“A  model  of  wisdom  and  exemplar  of  modesty  without  parallel  in  our  time”:    

how  Matilda  of  Flanders  was  represented    in  two  twelfth-­‐century  histories.  

 

Alexandra Lee Pierce

Submitted in total fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts in History (by Thesis Only)

December 2010

School of Historical Studies The University of Melbourne

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Produced  on  archival  quality  paper

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Abstract  

Matilda of Flanders was the wife of William the Conqueror, and as such was the first

Anglo-Norman queen of England. Coming from an important family with connections

to the French royal family, she played a crucial role in the new Anglo-Norman

kingdom. As well as being a duchess and a queen, Matilda was also important as a

monastic benefactor and as the mother of eight children, a number of whom went on

to play important roles. My thesis investigates the different ways in which two

twelfth-century historians, William of Malmesbury and Orderic Vitalis, represented

Matilda. Beginning with an understanding that women in medieval historical texts are

an ‘imaginative construction,’ it examines how these two near-contemporary

historians constructed Matilda’s image to reinforce their own overall purposes.

My discussion of how Matilda was represented is divided into three chapters. The first

chapter examines how the two historians represented Matilda through family

connections. Her marital relationship with William was the most important to both

historians; how Malmesbury and Orderic represented her relationships with her

children and her natal family is also examined. The second chapter is concerned with

representations of Matilda through political activities, as duchess and queen. Finally,

the third chapter considers how Matilda was represented through expressions of piety.

I consider actions such as donations to monasteries, alms-giving, and prayer, and the

connection between outward appearance and inward virtue.

In sum, I argue that William of Malmesbury and Orderic Vitalis constructed the figure

of Matilda of Flanders, through her family relationships, political actions, and piety,

in order to meet the overall objectives for their histories. William of Malmesbury was

primarily interested in demonstrating appropriate kingly behaviour to his audience,

and in legitimating the Norman Conquest of England. Orderic Vitalis, in writing a

universal history, sought to delineate generally appropriate Christian behaviour, to

guide his audience in right ways of living. The figure of Matilda was useful in

advancing these aims.

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Declaration   This is to certify that

(i) the thesis comprises only my original work towards the Masters,

(ii) due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used,

(iii) and the thesis is 30,000 words in length, inclusive of footnotes,

but exclusive of tables, maps, bibliographies and appendices.

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Acknowledgements   The support of my supervisor, Dr Megan Cassidy-Welch, has been invaluable. Most

helpfully, she suggested numerous avenues for deepening my understanding of the

uses to which Matilda was put. My associate supervisor, Dr Dianne Hall, read several

iterations and provided her own brand of insight into both the process (reading my

whole thesis aloud was, while useful, excruciating) and the topic.

I am grateful for the financial assistance provided by an Australian Postgraduate

Award.

Numerous friends have looked after me throughout the process of researching and

writing this thesis. Alison gave editorial insight, lunch, humour, and a listening ear.

Kathryn provided much-needed perspective. Members of the postgrad women’s Bible

study group, especially Sandy, Amy, and Natalie, offered prayer and companionship.

Gina, Mel, Zoë, Krick and Shell all helped me retain my sanity through food, tea,

perspective, and joy.

My proofreaders have been of inestimable value: Peter and Tom (fourteen years after

sparking the love, and well beyond when they expected to be involved in my

education), Matt (returning the favour), Alison, John, and Mum.

My mother, Meredith, surely didn’t expect to be saddled with this when she

encouraged me towards history, but read multiple drafts with the grace only a mother

could possess. Tony, my father, would have delighted in arguing with me over any

detail he could, and I only wish he could have been here to do so.

Finally, boundless love and gratitude are due to my husband, James, without whose

demands that I both do this thing and enjoy it, dammit, the doing would have been

impossible and the enjoying even harder.

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Abbreviations  

Primary  sources  Gesta William of Malmesbury. Gesta Regum Anglorum.

Translated by R.A.B. Mynors. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.

HE Orderic Vitalis. Historia Ecclesiastica. Translated by

Marjorie Chibnall. 6 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969-1980.

Secondary  sources  ANS Anglo-Norman Studies EHR English Historical Review Faces of Time Jean Blacker. The Faces of Time: Portrayal of the Past

in Old French and Latin Historical Narrative of the Anglo-Norman Regnum. Austin: University of Texas, 1994.

HSJ Haskins Society Journal H&T History and Theory HT History Today JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History JMH Journal of Medieval History QCD Pauline Stafford, Queens, Concubines and Dowagers:

the King’s Wife in the Early Middle Ages. London: Leicester University Press, 1988.

Queens Anne J. Duggan (ed.). Queens and Queenship in

Medieval Europe: Proceedings of a Conference held at King's College London. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1997.

SMRH Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History TRHS Transactions of the Royal Historical Society TRSL Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature

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A  Note  on  Names  

There were various spellings of ‘Matilda’ in the medieval period: Mathilda, Mathilde,

Maud, Maude. I use the more familiar Matilda. I refer to her successor as Edith-

Matilda (born Edith, she took the name Matilda on marriage). Edith-Matilda’s

daughter is referred to as Empress Matilda. Matilda’s husband, William, was

variously known as William the Conqueror, William the Bastard, King William I of

England and Duke William II of Normandy. In this thesis he is predominantly known

simply as William, with differentiation provided as required to prevent confusion.

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Table  of  Contents   Abstract ii Declaration iii Acknowledgements iv Abbreviations v A Note on Names vi Table of Contents vii Introduction 1 The sources 2 Historiography 10 Chapter outline 16 Chapter One: Wife, mother, daughter 18 Robert’s rebellion 18 Marriage 21 The marital relationship 26 Children 29 Natal Family 34 Conclusion 37 Chapter Two: A political woman 38 Active in Normandy 40 Queen of England 46 Matilda and ecclesiastical politics 48 Matilda and diplomacy 50 Conclusion 52 Chapter 3: Piety, patronage, virtue 53 Death 54 Patronage 59 Alms and prayer 65 Prophecy 67 Spiritual and physical virtue 69 Conclusion 71 Conclusion 72 Bibliography 77 Primary sources 77 Secondary sources 78

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Introduction  

[Matilda] was endowed with fairness of face, noble birth, learning, beauty of character, and –

what is and ever will be more worthy of praise – strong faith and fervent love of Christ. The

alms which this princess daily distributed with such zeal brought more succour than I can

express to her husband, struggling on the field of battle.1

The women who appear in medieval historical texts were, according to Nancy Partner,

an “imaginative construction.”2 In this thesis I analyse the imaginative textual

construction of one woman, the eleventh-century English queen Matilda of Flanders.

Matilda has largely been ignored by previous studies of both the Norman Conquest

and medieval queenship, despite her contemporary significance. My work

concentrates on how twelfth-century historians Orderic Vitalis and William of

Malmesbury constructed an image of Matilda through their discussions of family,

politics, and piety. Orderic and Malmesbury’s texts demonstrate that medieval

historians used historical events and individuals to illustrate beliefs about the proper

organisation and running of society. I establish how Orderic and Malmesbury utilised

the figure of Matilda in their narratives to support their didactic and legitimising

objectives.

Matilda was born to Baldwin of Flanders and his wife Adela (daughter of Robert,

King of France) around 1032. She married William, Duke of Normandy, around 1050,

and they had perhaps eight children, including future kings of England, dukes of

Normandy, a countess, and an abbess.3 Matilda became Queen of England in 1066

(when William conquered it), and was crowned in 1068. She was well regarded as a

monastic benefactor, and she founded the monastery of Holy Trinity, Caen. Dying in

1083, Matilda played a significant role in the new Anglo-Norman realm from 1066,

and often acted as regent for William in Normandy. Although historians have

accorded her little attention since the first scholars wrote about her a millennium ago,

in 2002 Laura Gathagan pointed out that she was “the most powerful female in a

1 Orderic Vitalis, Historia Ecclesiastica, trans. Marjorie Chibnall, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1969-1980), 2:225. All subsequent references are to this translation, with volume:page number. 2 Nancy Partner, "No Sex, No Gender," in Studying Medieval Women: Sex, Gender, Feminism, ed. Nancy Partner (Cambridge, MA, 1993), 121. 3 See Chapter One for a discussion of the date of marriage and number of children.

