We delve into the rebellions, plots and murders that tell us who we really were. And how we got here. High in the Appanine Mountains of Northern Italy, perched above the Alpine passes that once stitched the peninsula together, stand the ruins of a fortress called Canossa. Today, its crumbling walls rise above winding roads in deep valleys. its decaying towers capped by drifting clouds. But in the Middle Ages, this was one of the most important strongholds in Europe,

a seat of power at the very heart of a continent in turmoil. And it earned that status because of the importance of its lord. Or, should I say, it's lady? Because Canossa was the home of one of the most formidable and extraordinary figures of the medieval world. Matilda of Canossa, La Grande Contessa. I'm Dr. Eleanor Yonaga. This is God Medieval. And today, we're uncovering the story of Matilda's remarkable life. An independent ruler in her own right,

Matilda controlled vast swathes of northern Italy, from Tuscany and Lombardy to the far reaches of Verona, sandwiched between the two heavyweight powers of 11th century Europe, the Holy Roman Empire and Papal Rome, she became a hardened warrior, a seasoned diplomat, and a power broker who fought tooth and nail to keep her domains from the rapacious grasp of German princelings. She was one of the closest allies of the reform papacy

at a time when Europe was engulfed by the titanic clash between Emperor and Pope that was the investiture crisis. And it was here at Canossa in the winter of 1077 that one of the most famous scenes in medieval history unfolded. An emperor, Henry IV, standing barefoot in the snow, begging forgiveness from Pope Gregory the 7th. And at the center of it all stood Matilda, the Iron Countess pulling the strings. Today I'm joined by historian, reviewer, and author Catherine Harvey to bring Matilda into the limelight, showcase her achievements in the color that they deserve and ask, Why on earth isn't this badass countess more widely known among fans of the Middle Ages?

Catherine, welcome to Gone Medieval. Thanks for having me. Oh, I'm absolutely delighted to have you here today because I'm such a huge fan of your work. And everything that you have been doing in terms of work on women in the medieval period is absolutely brilliant. And we have one of the women in the medieval period par excellence to talk about today, who is Matilda of Tuscany. I guess just to start us off, can you explain who she is and why it is that all people who work on medieval women are slightly obsessed with Matilda of Tuscany, I think is fair to say. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, yeah, she's a really excellent medieval woman. She's a countess. She rules a vast way of northern Italy in her own right for several decades in the late 11th, 3012th century. And I think she's really quite sort of well-known and studied in Italy, less so in the English-speaking world, and hasn't sort of trickled through to the popular consciousness in the way that somebody like Eleanor of Aquitaine has. But she should have done. Because, yeah, she's this great powerful woman who plays a really important role. in some of the most important events of her time.

So she's worth knowing about for the point of view of what's happening. But also, if we're interested in medieval women, which we are, then definitely we should know about her. And we know a lot about her as medievalists as well, because this is a woman who left a paper trail, right? There is incredible primary resources that we can use to work on her, correct? Yeah, she's really quite well documented for medieval woman. There's this fantastic life by a monk called Donnet. who, I mean, it's basically it's a biography and he writes it. He's a monk at one of the abys

she founded. It's written for her, although she dies before it's finished, so she never gets to read it. But so it's, I mean, it's very positive. It's very much, you know, all the good things Mr. Order did. He very much praises her support of the church and her piety and her great learning. She speaks lots of languages, he tells us.

He praises her military abilities. She's really great, he thinks. It's almost a hagiography, but it's really useful. And then, but I mean, because she's, so important. She also gets mentioned by lots of other chroniclers. And some of them are also fans and some of them, particularly the Germans for reasons we'll go on to talk about, are so shall we say, Les Keem. And then there's

all these other sources because, yeah, there's lots of letters to and from her, particularly from Pope Gregory 7th. And there's a lot of administrative documents. There's over 100 of her charters we've got, for example, so, you know, granting land and stuff like that. And several of them are sealed, which is really quite unusual. It's pretty innovative for Italy in this period. She's one of the first women to seal her documents. So, yeah, fantastically well documented.