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radically new aristocracy.”4 As the first Anglo-Norman queen, her reign connected

that of Edith (wife of Edward the Confessor, the last ‘English’ king) with that of

Edith-Matilda (wife of Henry I and Matilda’s daughter-in-law).5 Gathagan has

suggested that Matilda’s actions therefore “define[d] Anglo-Norman queenship.”6

Understanding why one historical character was represented in a particular way in a

text can help scholars understand historical works as a whole. More specifically,

Pauline Stafford has noted that examining the portrayal of royal women is “a question

of importance in its own right.”7 Further, John Carmi Parsons has suggested that

“[t]he reasons why [historians] said what they said about women – and how they said

it… deserve some scrutiny” (his emphasis).8 I contend that Orderic and Malmesbury

used the figure of Matilda in their histories as a means to an end. Thanks to her

positions as duchess, queen, wife, and mother, they could use Matilda to further the

arguments put forward through their texts. How these two historians represented her,

and the events they chose to include and emphasise, illuminates their purposes. Those

purposes, as previously stated, were primarily didactic and legitimising. To

contextualise this contention, I now proceed to a discussion of my sources.

The  sources  

Orderic and William were not the first historians to mention Matilda. Eleventh-

century historians such as William of Poitiers and William of Jumièges had already

dealt with the events of the Norman Conquest, and discussed Matilda in that context.

Poitiers wrote the Gesta Guillelmi Ducis Normannorum et Regis Anglorum around

1074. He was unusual as an historian because he was of noble birth, and had fought

4 Laura Gathagan, "Embodying Power: Gender and Authority in the Queenship of Mathilda of Flanders" (Unpublished PhD thesis, The City University of New York, 2002), v. 5 Harold II’s wife, Ealdgyth, queen for just ten months, has rarely been mentioned in discussions of English queenship, although Judith Abbott did feature her: Judith Abbott, "Queens and Queenship in Anglo-Saxon England, 954-1066: Holy and Unholy Alliances" (Unpublished PhD thesis, The University of Connecticut, 1989), 506-552. 6 Gathagan, "Embodying Power", 24. 7 Pauline Stafford, "The Portrayal of Royal Women in England, Mid-Tenth to Mid-Twelfth Centuries," in Medieval Queenship, ed. John Carmi Parsons (New York, 1993), 148. 8 John Carmi Parsons, "'Loved him – hated her': Honor and Shame at the Medieval Court," in Conflicted Identities and Multiple Masculinities: Men in the Medieval West, ed. Jacqueline Murray (London, 1999), 280. Penny Gold has suggested that investigating representations of women must be undertaken with an understanding of “the diversity and the ambiguity of human culture.” Penny Schine Gold, The Lady and the Virgin: Image, Attitude, and Experience in Twelfth-Century France (Chicago, 1985), xviii.

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for Duke William before becoming his chaplain. The only surviving medieval

manuscript of his work is damaged, and concludes in 1067.9 William of Jumièges, a

Benedictine monk, took Dudo of St. Quentin’s Historia Normannorum and reworked

it as the Gesta Normannorum Ducum. Initially completed in the mid-1060s, Jumièges

recommenced writing after the Battle of Hastings, finally finishing around 1070.10

Both writers sought to demonstrate the legitimacy of William’s conquest, and Matilda

featured briefly in their narratives. Poitiers called her “our dearest mistress,” and

discussed her lineage, marriage, and regency of Normandy – although he suggested

that Normandy remaining peaceful “must… be attributed primarily to the king

himself.”11 Jumièges noted only William’s marriage to that “very beautiful and noble

girl of royal stock,” and then her death.12

Other eleventh- and twelfth-century texts such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the

works of Henry of Huntingdon, John of Worcester, and Simeon of Durham included

even briefer records of Matilda. These texts, too, dealt with the Conquest, discussing

the reasons for it and its aftermath. They mentioned Matilda with regard to her

marriage, coronation, death, and burial at Caen.13 She did not appear at all in the

Carmen de Hastings, the work probably composed soonest after the events of 1066

and possibly by Matilda’s own chaplain.14

Orderic and Malmesbury featured Matilda more extensively than any of these texts.

Although neither wrote during her lifetime, they provided more detail about her than

any other near-contemporary writer. Both were Benedictine monks, born in England

9 Antonia Gransden has partly attributed the lack of other medieval manuscripts to Poitiers not being a monk. Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England, c.550 to c.1307 (London, 1974), 97, 99, 100. 10 Ibid., 95. 11 William of Poitiers, The Gesta Guillelmi of William of Poitiers, trans. R.H.C. Davis and Marjorie Chibnall (Oxford, 1998), 179; see also 33, 149. 12 William of Jumièges, The Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis, and Robert of Torigni, trans. Elisabeth van Houts, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1992-1995), 1:129. A modern translation of Jumièges’ inspiration has been undertaken: Dudo of Saint-Quentin, History of the Normans, trans. Eric Christiansen (Woodbridge, 1998). 13 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, trans. M.J. Swanton (London, 1996), 202 (MS D) and 215 (MS E); Henry of Huntingdon, The History of the English People, trans. Diana Greenway (Oxford, 1996), 401, 407; John of Worcester, The Chronicle of John of Worcester, ed. R.R. Darlington and P. McGurk, trans. Jennifer Bray and P. McGurk, vol. 3 (Oxford, 1998), 7, 41; Simeon of Durham, A History of the Kings of England, trans. J. Stephenson (Lampeter, 1987), 135, 153. 14 Guy of Amiens, Carmen de Hastings, trans. Frank Barlow (Oxford, 1999). Her absence is made more surprising if Elisabeth van Houts’ suggestion that Matilda was responsible for William’s flagship is correct: Elisabeth van Houts, "The Ship List of William the Conqueror," ANS 10 (1988): 159-183.

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of mixed parentage (almost certainly Norman fathers and English mothers), but they

wrote on opposite sides of the Channel and with different purposes. I examine their

representations of Matilda in my thesis because the detail they provide is the most

extensive found in any early source, and because – given their differing purposes –

their representations can be fruitfully contrasted to illuminate Matilda’s usefulness to

them.

Of all near-contemporary historians, Orderic provided the most sustained discussion

of Matilda, in his Historia Ecclesiastica. Born in England in 1075, at the age of ten

Orderic joined the Norman monastery of St. Évroul, although he retained a love of

England and saw staying in Normandy as exile.15 Orderic worked on the Historia for

thirty years, having begun around 1115 under orders from his abbot.16 Initially

conceived as a history of his monastery, he expanded the Historia to include the

history of Normandy before, and Normandy and England after, the Conquest.17

Adding Books 1, 2 and 7 (out of thirteen) when much of the rest was complete,

Orderic finally produced a universal history, a creation that began with the life of

Christ and continued to his own day.18 Marjorie Chibnall has suggested that Orderic

was “particularly well informed” about Matilda, not least because one of her

messengers ended his days at St. Évroul and was personally known to him.19 Only

two early manuscripts of Orderic’s work are known, suggesting he was not widely

read by contemporaries.20

Malmesbury wrote much less than Orderic about Matilda, but the Gesta Regum

Anglorum is nonetheless the second most abundant record of her activities from a

near-contemporary.21 Scholars have long praised Malmesbury as one of England’s

most important medieval historians.22 Born in 1095, he lived and wrote in England, at

Malmesbury Abbey; like Orderic, he experienced a sense of divided loyalty between

upholding English traditions and supporting the reforming work of the Normans in

15 See, for example, Vitalis, HE, 3:9. 16 Gransden, Historical Writing, 152. 17 Vitalis, HE, 2:3. 18 Gransden, Historical Writing, 152. 19 Marjorie Chibnall, "Women in Orderic Vitalis," HSJ 2 (1990): 112 and n.59. 20 Gransden, Historical Writing, 165. 21 William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, trans. R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford, 1998). 22 Denys Hay, Annalists and Historians: Western Historiography from the Eighth to the Eighteenth Centuries (London, 1977), 56.

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English churches.23 He began writing the Gesta specifically at the request of Henry I’s

first queen, Edith-Matilda. He completed it around 1126, with redactions undertaken a

decade later.24 Unlike Orderic, Malmesbury’s historical work apparently enjoyed

widespread readership (or at least dissemination), because twenty-five medieval

copies are extant.25

Although ostensibly dealing with the same events, insofar as recent history was

concerned, Orderic and Malmesbury wrote for different audiences and with different

intentions. In discussing Orderic’s conception of audience, Roger Ray has warned that

those “who wish to use… the Historia should proceed well aware that in its author’s

mind it had a fundamentally liturgical origin and destination.”26 Orderic hoped for an

audience first and foremost among his fellow monks; an audience among the laity was

a secondary consideration.27 Nevertheless, Orderic did anticipate a lay audience, and

composed his history accordingly. On the other hand, Malmesbury was primarily

interested in a noble, lay audience, thanks to the patronage of Edith-Matilda, although

he too expected a monastic audience, at least within his own institution.

That Orderic and Malmesbury had different intentions for their histories is evident in

the overall styles they employed, demonstrated immediately in the titles of their

works. Orderic wrote a historia, a universal history, which by its nature was

concerned with narrative. His main intention was to present exempla of virtuous

Christian lives, through which he could praise God, corresponding with what Marie-

Dominique Chenu has termed “history as an expression of the temporal order of

salvation.”28 Orderic also aimed to encourage his audience to live as Christians,

because he perceived history as a didactic tool, a means by which his audience could

23 Gransden, Historical Writing, 166, 173. 24 R.M. Thomson, William of Malmesbury, 2nd ed. (Woodbridge, 2003), 6, 7. 25 Gransden, Historical Writing, 179. 26 Ray argued for this expectation based on the punctuation Orderic used, and on Orderic’s defence of his work at the start of Book 6. Roger D. Ray, "Orderic Vitalis and his Readers," Studia Monastica 14 (1972): 33; Vitalis, HE, e.g. 3:213-215. Jean Blacker has expressed doubts about Orderic’s liturgical hopes: Jean Blacker, The Faces of Time (Austin, 1994), 12. 27 Blacker, The Faces of Time, 147; Marjorie Chibnall, The World of Orderic Vitalis: Norman Monks and Norman Knights (Rochester, 1996), 217; Ray, "Orderic Vitalis and his Readers," 21. Chibnall points out that his work could be “used as the basis of homilies and moral instruction for the laity, [and]… made its appeal to the monks and knights he knew” (emphasis mine). 28 Marie-Dominique Chenu, Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century: Essays on New Theological Perspectives in the Medieval West, trans. Jerome Taylor and Lester K. Little (Toronto, 1997), 162.

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be taught the right way to live.29 In discussing the use of history, he noted that “the

saints… [have] left a salutary example for us,” and recommended that his readers

“always… strive patiently to follow after them, so that by their m{erits and the grace

of God} we may be joined with the company of the blessed.”30 Additionally, he

asserted that “[e]veryone should… follow the noble examples of famous men now

dead to the best of his ability.”31 History, therefore, clearly had a didactic purpose for

Orderic. Further, despite the mention of ‘men,’ Orderic did not see virtue nor history’s

didactic function as gender-specific, and Chibnall has demonstrated that he did not

view gender as a fundamental social distinction.32 It is plausible that Orderic partly

intended this approach, of presenting examples to emulate, to placate his superiors: it

justified his attention to secular events by demonstrating that people beyond the

cloister could be worthy models for his monastic brethren and his hoped-for lay

audience. Linked to this, Orderic hoped that his work would eventually become part

of the horarium, the daily readings prescribed for monks, thus increasing the audience

for his exempla.33 Most fundamentally, Orderic presented worthy examples because

he was concerned for the future, and that his audience would meet it appropriately as

Christians. He claimed that “by reflecting on past and interpreting present events” the

mind could “equip itself with the qualities necessary to face the future.”34

Malmesbury, too, understood history as a didactic tool, and employed historical

characters as models for his audience. However, Jean Blacker has described

Malmesbury’s interest as “social rather than eschatological,” thus differentiating his

intent from Orderic’s.35 Rather than writing a universal history, Malmesbury

employed the conventions of the gesta. While this too could lend itself to narrative, it

was more concerned with listing the actions or deeds of (usually) great men, in this

case the kings of England. Björn Weiler has pointed out that demonstrating the correct

29 Gransden, Historical Writing, 154. 30 Vitalis, HE, 2:3. Words in {} are missing in the original text, and added by Chibnall. 31 On didacticism, see Ibid., 3:213. 32 Chibnall, "Women in Orderic Vitalis," 111. Orderic regarded the division between clerical and lay as more important. 33 Ray, "Orderic Vitalis and his Readers," e.g. 23. 34 Vitalis, HE, 3:213. Dominic Janes has noted this function in other medieval historiography: Dominic Janes, "The World and its Past as Christian Allegory in the Early Middle Ages," in Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Yitzhak Hen and Matthew Innes (Cambridge, 2000), 103. 35 Blacker, The Faces of Time, 5.

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behaviour for kings was a particular concern.36 Malmesbury consciously announced

this, noting that

in the old days books… were written for kings or queens in order to provide

them with a sort of pattern for their own lives, from which they could learn to

follow some men’s successes, while avoiding the misfortunes of others.37

Situating himself within that convention, Malmesbury was thereby following the

Roman tradition of res gestae and the early medieval “mirrors for princes” genre,

thereby acknowledging the utility of history for teaching his audience and his

expectation that it would be employed thus. Beyond this didactic purpose,

Malmesbury also sought to legitimate the status quo and justify the Norman

Conquest, by illustrating how the Normans had advanced the “morality and civility”

of England.38 Finally, Malmesbury was explicitly concerned with tracing the dynastic

line of Edith-Matilda, his initial patron.39 This patronage reinforced Malmesbury’s

parochial interest in England, and may have influenced his representation of powerful

women.40 It certainly had repercussions for his discussion of Matilda.

Blacker has persuasively argued that the methodology medieval historians used to

represent historical figures disclosed their interpretation of events. Most medieval

historians did not value “realism in characterization.” Rather, “[h]istorical personages

were moulded according to certain ideas.”41 It could be argued that all historical

subjects are ‘moulded’ or ‘imagined’; Jay Rubenstein has argued that medieval

biographers presented, “in action,” notions of how a life ought to be led.42 However,

women were particularly ‘imagined constructions’ in medieval historical writing, with

36 Björn Weiler, "William of Malmesbury on Kingship," History 90, no. 297 (2005): 5. Joan Haahr, too, suggested that Malmesbury was attempting “to define… the qualifications of a successful monarch.” Joan Gluckauf Haahr, "The Concept of Kingship in William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum and Historia Novella," Mediaeval Studies 38 (1976): 354. 37 Malmesbury, Gesta, 7-9. 38 Blacker, The Faces of Time, 10; Andrew Galloway, "Writing History in England," in The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, ed. David Wallace (Cambridge, 1999), 264. 39 Malmesbury, Gesta, 9. 40 Joan Ferrante, To the Glory of her Sex: Women's Roles in the Composition of Medieval Texts (Bloomington, 1997), 8, 96-102. 41 Blacker, The Faces of Time, 53-54. 42 Jay Rubenstein, "Biography and Autobiography in the Middle Ages," in Writing Medieval History, ed. Nancy Partner (London, 2005), 34.