We know a lot about her. It's just ridiculously exciting whenever you can find out this much about someone. To be fair, I think Dono has done a number on me. I have fallen for his propaganda slightly. I'm like, she is really great whenever I read that. But also within that, because you can see so much of her administrative, work. I think it really does sort of show that these claims are largely grounded in reality. Of course, one praises, one's benefactors. If you're going to write a biography of someone or a chronicle, you always

tweak things a little bit so that everybody knows. But you also can't do that if you are attempting to praise someone that everybody knows is kind of awful. So I think that we are able, even reading between the lines to see that this is a pretty spectacular woman. Absolutely, yeah. Can we talk a little bit about the lands that she was ruling? Because we know that she's connected in particular with Canossa. And this is a bit of a key artery, right, for people in the medieval world. Absolutely.

So, yeah, I mean, her lands, there's sort of much of what we now call Northern Italy. So she rules what we now think of as Lombardy and Tuscany. And, yeah, quite a lot of North in Italy. and as you say Canosa's the main base and it's basically a castle in the Apennines If you think about

I'm not very good at geography But if you think about the geography of northern Italy There's a lot of mountains And so having all these castles controlling this land She controls all the key routes Through the Apenines to the Poe Valley

And so That's really important In terms of people moving around In the Middle Ages And also her lands Are sort of sandwiched between She's got the Holy Roman Empire to the North and she's got the papal states

at the south. And at this point it is the papal states, it is a proper territory. It's not just the little bit in the Vatican that they've got now. So she sort of literally is in the middle of this defining power struggle of this period between these two powers who are both claiming to be the supreme authority

in Western Christianism. So she can't help we get involved. I thank God she did. I mean, the drama is excellent. But I want to kind of ask you a question because I think that there's this tendency when we talk about powerful medieval women to think of it as some sort of anomaly, as though women like this have sort of come out of nowhere and that it's incredible that a woman could ever wield this

sort of power. I mean, how remarkable is it that we have a woman like this working and living in the 11th century? I think she's relatively unusual in that she's the sole heiress to all these territories and she's ruling them in her own right. You know, there are parallels somebody like, I don't know, Ethel fled lady of the Mercians in the previous century. There are a couple of Byzantine empresses in the 1050s who briefly were in their own right. But I mean, what there are, what she's not unusual is in being a powerful woman. There are lots of powerful women in Europe in the 11th century. A lot of them are sort of acting on behalf as men, so they're acting as consorts,

so they're acting as regents. But, you know, I mean, as somebody like, I don't know, Matilda Flanders, William the Conqueror's wife, who is regents several times. really good at it. Or to sort of within Matilda's social sphere, Empress Agnes, who's regent for Henry the Bull, her cousin, who is going to be a big player in her story. You know, there's a lot of women who are really powerful, and it's not unusual. You know, we do now sort of stick them up as if they're

unicorns. And actually, they're just really interesting women. Can we talk a little bit about Matilda's family? Because I find the familial connections here quite interesting. So we really connect her with these northern Italian lands, but she does have pretty good connections within the Holy Roman Empire, right? She does, yeah. I mean, her father is Boniface of Canossa, who is one of the most, probably the most powerful prince in northern Italy at this point. But her mother, Beatrice, is, yeah, deep in that imperial world. She's a descendant of Charlemagne. She was raised at the imperial court by her aunt, the Empress. So, yeah, this, you know, this is very, very important. much, dynastic politics or family connections. She's deeply entrenched in that world.

I think that that is an important point to make because there's this tendency to think of power in the medieval world as very closely referencing power now. So Italy is Italy and Germany's or, you know, two polities that don't exist at the time, where there is actually quite a porous, I think, connective way of getting back and forth between the truly wealthy at the time, especially in the kind of the Central European areas. No, absolutely. It's a completely different set-ups as the one we've got now. It's nothing like what it is now. Can we talk a little bit about how Matilda becomes the heir?

I guess whilst I don't find it particularly wild that a woman is ruling, what I do think is interesting is she's the youngest child of her parents. And so that is interesting. Yeah, and I mean, it's either luck or bad luck, I suppose, depending on whose perspective you're looking at it from. Because, yeah, she's the youngest of the three children. She's got an elder sister and an elder brother. Her father's assassinated in 1052.