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Parsons noting that medieval writers tended “to depict male rulers and their wives as

moral packages” – “paired examples” of morality. Further,

male writers of chronicles and narratives also manipulated the images of

particular women to color their portrayals of the men with whom those women

were intimately associated, the men who were the authors’ main interest.43

Scholars should not view Orderic and Malmesbury’s portrayals of Matilda as

accurately recording the reality of her life, but rather as representations shaped to a

purpose. Recovering (and uncovering) these purposes is the intention of my thesis.

Malmesbury’s history, as noted above, existed within the tradition of “mirrors for

princes” literature. Such texts fit into the wider literature of exemplarity, within which

Orderic can also be seen to work. In a narrow sense, exempla were “short narrative[s]

used to illustrate or confirm a general statement,” frequently used in sermons.44 More

broadly, however, Elizabeth Allen has noted that “[m]edieval Latin commentaries

assume[d] that… narrative… should have ethical utility,” and that exemplarity should

be understood as a mode, not a genre.45 Medieval historians (and presumably

audiences) regarded history as a fit place to look for, and find, exempla.46 Blacker has

suggested that the didactic nature of both Malmesbury and Orderic’s writing came

about because of a belief in the exemplary, edificatory nature of the characters and

events they recorded.47 This has ramifications for understanding why these historians

represented historical actors as they did. Neither historian should be seen as striving

for realism in their descriptions of individuals, but as endeavouring to present

43 Parsons, "Loved him," 281. Gunhild Vidén has suggested that Suetonius, upon whose biographies Malmesbury based his work, only included women “because of what they signified to the man in question.” Gunhild Vidén, Women in Roman Literature: Attitudes of Authors under the Early Empire (Göteborg, Sweden, 1993), 75. 44 Joseph Albert Mosher, Exemplum in the Early Literature of England (New York, 1966), 1. Larry Scanlon has expressed reservations about this definition, calling it imprecise: see Larry Scanlon, Narrative, Authority, and Power: the Medieval Exemplum and the Chaucerian Tradition (Cambridge, 1994), 4. 45 Elizabeth Allen, False Fables and Exemplary Truth in Later Middle English Literature (New York, 2005), 2-3. 46 Ruth Morse, Truth and Convention in the Middle Ages: Rhetoric, Representation, and Reality (Cambridge, 1991), 6; Nancy Partner, Serious Entertainments: the Writing of History in Twelfth-Century England (Chicago, 1977), 2-3; Catherine Sanok, Her Life Historical: Exemplarity and Female Saints' Lives in Late Medieval England (Philadelpia, 2007), 19; Gabrielle M. Spiegel, "Political Utility in Medieval Historiography: a Sketch," H&T 14 (1975): 317, 319. 47 Blacker, The Faces of Time, 14-15.

9

universal truths through those individuals.48 This is particularly relevant when

considering the representation of queens, because Parsons has noted that queens

“inevitably emerged as exemplary figures for women” in medieval histories.49 I argue

that Orderic and Malmesbury both used Matilda as an exemplary figure, albeit in

different ways.

In using history didactically, and seeking to instruct their audience on appropriate

behaviour, neither historian was “retrieving the pastness of the past.” Rather, they

were “rigorously selecting events and deeds… because of their exemplary value” for

their audience.50 Gabrielle Spiegel has indicated that, because the medieval political

world relied on the past for legitimacy, medieval historiography had political utility

for its authors and its audience. Representations of politics in the past “determined the

parameters of political activity” in the present – and those representations could be

manipulated.51 Matilda could be used to meet Orderic and Malmesbury’s purposes

because she was successful in various spheres: as wife, mother, patron, and in politics.

Because she had also been dead for several decades, her example was that much

easier to manipulate. I suggest that an understanding of representations and purposes

deepens understanding of these texts, and enables historians to use them more

appropriately as evidence for contemporary attitudes and ideas.

Throughout my thesis, my approach has been to understand Orderic and Malmesbury

within their own circumstances, and to understand how they portray Matilda within

those milieux. In approaching the issue of representation I have been influenced by

gender history, both in the fundamental acknowledgement that women are worthwhile

objects of study, and in understanding that the representation of female identity and

female virtue is a construction.52 Joan Scott’s writing has been vital in establishing

how I approached my research, especially her seminal essay “Gender: a Useful

48 See, for example, Chris Given-Wilson, Chronicles: the Writing of History in Medieval England (London, 2004), 2-3. 49 Parsons, "Loved him," 282. 50 Janet Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories: Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past (Cambridge, 1992), 298. For further discussion on how medieval historians used the past for present purposes, see for example Yitzhak Hen and Matthew Innes, eds., Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2000). 51 Spiegel, "Political Utility," 314-325. 52 For example, Joan Wallach Scott, "Women's History," in Gender and the Politics of History (New York, 1999), 20.

10

Category of Historical Analysis.”53 Of history writing today, she has asserted that

“[h]istory figures… as a participant in the production of knowledge about sexual

difference. I assume that history’s representations of the past help construct gender for

the present.”54 I have applied this same assumption to the writing of Orderic and

Malmesbury, to suggest that those historians expected to influence the behaviour of

their audience in matters including, but not limited to, gender. Ann-Louise Shapiro’s

analysis is also pertinent to the analysis of the representation of Matilda, when she

argues that

[feminist historians] have been particularly concerned to tease out the

conditions – cultural and disciplinary, conscious and unconscious, discursive

and material – that have informed the construction of the historical

narrative.… How, and in what terms, are claims of historical ‘truth’ validated

and authorized, and what is occluded in the historian’s assertion of

objectivity?55

I have approached representations of Matilda therefore not as a transparent

reproduction but as a construction within specific milieux and for specific purposes.

Judith Bennett’s mindful observation that medieval and modern historians are neither

“unbiased reporters [nor] god-like observers who simply reveal the past ‘as it really

was’” is particularly pertinent to any analysis of Orderic and Malmesbury.56

Historiography    

Both Orderic and Malmesbury have been the focus of scholarly studies, although

some have been cursory.57 Chibnall’s monograph exploring Orderic’s wider context

53 Originally published as Joan Wallach Scott, "Gender: a Useful Category of Historical Analysis," American Historical Review 91, no. 5 (1986): 1053-1075. It was later reprinted as Joan Wallach Scott, "Gender: a Useful Category of Historical Analysis," in Gender and the Politics of History (New York, 1999), 28-50. 54 Joan Wallach Scott, "Introduction," in Gender and the Politics of History (New York, 1999), 2. 55 Ann-Louise Shapiro, "Preface," in Feminists Revision History, ed. Ann-Louise Shapiro (New Brunswick, 1994), vii. 56 Judith M. Bennett, History Matters: Patriarchy and the Challenge of Feminism (Philadelphia, 2006), 14. 57 Some general analyses include: Harry Elmer Barnes, A History of Historical Writing (New York, 1962); Blacker, The Faces of Time; R.R. Darlington, Anglo-Norman Historians: an Inaugural Lecture delivered on 20 May 1947 (Birkbeck College, 1947); James Gairdner, Early Chroniclers of Europe: England (London, 1879); Gransden, Historical Writing; J.G. Russell, "Renaissance of the Twelfth

11

has been a vital contribution to Anglo-Norman studies, and other historians have

studied a variety of topics through his work.58 Malmesbury has been the subject of a

biography, a monograph on the interplay between gender and conquest in his work,

and studies exploring his life, texts, and the issues raised by his texts.59 Numerous

scholars have touched on questions of theme and purpose in Orderic and

Malmesbury’s histories. However, none have explored the use to which one

individual was put in furthering those purposes. I do so here for Matilda of Flanders,

building on the work that has come before, aiming to illuminate both the purposes of

these historians and Matilda’s usefulness in achieving them.

The historiography of the Norman Conquest is more extensive than that of these

individuals, and began in its immediate aftermath. For roughly eighty years after it

occurred, the Conquest dominated English historical works. Those early histories

focussed largely on upholding the (problematic) legitimacy of William succeeding

Edward the Confessor as king, and the consequences of the Conquest on law,

Century," in The Development of Historiography, ed. Matthew A. Fitzsimmons, Alfred G. Pundt, and Charles E. Nowell (Port Washington, 1967), 37-50; Beryl Smalley, Historians in the Middle Ages (London, 1974). 58 Chibnall, World; Jean Blacker, "Women, Power, and Violence in Orderic Vitalis's Historia Ecclesiastica," in Violence against Women in Medieval Texts, ed. Anna Roberts (Gainesville, 1998), 44-55; Marjorie Chibnall, "Feudal Society in Orderic Vitalis," ANS 1 (1978): 35-48; Marjorie Chibnall, "Anglo-French Relations in the Work of Orderic Vitalis," in Documenting the Past: Essays in Medieval History presented to George Peddy Cuttino, ed. J.S Hamilton and Patricia J. Bradley (Wolfeboro, N.H, 1989), 5-19; Marjorie Chibnall, "Orderic Vitalis on Castles," in Studies in Medieval History presented to R. Allen Brown, ed. C. Harper-Bill, C. Holdsworth, and J.L. Nelson (Woodbridge, 1989), 43-56; Chibnall, "Women in Orderic Vitalis," 105-121; Marjorie Chibnall, "A Twelfth-Century View of the Historical Church: Orderic Vitalis," in The Church Retrospective, ed. Robert Swanson (Woodbridge, 1997), 115-134; Charles Wendell David, "Ordericus Vitalis," in Church Historians, ed. Peter Guilday (New York, 1926), 100-124; Ray, "Orderic Vitalis and his Readers," 15-33; Leah Shopkow, History and Community: Norman Historical Writing in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Washington, 1997); K. Thompson, "Orderic Vitalis and Robert of Belleme: a Reexamination," JMH 20, no. 2 (1994): 133-141; Jean A. Truax, "From Bede to Orderic Vitalis: Changing Perspectives on the Role of Women in the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman Churches," HSJ 3 (1991): 35-52. 59 Thomson, William of Malmesbury; Kirsten A. Fenton, Gender, Nation and Conquest in the Works of William of Malmesbury (Woodbridge, 2008); Julia Barrow, "William of Malmesbury's Use of Charters," in Narrative and History in the Early Medieval West, ed. Elizabeth M. Tyler and Ross Balzaretti (Turnhout, 2006), 67-90; Walter de Gray Birch, "On the Life and Writings of William of Malmesbury," TRSL 10 (1874): 318-377; Hugh Farmer, "William of Malmesbury's Life and Works," JEH 13 (1962): 39-54; Elizabeth Freeman, "Twelfth-Century Historians and the Creation of the English Past" (Unpublished MA, University of Melbourne, 1993); Elizabeth Freeman, "Sailing between Scylla and Charybdis: William of Malmesbury, Historiographical Innovation and the Recreation of the Anglo-Saxon Past," Tjurunga: an Australasian Benedictine Review 48 (1995): 23-37; J.J.N. McGurk, "William of Malmesbury," HT 26, no. 11 (1976): 707-714, 763; Marie Schütt, "The Literary Form of William of Malmesbury's 'Gesta Regum'," EHR 46 (1931): 255-260; Weiler, "William of Malmesbury on Kingship," 3-22; M. Winterbottom, "The Gesta Regum of William of Malmesbury," The Journal of Medieval Latin 5 (1995): 158-173. This list is restricted to those works dealing primarily with Malmesbury’s Gesta Regum.

12

language, and the status of the ‘English’.60 As attention to the Conquest more

generally waned, around the 1150s, interest in Matilda declined also. Some later

medieval historians neglected Matilda completely even if they mentioned the

Conquest.61

Between the Reformation and English Restoration, interest in the Conquest was

reignited in England. Constitutional history dominated, concentrating on the issues of

the succession, the liberty of the English church, and the development of feudalism

and the ‘Norman yoke’.62 The early modern period sustained this focus on

constitutional and ‘feudal’ history.63 The nineteenth century, too, followed this trend,

as Anglo-Norman studies grew ever more popular, with an emphasis on the ‘tyranny’

of Norman feudalism and the continuation of Saxon institutions.64 Because my focus

is on issues of representation, I do not directly consider the reality of the institutional

and constitutional situation of Anglo-Norman England and Normandy. However, I do

build on this earlier work, particularly on examinations of how the king functioned.

The early twentieth century witnessed a burgeoning interest in Norman institutions in

Normandy itself, still within the context of constitutional history.65 However, by the

mid-twentieth century disciplines such as archaeology, sociology, and anthropology

were influencing historical source analysis, and new avenues of interest were opening

up, with approaches now characterised as economic and social history gaining

traction. Concurrently, interest in feudalism as a concept waned.66 The novocentenary

of the Battle of Hastings in 1966 (and of the Domesday Book in 1986) provoked

interest in the events and personalities, resulting in biographies of William by Frank

Barlow and David Douglas.67 More recently, explorations into themes such as power

60 Marjorie Chibnall, The Debate on the Norman Conquest (Manchester, 1999). 61 Those who did mention her included: Peter of Langtoft, The Chronicle of Pierre de Langtoft, trans. Thomas Wright (Weisbaden, 1964), 411-413; Snorre Sturlason, Heimskringla, or The Lives of the Norse Kings, trans. Erling Monsen (New York, 1932), 76, 95; Wace, Roman de Rou, trans. Glyn Burgess (Rochester, 2004), III 4502f, 5338. The reliability of these sources is variable. 62 Chibnall, The Debate on the Norman Conquest, 28-38. This historiographical overview is restricted to the Anglophone tradition. 63 Ibid., 47-50. For a thorough discussion of historians’ attitudes in this period, see David C. Douglas, English Scholars, 1660-1730 (London, 1951). 64 Chibnall, The Debate on the Norman Conquest, 53, 57, 59. 65 Ibid., 72, 74-75. 66 Ibid., 75, 81. 67 Frank Barlow, William I and the Norman Conquest (London, 1965); David C. Douglas, William the Conqueror (Berkeley, 1964). Other biographers have included Hilaire Belloc, William the Conqueror

13

and lordship, racial identity, and colonialism at the time of the Conquest have gained

importance.68 The development of women’s studies has also contributed towards a

deeper understanding of the period.69 I am, of course, greatly indebted to the historical

work of the twentieth century. The rise of social, and later cultural, history has

enabled the very existence of my thesis. Discussions of both the reality and the

portrayal of ‘power’ in this period, as held by both men and women, have helped to

shape it. So too has the insistence of women’s studies that women both played a role

in this period, and are worthy of study. With few exceptions, however, individual

women in this period have still not been the subject of in-depth study.70 How they

were represented has been particularly neglected. I suggest that such a study is a

worthwhile task.