He's killed while he's out hunting. It's all a bit like, well, in the second of the new forest, and it's all a bit shady. But yeah, he's dead while the three children are still quite small. And the sister dies the following year. And the brother Frederick lasts another, I think, two or three years. And then he dies too. So she's the youngest and she's the only one left.

So by the time she's 10, yeah, she's inherited this vast amount of land. It is just quite incredibly. And so I suppose at this point in time, her mother is ruling. And I actually find her mother Beatrice to be an incredibly interesting woman in her own right. And she does a lot of work, I would say, attempting to consolidate power in this area. So it's not as though Matilda is short of role models, I suppose. No, I mean, I agree. Beatrice is a really interesting woman. Yeah, so she's widowed. She's got these young children. And so she's regent, yeah, for years. And she's pretty good at her, I think it's fair to say. And she, yeah, quite quickly does two things that really helps assure up her position. One is that she marries, again, she marries a cousin of hers called Godfrey the Bearded. And he's probably the biggest enemy of her other cousin, the Emperor Henry III, which is good because it means he can be relied on to stand. up for her against the emperor, which is quite useful, particularly when Matilda and her mother

get captured by the emperor and Godfrey gets them out. So that's really important in keeping them going, keeping their hands on these lands. And it's also Beatrice who builds the alliance with the papacy that will become really important to Matilda. And yeah, as we've seen, they're a major political and religious force. So again, they're good ones to have on side. That's really important in shoring up her position. Is Beatrice the person who negotiates Matilda's marriage to Godfrey the hunchback? Yeah, so Godfrey the hunchback is the son of Godfrey the bearded. So, yeah, Matilda is betrothed.

They're betrothed three years and before they eventually get married after Godfrey the senior dies. And then, I mean, it's a disaster of marriage. It goes horribly wrong. They do live together for a while. They have a baby who dies very young. And after that, it all falls apart really quickly. She goes back to Italy on her own.

and is trying to get the marriage annulled and talks about becoming a nun and very much is done with Godfrey, it's clear. He fights quite hard to try and get her back. I think probably because he loves all her lands rather than because he wants her back. But yeah, he's quite keen to try and keep it going. And it all gets quite nasty. I mean, he may well have been responsible for the rumours that she was having an affair with Pope Gregory,

which are almost certainly not true. I mean, some people have tried to build this into this sort of grand romance between the Countess and the Pope. I don't think there's any real evidence for that. He's let us to her a warm, shall we say, but within the bounds of sort of medieval diplomacy, I think, which can be quite florid. She's very loyal to a series of popes, not just him. So I think it's all been built into something that it quite definitely wasn't.

But then the next thing that happens is that Godfrey gets assassinated. So that is the end of that marriage. Some people try and suggest, her enemies suggest that maybe she had him assassinated. But again, there doesn't really seem to be any evidence for that. But it's, yeah, as a marriage is go, it's a pretty, bad one. Well, I find both of these accusations quite interesting because these are the sort of things that I expect to see people sling around a powerful woman. You know, we see this with Eleanor of Aquitaine, all of the varying affairs that she is supposed to be having. You know,

any time a man turns up dead, if his wife is ambitious, then it's very easy to sort of look at her as well. So this is almost kind of bog standard. And I find it quite interesting that people do want to build out on the idea of a romance between Gregory and Matilda. But given the circumstances and also given the fact that these sorts of accusations are a dime a dozen about powerful women, I find it really quite credulous, I suppose. Is that fair? I don't quite get the enthusiasm for it other than as a sort of, yeah, it feels more like a romance storyline than anything there's serious evidence for. But I mean, I think probably it works quite well in the sense that the fact that Matilda and her mother are quite close to the Pope

doesn't go down very well in a lot of circles. You know, there are a lot of complaints that paper policies being dictated by women. They talk about sort of a new Senate of women. I mean, I think it's, to be fair to Gregory, it's worth pointing out. He worked closely with various women. It wasn't just them. He seems to have taken them seriously as political forces and, you know, people that was worth doing business with, which I think is worth bearing in mind. But I mean, It's also an accusation. Yeah, it works in a clear way for her as a powerful woman. But I think it's probably also an accusation that probably plays on him

because he sort of set himself up as this champion of clerical celibacy and to go, well, this big champion of clerical celibacy is having an affair with the Countess of Tuscany. You can see why they'd say that, I suppose. I mean, to be fair, it is a really great rumor to start. I will give them that. You know, it's quite fun at the very least. So at what point in time does Matilda become the, sole ruler of Tuscany.

Because for quite some time she is sort of working alongside of her mother, right? She is. Yeah, they work together more or less up to Beatrice dies in 1076 and pretty much up to that point they've been working together. I mean, I think Beatrice sort of trained her daughter quite well and sort of she did start to do things on her own. So we start to see the Tilda issuing her own charters and sort of supervising courts on her own and that sort of thing. But she has sort of trained her up so she's ready. And yeah, from 10th century. 76, she's on her own. And I mean, in that sense, for Matilda, it's really good that the husband's died because it sort of feels like had he not, he probably would have at that point tried to

muscle in and take over and rule the lands in her name. But of course, now she's free of them all. She can rule it as she likes. I don't think there's a major transition in her approach, actually, for Beatrice. There's a lot of continuity in what they do. But yeah, Matilda now really comes into her own as the sole ruler of all these lands. One of my favorite things that Matilda is embroiled in, I'm going to have to bring it up because we've already mentioned Canossa, right? And that is one of those medieval buzzwords, I think. Because obviously, we think about Connoza when we think about the walk to Connoza. And here's Matilda. She's one of Gregory the seventh closest allies. And she is very involved in conversations in the investiture crisis. Yes, absolutely. And here we, here's Gregory. He is fighting with Henry the 4th.

Can you do a brief recap for those who might not know what the investiture contest is, even though I never stopped talking about it, but that's okay. Yeah, essentially it's a dispute over who gets to appoint popes and bishops and efforts to all these ecclesiastical positions. And it's something that, I mean, it crops up again and again in medieval Europe because they're very powerful figures. And for obvious reasons, both the church and. and the secular authorities want to have a say

and who gets those jobs so that they get people who are favorable to then. But this particular episode of that ongoing struggle, the investiture conflict, it's basically this big power struggle between Gregory the 7th and Henry VIII, who are, I think it's fair to say, both very invested in and keen to expand their rights. You know, they are two very forceful men

who have got conflicting ideas about who should be in charge of what. Henry's come to the throne as a child, and he's very keen to get things back to where they were when his father was in charge because Henry III really, he'd had things more or less his way. You know, he'd appointed the bishops within his territories.

He'd been able to make sure that a series of pro-imperial Germans were appointed Pope, and Henry the Fourth, understandably, wants that back. But he's up against Gregory, who's this great reforming pope really into papal rights. I mean, I think his papacy, to be fair, is a sort of turning point for the medieval papacy in terms of changing the way it's going.

Oh, God, yeah. And so in 1075, Gregory holds this big synod in Rome and he announces that anyone who receives a bishopric or an abbey from the hands of a layman is not going to be counted as a bishop. And he's excluded from the grace of St. Peter. He's totally person and ungrata. And what's more, any lay power, any king, any emperor

who tries to give somebody a bishopric is going to be excommunicated. And so, I mean, inevitably, it's going to go wrong from there, isn't it? because Henry keeps insisting on his rights. And so by the end of 1075, there's this big row about the Archbishopricer brick of Milan. Henry's still trying to get his man in. Gregory is having none of it.

He starts talking about disobedience to the Pope, being disobedience to God, threatens him. He's not only going to excommunicate him, he's going to depose him. And Henry still won't drop it. He gets together with the pro-imperial bishops of Italy and Germany. They withdraw their obedience to Gregory. They start talking about him as this,

false monk and they say there's got to be a new election, we've got to have a good Pope. So Gregory obviously at that point excommunicates Henry and deposes him. So yeah, I mean, it turns to this massive dispute. It goes on for decades. Eventually in the 1120s they managed to sort of patch it up. But yeah, there's a lot of drama to get through before they get to that point. And I mean, I suppose it all kind of comes to a head, doesn't it, with the walk to Canossa? Can you just explain what it is and why Henry had to? take a little stroll, didn't he, to Canosa?