After being largely ignored for nearly a millenium, Matilda began to feature in

twentieth-century accounts of the Conquest. However, scholars still focused on her

roles as wife and mother, with little consideration of her power. Although studies

have mentioned her coronation and role as regent in Normandy, for example, these

events have rarely been analysed.71 Laura Gathagan’s 2002 doctoral thesis,

(London, 1934); Edward Freeman, William the Conqueror (London, 1898); F.M. Stenton, William the Conqueror and the Rule of the Normans (New York, 1966). Other books from this time capitalising on the anniversaries included, on the Battle of Hastings: Allan Lloyd, Year of the Conqueror (London, 1966); D.J. Matthews, The Norman Conquest (New York, 1966); Stenton, William the Conqueror. On the Domesday Book: J.C. Holt, ed., Domesday Studies: Papers read at the Novocentenary of the Royal Historical Society and the Institute of British Geographers (Woodbridge, 1987). 68 Chibnall, The Debate on the Norman Conquest, 6, 106. Exploration of these themes can be found in John Gillingham, The English in the Twelfth Century: Imperialism, National Identity and Political Values (Woodbridge, 2000); Brian Golding, Conquest and Colonisation: the Normans in Britain, 1066-1100 (Basingstoke, 2001); Hugh M. Thomas, The English and the Normans: Ethnic Hostility, Assimilation, and Identity 1066-c.1220 (Oxford, 2003); Anne Williams, The English and the Norman Conquest (Woodbridge, 1995). 69 For example: Susan M. Johns, Noblewomen, Aristocracy, and Power in the Twelfth-Century Anglo-Norman Realm (New York, 2003); Jo Ann McNamara, "Victims of Progress: Women and the Twelfth Century," in Female Power in the Middle Ages, ed. Karen Glente and Lise Winther-Jensen (Copenhagen, 1989), 26-37; Stafford, "The Portrayal of Royal Women," 143-168; Pauline Stafford, "Women and the Norman Conquest," in Debating the Middle Ages: Issues and Readings, ed. Lester K. Little and Barbara H. Rosenwein (Maiden, 1998), 254-263; Truax, "From Bede to Orderic Vitalis," 35-52. 70 Exceptions include Gathagan, "Embodying Power"; Lois Huneycutt, Matilda of Scotland: A Study in Medieval Queenship (Rochester, 2003); Kimberly LoPrete, Adela of Blois (Dublin, 2007). 71 In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, references to Matilda included her marriage, children, coronation, patronage, and death. These can be found, for example, in: George Burton Adams, The History of England from the Norman Conquest to the Death of John (London, 1905); Edward Freeman, The History of the Norman Conquest of England, its Causes and its Results, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1867-79); Freeman, William the Conqueror; John Richard Green, History of the English People (London, 1905-08); John Lingard, The History of England: from the First Invasion by the Romans to the Accession of

14

Embodying Power: Gender and Authority in the Queenship of Mathilda of Flanders,

is the exception.72 As well as narratives, Gathagan utilised charters, writs, the

Domesday Book, and other documents to recover the ‘real’ Matilda. She

demonstrated, through Matilda, that “lordship and justice, patronage and sacral

rulership” by women was both plausible and endorsed by “the authors of societal

mores” in the late eleventh century.73 Gathagan situated the events and actions of

Matilda’s life in the context of political, ecclesiastical and theological changes.

However, she was not interested in how historians represented Matilda. I therefore

extend Gathagan’s work into a discussion of how twelfth-century historians portrayed

this queen, and why. In doing so, scholarly understanding of these historians’

purposes is enhanced, and a more nuanced use of these texts as sources of information

is possible.

In addition to situating Matilda within the context of the Conquest, Gathagan has

noted that she must also be understood within the context of medieval queenship. I

place my thesis, too, in that context. The study of medieval queenship has flourished

later than other aspects of women’s history because of an early antagonism in

historians of women towards focussing on ‘singular’ women. In 1968, Marion

Facinger noted that French queens had “received but casual and sporadic attention

from students of the middle ages [sic].”74 At the time, English queens had been

similarly ignored. The last four decades, however, have begun to remedy this (at least

for England). Two compilations of English queens’ biographies have recently been

published, as have monographs on Matilda’s predecessors and successor.75 Later

medieval queens have received more attention than their earlier predecessors: some,

such as Eleanor of Aquitaine, are perennial favourites, largely because of the scandal William and Mary in 1688 (Sydney, 1903); Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England from the Norman Conquest (London, 1854). 72 Gathagan, "Embodying Power". Two articles resulted from her thesis: Laura Gathagan, "Mathilda of Flanders," in The Rise of the Medieval World, 500-1300: a Biographical Dictionary, ed. Jana K. Schulman (Westport, 2002); Laura Gathagan, "The Trappings of Power: the Coronation of Mathilda of Flanders," HSJ 13 (2004): 21-40. 73 Gathagan, "Embodying Power", 20. 74 Marion Facinger, "A Study of Medieval Queenship: Capetian France, 987-1237," SMRH 5 (1968): 3. 75 Lisa Hilton, Queens Consort: England's Medieval Queens (London, 2008); Margot Arnold, Queen Consorts of England: the Power behind the Throne (New York, 1993). Hilton provided a good overview of Matilda’s life and achievements. Arnold was less scholarly. For Matilda’s predecessors, see Pauline Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith (Oxford, 2001). For her successor: Huneycutt, Matilda of Scotland. One of Matilda’s daughters has also been the subject of a hefty tome, as has her granddaughter: LoPrete, Adela of Blois; Marjorie Chibnall, The Empress Matilda: Queen Consort, Queen Mother, and Lady of the English (Oxford, 1992).

15

attached to them and their reigns.76 Others, such as Eleanor of Castile and Berengaria,

have only recently been investigated.77 Taken as a whole, this work has shown that

medieval English queens enjoyed more opportunities for real and important action

than has previously been acknowledged. Research has provided insights into the

impact of such wide-ranging issues as ethnicity, sexuality, fertility, femininity and

religious devotion.78 It has newly demonstrated and emphasised the ways in which

queens were able to influence or work with their husbands, sons, and other members

of the court. Gathagan’s thesis treated Matilda along these lines. It is not my intention

to repeat her work, but rather to focus on how Matilda was represented. There is a

growing body of research on representations of queens, but Matilda has not featured

in these discussions in any meaningful way.79

I respond to the historiography on medieval queenship by using Orderic and

Malmesbury’s representations of Matilda to investigate the purposes of their histories.

For Orderic, that meant presenting virtuous examples to teach his audience how to

live well, being concerned for their future moral standards and for God’s glory.

Despite Helen Jewell’s objection that queens could not be role models, because “their

unique position was not one to be emulated” and “a comparatively small circle… saw

them in action,” Orderic clearly hoped that many would hear or read of Matilda

76 For example: William W. Kibler, ed., Eleanor of Aquitaine, Patron and Politician (Austin, 1976); John Carmi Parsons and Bonnie Wheeler, eds., Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady (New York, 2002). 77 D. Parsons, ed., Eleanor of Castile, 1290-1990: Essays to Commemorate the Seven Hundredth Anniversary of her Death, 28 November 1990 (Stamford, 1991); John Carmi Parsons, Eleanor of Castile: Queen and Society in Thirteenth-Century England (New York, 1995); Ann Trindade, Berengaria: in search of Richard the Lionheart's Queen (Dublin, 1999). 78 Lois Huneycutt, "Public Lives, Private Ties: Royal Mothers in England and Scotland, 1070-1204," in Medieval Mothering, ed. John Carmi Parsons and Bonnie Wheeler (New York, 1996), 297. Other monographs on English queenship include Edward Black, Royal Brides: Queens of England in the Middle Ages (Lewes, 1987); Margaret Howell, Eleanor of Provence: Queenship in Thirteenth-Century England (Oxford, 1998); Stacy Klein, Ruling Women: Queenship and Gender in Anglo-Saxon Literature (Notre Dame, 2006); J.L. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens (Oxford, 2004); Carole Levin and Robert Bucholz, eds., Queens and Power in Medieval and Early Modern England (Lincoln, 2009). This is not an exhaustive list. 79 See, among others, Anne J. Duggan, "Introduction," in Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe, ed. Anne J. Duggan (Woodbridge, 1997), xv-xxii; Louise Olga Fradenburg, ed., Women and Sovereignty (Edinburgh, 1992); Lois Huneycutt, "Medieval Queenship," HT 39 (1989): 16-22; John Carmi Parsons, ed., Medieval Queenship (New York, 1993); Pauline Stafford, QCD (London, 1988); Stafford, "The Portrayal of Royal Women," 143-168; Truax, "From Bede to Orderic Vitalis," 35-52. Queen Elizabeth I has received this sort of attention: Louis Montrose, The Subject of Elizabeth: Authority, Gender, and Representation (Chicago, 2006). So too, by way of comparison, has Cleopatra; Mary Hamer, Signs of Cleopatra: History, Politics, Representation (London, 1993); Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams and Distortions (London, 1989).