He did, he did. Yeah. So, I mean, this dispute puts him in a really tough position, not least because he's got quite a lot of problems in Germany, quite a lot of princes who are very hostile to him. And basically, they sort of ally themselves with the Pope and tell him he's got four months to sort this out, get sent to special communication lifted, or he's done.

And so, yeah, he decides he's got to go to Italy to meet Pope Gregory, even though it's in the middle of an awful winter and he's got all these mountains to cross but nevertheless off he goes to meet Gregory who's taken refuge with Matilda and there are all these mad stories about the royal party sort of crawling on their hands and knees through the mountains

having to be carried on piggyback by their guides it's all quite dramatic and then when he gets there he's supposed to have spent three days sitting outside waiting in the snow barefoot and weeping and before the Pope agrees to see him. And I mean, we know that those sorts of, it's a big penitential

performance, essentially, and we know those can be powerful. There's lots of, you know, Henry the second when he goes on his pilgrimage to Canterbury after Beckett gets murdered, for example. It's something that can work. And I mean, Henry does, in a sense, get what he wants, because he does get this sentence of excommunication removed.

The problem, I suppose, is that he's had to effectively acknowledge the Pope's authority to get it, because he's basically accepted the Pope does have the power to excommunicate him and to remove him, which is a bit humiliating, to be honest, as a lot of the anti-imperal Chronicles point out. I think that this is one of these things that we see every future emperor quite frustrated about. Because it does really sort of cement a new status quo.

And Matilda is here in the background, right? She's playing a part in all of this in the reconciliation, correct? You know, she's able to kind of like broker this particular peace deal. Yeah, I mean, she's basically hosting the whole thing. It's all happening at her castle, isn't it? But not only that. Yeah, she is very much mediating between them. And she's his cousin.

She's a great pal of the popes. So she's in a good position to help, I guess. And she's being involved in earlier negotiations. Certainly according to the Zinitso, she's the main mediator at this meeting. And there's a great picture. in the 12th century manuscripts of his life of Henry's sort of grovelling on the floor in front of his throne of the altar

while the Pope looks on. It's a brilliant picture. But I mean, I think the whole, the fact that she's able to do this clearly, I mean, it reflects how important she is, the status she's got. I wonder whether there is also an element here of gender being an advantage for once

in the sense that, of course, intercession and sort of peacemaking are very stereotypically female. There's activities in Christian tradition Gobert, the Virgin Mary, but also in terms of it, it's one of the main ways in which Queen consorts, for example, are very good at exercising power. And so, yeah, I do wonder whether there's a bit of that sort of playing on female stereotypes here. And that's one of the reasons maybe why some of the chroniclers are willing to celebrate this even when maybe some of the other things she does

they don't like. I suppose that is a really good point. This is a really traditional form of female power that we're seeing on display here. And I think, you have to say, Matilda really plays a blinder here. In the first place, we do get this road back for both Gregory and Henry. Well, it's not like there isn't something in it for Matilda as well, right? No, I mean, I think it's easy to talk about her as if she's just sort of the Pope's good little handmaid and helping him out. And obviously, she's far more than that. I mean, at this point in time, she's concerned with all sort of territorial concerns of her own.

She's trying to get her hands on her late husband's land. She's trying to get her mother's dower lands. and she's trying to really cement her position and to make sure that she keeps her hands on her lands and so actually to, you know, to sort of get the Pope where she wants him, the emperor where she wants him, cements her position in a way that is actually very useful to her as well. This is not entirely selfless.

But as good as a job as everybody does with the walk to Canosa. You know, this is, it's famous, we talk about it all the time. It is this really important episode in terms of papal imperial relations. I wouldn't say it's a lasting truth I don't think that that is a way of discussing it and we do end up still seeing

Matilda very much embroiled not just in the politics you know the sort of horse trading of papal imperial relations but she gets dragged into actual war right? Yeah yeah I mean the whole thing goes horribly wrong

really quickly partly because there's a civil war in Germany, Henry is having a lot of problems trying to assert himself against an anti-king. He's got called Rodolf, who's causing him a lot of problems. And so again, he's sort of, he's in this position where he needs papal support, but he still wants his own rights. He's still trying to appoint bishops. And so it all goes horribly wrong again. And eventually it gets to the point where Henry is apparently threatening the Pope. Well, either you excommunicate Rudolph, I'll get myself a Pope who will, basically. And so, yeah, that whole settlement that comes out of that walk crumbles really quickly.

And then the Pope does excommunicate Henry, who follows through with his threats and says, no, Gregory's going to be deposed. And at this point, they appoint basically an anti-Pope. Wiborne, it was Clement III. And so Gregory gets forced into exile. The anti-pop's enthroned as Rome. I mean, he'll get, although Gregory does come back,

this Clement chap will be a real thorn in the papacy side up until he dies in, I think, 1100. And so, yeah, Matilda inevitably is embroiled in all this ongoing trouble. And I mean, through the 1030s into the early 1080s, the early 1090s, Henry is quite a threat to Matilda. You know, there's a really big loss in a battle at Volta Man Tovana in 1080. And over the next few years, he manages to get control of quite a few of our lands. She's also got problems with rebellions amongst their own subjects that are causing her problems.

So, I mean, I think it's a sort of a real testament to how resilient and resourceful she is that she manages to keep going. She makes very good use of what she's got. So all these mountain fortresses she uses to wage a sort of guerrilla warfare. And where she's got control over mountain passes, you know, in a sense, if you're in control of those, you're in control of the area. So she makes great use of those. She carries on working hard on her relationship with the Papersie. And she, you know, she's willing to do what it takes. She'll start melting down church treasures if she needs.

is a more goal. So she, yeah, she manages to keep herself going, but it is tough for a while. Yeah, it's a really pragmatic period for her. I think, you know, I've seen, for example, the way she's able to continue

fighting, referred to as guerrilla warfare, which I think is quite sweet. But I'm not sure that it necessarily counts because we're still doing it with castles and that sort of thing. But I do think that this sort of scrappiness, that she displays here is quite interesting from our perspective

because she's very clearly able to respond to the moment, as terrible as it is. And I mean, I think she's a pretty good general, I think. I mean, I don't think she's actually turning up on battlefields to fight, and she always seems to prefer diplomacy if she can get it to work. But there's no doubt about it. You know, she's a command. Does she strategizing?

she knows her sort of military tactics and she is in the end capable of out-movering the Imperial Army and again I mean we talked about how she sort of set up as this unique figure but there are quite a lot of women in 11th century Italy who are doing these sorts of things

you know that probably one of the most famous is something like Siclegator of Salona who supposedly did go onto the battlefield I think there's some display of debate because she really did but there's no doubt about it a lot of noble women at this point are quite hands on in terms

of organizing military campaigns in a way that maybe the stereotypes we wouldn't expect them to be. She's also doing the sort of things that we would expect to see women do, which is, for example, putting together a brand new marriage. It doesn't necessarily help the situation, I suppose, but you can understand why she might. Can you tell us a little bit about her marriage to wealth the fat, great name? Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, this was another disaster, really. it's very much a strategic alliance. Personally, I think they've got absolutely nothing in

common, not least because he's in his late teens and she's into her 40s by at this point. So, yeah, I don't think this was, again, this is definitely not some great romance. This is very much supposed to bring everybody political benefits. Wulf's father, another wolf, is one of the most powerful men in Northern Italy. So it's supposed to bring these two families together. Wolf's father will help her against the, in her problems with the emperor. And I think probably in the long term, both wharfs are hoping to get their hands on her lands again. That's what they're really interested in. And the Pope is encouraging it. And it seems like a good idea. It sort of goes wrong. The emperor invades again. And within a few years, it's broken down.

So yeah, bad marriage number two, unfortunately, for Matilda. Not a lot of luck with marriages. God bless her. I would say that. But we do see this interesting period at kind of the end here. of the disputes with Henry, where we see Matilda play an absolute blinder with the girls, right? So she manages to invoke

the kind of gossip network and to get one over on Henry. Can you talk a little bit about this? Yeah. So within the space of a couple of years in the early 1090s, she manages to get Henry's son on side, his son, Conrad, comes over to her side,

brings his army with him, I mean, I think that's probably just, you know, stereotypical rebellious son, sick of his father, not giving him enough power off he goes to fight for the other side. Again, we see that a lot. Although her enemies talk a lot about sort of her womanly garl and this nasty woman who's sort of taken advantage of this poor young man. However she does it, it's a massive coup. But yeah, I mean, the really interesting bit is when the following year, Henry's wife defects to Matilda. Eupraxia of Kiev, who's known as Empress Adelaide in the West.