16

through his history, and would emulate her.80 Malmesbury, too, used history to teach,

especially how to be a good king. He also aimed to justify the Norman Conquest. He

could accomplish both of these purposes by presenting William as a morally

acceptable king, and a positive portrayal of his wife Matilda aided in this endeavour.

Orderic and Malmesbury both utilised their representation of Matilda as an exemplum

to achieve particular aims.

Chapter  outline  

Parsons has noted that rituals such as “coronation, childbearing, intercession, pious

exercises, or… reception by ecclesiastical or civic dignitaries” were vital for

constructing representations of queens.81 While he was referring to constructing

representations through those acts themselves, this list also accounts for most of the

ways in which Matilda was, and still is, represented in historical accounts. In

structuring my thesis I group these activities into three, occasionally overlapping,

categories: the family, political involvement, and piety. Additionally, I maintain two

modern, admittedly problematic, distinctions, discriminating between ‘secular’ and

‘sacred’, and between ‘political’ and ‘familial’, matters. I do not wish to suggest

unambiguous distinctions in those areas. A strict dichotomy between secular and

sacred did not exist in the medieval world, and family and ‘politics’ were intimately

connected. However, this thematic grouping enables me to collate and discuss similar

issues.

In Chapter One, I examine how Orderic and Malmesbury represented Matilda’s

marriage to William, her relationship with her children, and her connection to her

natal family. For both historians, the key relationship was between Matilda and

William. They used it in different ways: Orderic to present an exemplary life;

Malmesbury, a wife whose actions glorified her husband. I particularly examine

Matilda’s support of her son’s rebellion to illustrate fundamental differences between

Orderic and Malmesbury’s intentions.

80 Helen M. Jewell, Women in Medieval England (Manchester, 1996), 137. 81 John Carmi Parsons, "'Never was a body buried in England with such solemnity and honour': the Burials and Posthumous Commemorations of English Queens to 1500," in Queens, ed. Anne J. Duggan (Woodbridge, 1997), 317.

17

In Chapter Two, I examine the actions these historians attributed to Matilda in the

‘political’ arena, especially after the Norman Conquest. Orderic represented her

political involvement as positive, making her a good role model, while Malmesbury

downplayed her political involvement because his focus was on England and William

as its king.

Finally, in Chapter Three I consider representations of Matilda’s piety: her patronage

of various institutions, prayer and almsgiving, personal virtue, and death. Orderic

used Matilda’s piety to great effect in illustrating the exemplary life, and it underlay

most of her appearances in his text. Malmesbury utilised Matilda’s piety to praise

William’s piety, and by association assert the justice of the Norman Conquest.

It is clear that these historians used their portrayals of Matilda for different purposes.

Orderic used her as an example of virtuous, largely non-gendered behaviour: an

appropriate model for his audience to emulate. Malmesbury used her exemplary

nature to demonstrate the virtue of her husband and by extension the justice of the

Conquest of England. Matilda was a malleable figure, and Orderic and Malmesbury

used her to develop their themes.

18

Chapter  One  

Wife,  mother,  daughter  

How very true here and now is the maxim of a certain sage, ‘A faithless wife brings ruin to the

state.’ After this who in this world shall ever find himself a trustworthy helpmate? The wife of

my bosom, whom I love as my own soul, whom I have set over my whole kingdom and

entrusted with all authority and riches, this wife, I say, supports the enemies who plot against

my life, enriches them with my money, zealously arms and succours and strengthens them to

my grave peril.82

Orderic and Malmesbury portrayed Matilda of Flanders’ life as principally revolving

around the roles of wife, mother, and daughter. They utilised representations of

Matilda’s familial relationships to further their discussions of society. In accordance

with his desire to expound virtuous lives, Orderic presented Matilda as an appropriate

role model for his audience because of, and through, her interactions with her family.

Malmesbury, on the other hand, primarily used Matilda’s relationship with her

husband to demonstrate appropriate kingly behaviours, and how William exemplified

these. In her roles as wife, mother, daughter and sister, Matilda fulfilled Orderic and

Malmesbury’s didactic and legitimising intentions.

 

Robert’s  rebellion  

I begin with the rebellion of Matilda and William’s son, Robert (1077/78), because it

represented a conflict between two of Matilda’s roles.83 William had left Robert and

Matilda as regents together when he went to England in 1066, and from all accounts

this arrangement recurred during William’s subsequent absences from Normandy. By

the 1070s, Robert was apparently growing restless because he had not been fully

82 Orderic Vitalis, Historia Ecclesiastica, trans. Marjorie Chibnall, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1969-1980), 3:103. 83 Little has been written about Robert generally (especially outside the context of the Crusades), and very little on Matilda’s part in his initial rebellion. Historians who have broached the issue include: W.M. Aird, "Frustrated Masculinity: the Relationship between William the Conqueror and his Eldest Son," in Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. D.M. Hadley (New York, 1999), 39-55; Charles Wendell David, Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy (New York, 1982); R.H.C. Davis, "William of Jumièges, Robert Curthose and the Norman Succession," EHR 95, no. 376 (July 1980): 597-606; Janet Green, "Robert Curthose Reassessed," ANS 22 (2000): 95-116; Stephanie L. Mooers, "'Backers and stabbers': Problems of Loyalty in Robert Curthose's Entourage," The Journal of British Studies 21, no. 1 (1981): 1-17.

19

invested as Duke of Normandy.84 When Robert overtly rebelled against his father,

Matilda provided material aid.

The occasion of the rebellion was the only time that Orderic portrayed William and

Matilda as anything but a happy couple. Orderic reported Matilda supporting Robert

by sending “large sums of silver and gold and other valuables without the king’s

knowledge,” because she felt “a mother’s affection for her son.”85 William ordered

her to stop; this order being ignored, William was then presented by Orderic as giving

the somewhat overwrought speech transcribed above. Erich Auerbach has pointed out

that

[t]he grand style of historiography requires grandiloquent speeches, which as a

rule are fictitious. Their function is graphic dramatization of a given

occurrence, or at times the presentation of great political or moral ideas; in

either case they are intended as the rhetorical bravura pieces of the

presentation.86

Following Auerbach, this speech should not be read as representing what William

actually said to his wife. Instead, the speech represented Orderic’s view of what a

powerful man such as William might have said to a wife supporting an unruly son.

Orderic also revealed what modern readers might describe as a romantic view of

marriage, presenting William as one who loved his wife “as his own soul” and who

was clearly (meant to be read as) surprised and heartbroken at her perceived betrayal.

Marjorie Chibnall has pointed out that Orderic sometimes used speeches as a means

of revealing two sides of an issue.87 In composing a response for Matilda that was one

of the few direct speeches from a woman in his narrative, I propose that Orderic was

84 Sources differ on the exact cause of the disagreement. Orderic blamed bad advice for Robert actually rebelling: Vitalis, HE, 3:97, 99. See Chapter Two for a discussion of some of the political implications of this rebellion. 85 Ibid., 3:103. 86 Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: the Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton, 1986), 39. 87 Marjorie Chibnall, The World of Orderic Vitalis: Norman Monks and Norman Knights (Rochester, 1996), 197.