and it's a really interesting story I mean Henry's first wife had been this really powerful figure but Adelaide is completely sidelines she's kept as a virtual prisoner in Verona she's sort of under house arrest she's not allowed any sort of role in government we don't really know why

we don't know whether there was some reason Henry didn't trust her or what had gone wrong but something had gone very wrong and eventually she yeah asks Matilda for help Matilda sends a small army and she goes over to the other side And then she publicly claims in these statements that are read out at church councils

that actually Henry has been seriously mistreating her and making her participate in all juries and all sorts of really scandalous things. I mean, a bit like a lot of the really lurid claims about Matilda. There's very little evidence that any of it's actually true. And I think a lot of historians have been really quite skeptical about it as being the sort of thing that, you know, a polemicist would come up with. but a bit like some of the stories about Matilda, they do stick. And in fact, they sort of get gradually more and more elude.

People start going, and it wasn't just an orgy. It was an orgy with black magic involved and all sorts of, yeah, really scandal as claims. But again, whatever the truth of it is here, I mean, it's clearly very beneficial to Matilda that she's got both of these key players on her side now. Well, she really needs this sort of backup as well, because fundamentally, I think that one of the things that happens while she's involved in all this high-level politicking, while she's doing a great job in terms of keeping control of varying castles with what she's got. But I think there is a way of looking at this that shows us that whilst she is so embroiled in these battles,

we begin to see cities that would ordinarily be under her remit become a bit more independent. I'm thinking Pisa off the top of my head, Verona, Luca, you know, these are places that are strategically very important. They are really important in terms of finance. And losing control of them means a great come down for her finances at the very, very least. Yeah. I mean, I think the whole sort of dynamic in Italy is starting to change at this point. And we're starting to see, as you say, the city's becoming more and more important, more and more independent.

We sort of see in the emergence of the dynamics, I suppose, the sort of the city-states of the staunchly pro and anti-imperial factor. that would be so important in later Middle-Eval Italy. And so it's an increasingly big problem for her. How is she going to control these cities? Some of them actually openly revolt against her authority. Ferrara, for example, in, I think it's 1102, and she has to use force to put those sorts of rebellions down. But she's also, she's sort of, you know,

she's trying to think about, well, okay, how else can she reassert of authority? And I suppose, again, she does try and go for things that will build cooperation. And so, I mean, we've talked a lot about Henry trying to control Episcopal appointments. But actually she's very keen on trying to get her men into bishoprics in these cities because bishops are really powerful figures in these medieval Italian cities, so she wants them to have promatilde bishops. She's very good at using patronage to get cathedral chapters and big urban monasteries to the Lycon side. So for example, in Pisa, she largely funds the rebuilding of the cathedral, which obviously goes so well in the city.

she's building links with urban elite she's granted him privileged to citizens so she's doing what she can to get things on stuff and I mean also I suppose she's moving around she does turn up in these places we tend to talk her about her as if she lived in this castle up in the mountains whereas actually like most rules at this point she's very itinerant and she's turning up in person

absolutely and I think that that is one of the things that you really see with her correspondence as well because she'll mention she just she'll name drop she'll talk about who it is she visited what she is doing and so you can really track where she is when in a way that we don't get to do with a lot of other people in the Middle Ages. No, and that's really important in seeing how sort of the personal element of the power, I think.

And yeah, how involved she is going to say that she's not just this sort of princess up in a castle in the way that some of the more romantic stories present her. Well, as we get towards the end of her life, she's in a really unusual position for a woman who has this kind of power because she doesn't have any children, right? So what does she end up doing in her twilight years? I mean, I think that it's safe to say there's a bit more of a focus on her monastic patronage. Would that be fair? Yeah.

Yeah, I think she does. I mean, the succession obviously is a really big problem. A bit like Elizabeth I first. She seems to be sort of flailing around sort of making various people think they might get it. But yeah, she's also obviously thinking about her broader legacy. And obviously religious patronage is a really powerful way to do that at this point. And I think she probably is a genuinely pious woman as well. So I think that does appear to from that side.

And so, yeah, she's very much building her legacy in that way. I mean, we've already mentioned Pisa. She's also very involved in the building with New Cathedral at Modena and overseeing the translation of a big set of relics there. And she's particularly interested in San Benedetto at Polaroni, which is a monastery very strongly associated with her family, with her ancestors. Some of them are buried there.

And so in her final years, yeah, she's very busy endowing that with lots of properties, lands, she gives them some spectacular gifts, the Gospels of Matilda of Tuscany, for example, which are now, I think, in the Morgan Library in New York. If you look it on the internet, it's digitised, it's a fantastic illuminated manuscript as well worth having a look at. And she's buried there. You know, that ultimately is going to be her burial place. She's left there in peace until the 17th century when one of the 17th century popes decided it would be a good idea to dig her up and move her to St. Peter's Rome.

So, yeah, that's her plan. That's going to be the sort of the big mausoleum, and that's going to be her big legacy. I find this really interesting, though, because in terms of legacy, if what we're talking about is that in the 17th century, the papacy still is so interested in her, that they will go disturb her tomb and move her to the Vatican.

That's crazy, actually. You know, that in terms of people being that involved in the legacy of a medieval ruler, that is definitely, definitely noteworthy. It is. And I mean, I think it shows how much she's captured the Italian in sort of imagination in a way that, yeah, she has on ours. I think it shows sort of how high her,

how important she was in her time. I mean, she's a very divisive figure. You know, if you think about how her contemporaries were thinking, thinking about her. She's very much a polarising figure from people like Donizzo who are so positive and comparing her to her illustrious male ancestors. He thinks she's particularly like her great grandfather atto. And he pays her what I suppose in the middle ages as the ultimate compliment of treating her more like a ruler than a woman. And I mean, to be fair, lots of other people have good things to say about her too. You know, she's, you know, she's prudent, she's wise,

she's a faithful warrior for St. Peter. Generally, they think she's good. if they're on the paper side. The Imperial Chronicles are rather rude, and as we've said, come up with all these rumors about her. But I think what they all do agree is how powerful, unaffective and frightening she can be if you're on the wrong side. So definitely, you know, by the time she dies, her reputation is quite on a high.

And it seems to stay there. I mean, she does get very romanticised. If you start reading sort of 90th century books about her, it's all all she was beautiful and she was clever. But no, I think sort of the same. sense that she was this really interesting woman and really powerful woman who we ought to be thinking about is there all along. I think that's an incredibly important point.

And she is not just a sort of puppet. This is a woman who was 100% working to ensure that she's going to have this sort of legacy. And it is very impressive to be able to build a reputation such as this in the medieval period. that really has a through line to the modern period. That does kind of play on these romanticized images. I mean, yes, obviously, most of what is written about her in the 19th century is probably garbage. But I think that's true of almost every big medieval ruler.

You can really see her hand in this, though. I think this is a woman who really understands how posterity works. She makes very shrewd donations. And as you say, I do think that has to do with the fact that she is, she is genuinely quite religious as well. But I suppose if you're going to leave a legacy, you know, if you don't have children, if you are looking down the barrel of your family

kind of losing control of these lands, what you can say is you're going to maintain these links with the church at the very least. And I think it's important for people to remember that that is something that they would think has real meaning in the afterlife. You know, rulers are in kind of a tricky position because they do a lot of bad things, right?

They do a lot of bad things. And so you do need to curry favor to make sure that you don't spend as much time in purgatory, right? Definitely. And I suppose if you're looking at it from the hostile side, yeah, one possible argument is what she did all this stuff in her last year because she was worried about what was going to happen to herself. Yeah.

Well, Catherine, this has been an unmitigated delight. Thank you so much for coming to talk to us about Matilda. I hope to have you back in the future to dig more deep. deeply into lots of other issues because you are just the best. Thank you so much. Thank you. It's been fun. Thank you so much once again to Catherine for joining me. And thank you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit. If you're interested in some of the topics we mentioned in this episode, you might want to go back and check out our past episodes on the Investiture Contestate.

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