20

suggesting an appropriate response to the situation from a mother, in opposition to the

attitude of the king:

O my lord, do not wonder that I love my first-born child with tender affection.

… if my son Robert were dead and buried seven feet deep in the earth… and I

could bring him back to life with my own blood, I would shed my life-blood

for him and suffer more anguish for his sake than, weak woman that I am, I

dare to promise. How do you imagine that I can find any joy in possessing

great wealth if I allow my son to be burdened by dire poverty? May I never be

guilty of such hardness of heart; all your power gives you no right to demand

this of me.88

While William expressed a husband and king’s rightful expectation that his wife and

queen should support him, Matilda expressed a mother’s concern for her child. This

accords with Clarissa Atkinson’s view that the eleventh and twelfth centuries were a

time when aristocratic marriage trends “creat[ed] a situation in which wives occupied

a middle, mediating position between husbands and children,” because wives were

younger than their husbands, and closer in age to their children.89 While Matilda and

William were probably close in age, Orderic could still present tension in their

relationship, consistent with Atkinson’s suggestion. Similarly, William Aird has

posited that “an alliance between… the wife and the younger male… posed a severe

threat to the authority of the paterfamilias.”90 Aird believed that Matilda, as well as

allying directly with her son, played a mediating role between son and husband,

especially in the negotiations that eventually (if briefly) reunited them.91 Overall,

Orderic’s representation of Matilda in this context was a gendered one, and although

her actions conflicted with her husband and king’s expectations of obedience, Orderic

did not declare which party was in the right. While not belittling William, he upheld

88 Vitalis, HE, 3:103-104. 89 Clarissa W. Atkinson, The Oldest Vocation: Christian Motherhood in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, 1991), 130. See also David Herlihy, "The Making of the Medieval Family (1983)," in Women, Family and Society in Medieval Europe: Historical Essays, 1978-1991 (Providence, 1995), 149. 90 Aird, "Frustrated Masculinity," 53. 91 Vitalis, HE, 3:113. This issue is discussed in Chapter Two. Aird has speculated that, since Robert and William were never reconciled after her death in 1083, Matilda was the only tie binding father and son together by this stage. Aird, "Frustrated Masculinity," 53.

21

Matilda as a positive role model for his audience because her actions showed her to be

a good mother. She could therefore act as a didactic figure for other mothers.

Robert’s rebellion also represented the one disagreement that Malmesbury conceded

between Matilda and her husband, although he devoted little space to the issue.

Robert was “said to have been supplied with a troop of soldiers by his mother out of

the revenues of the royal estates,” causing “a small disagreement” to arise between the

couple. Like Orderic, Malmesbury did not pass judgement, and explicitly stated that

this incident in no way diminished Matilda and William’s affection for one another.92

The event interested Malmesbury little because it did not impact directly on his main

concern – England. He discussed it in a section devoted to William’s private life, in

which he reported William having this one “small disagreement” with Matilda but

ultimately enjoying a good marriage.93 Matilda, in this context, served to reinforce

William’s position, because through his interaction with her he was shown to be a

faithful, merciful, good husband. Such behaviour reflected well on William’s kingly

nature; these were characteristics Malmesbury wished his audience to know that

William had possessed, and that they should emulate. This portrayal of William also

furthered Malmesbury’s intention of presenting the Norman Conquest as just.

Behaviour as a husband reflected behaviour as a king, and a husband and wife – even

more as king and queen – were a ‘moral package’. If William were unjust in his

relationship with his wife, portraying the justice of the Conquest would have been

more difficult.94 This instance of rebellion actually reinforced the positive aspects of

William’s personality, thanks to Malmesbury’s presentation of his reaction.

 

Marriage  

Both Orderic and Malmesbury saw Matilda’s relationship with her husband as the

defining relationship in her life. Matilda’s engagement to William came fairly late, by

medieval aristocratic standards, and marriage probably followed hard on its heels,

although allegations of consanguinity may have marred the match.95 While no

92 William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, trans. R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford, 1998), 503. 93 Ibid., 501-503. 94 This could have led to problems for the contemporary king of England – William’s (and Matilda’s) son. 95 Both whether consanguinity actually was an issue, and whether the question was raised for moral or political reasons, is still debated. See Frank Barlow, William I and the Norman Conquest (London,

22

definitive dates are known, the marriage probably occurred no later than 1051, when

Matilda was perhaps nineteen. Both Matilda’s father, Baldwin, and William gained

from the alliance. Baldwin gained a political ally to counteract the influence of the

German emperor, while William gained an ally and, perhaps, respectability to

counteract his illegitimate birth.96 Lois Huneycutt has pointed out that, in considering

marriage, “[n]oble birth was… the paramount desideratum…. Royal bloodlines were

particularly valued.”97 In Matilda’s case, the Flemish bloodline was certainly

distinguished, and she had royal blood through her mother, daughter of a French king.

Besides the political advantage of a Flemish connection, William may have

anticipated a close relationship between himself and Matilda’s cousin, the current

French king. There is little doubt for most modern historians that this marriage was

arranged with political motives uppermost in mind, and political utility was also

Orderic and Malmesbury’s primary interest.

Orderic saw William’s marriage to Matilda as evidence of how high William’s star

had risen since overcoming the rebellions that characterised the early part of his

reign.98 William took “the highly born Matilda” as his wife while he was “growing in

power and influence, and surpassing all his neighbours in the magnificence and

display of his way of life.”99 William was able to marry Matilda because his power

and influence were growing. More than just a means for procreation, Matilda –

because of her status – was a symbol of William’s accomplishments. Orderic stressed 1965), 15; David Bates, Normandy before 1066 (London, 1982), 201; Hilaire Belloc, William the Conqueror (London, 1934), 39; R.P. Crisp, "Consanguinity and the Sain-Aubin Genealogies," HSJ 14 (2003): 113; David C. Douglas, William the Conqueror (Berkeley, 1964), 77, Appendix C; Edward Freeman, The History of the Norman Conquest of England, its Causes and its Results, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1867-79), Appendix N; H.R. Loyn, The Norman Conquest (London, 1965), 47; L.G. Pine, Sons of the Conqueror (Rutland, 1973), 57; F.M. Stenton, William the Conqueror and the Rule of the Normans (New York, 1966), 105-110; Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England from the Norman Conquest (London, 1854), 34. 96 There has been debate over who benefited most from the alliance. Those claiming that Baldwin benefited most include Michael V.C. Alexander, Three Crises in Early English History (Lanham, 1998), 7; Frank McLynn, 1066: the Year of Three Battles (London, 1999), 36. Those suggesting William benefited most include Frank Barlow, The Feudal Kingdom of England, 1042-1216 (London, 1955), 65; Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest, 2:301; Loyn, The Norman Conquest, 43; D.J. Matthews, The Norman Conquest (New York, 1966), 73; Jules Michelet, History of France, trans. Walter Kelly, 2 vols. (London, 1844), 1:366; Edwin Tetlow, The Enigma of Hastings (New York, 1974), 47. 97 Lois Huneycutt, "Images of Queenship in the High Middle Ages," HSJ 1 (1989): 63. 98 Orderic did not mention the allegations of consanguinity, although he had done so in his interpolations into William of Jumièges’ history. See Orderic Vitalis, The Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis, and Robert of Torigni, trans. Elisabeth van Houts, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1992-1995), 2:147. 99 Vitalis, HE, 2:105.

23

Matilda’s family connections in a number of places, calling her “highly born” and

noting her illustrious, royal, French and German connections.100 In extolling her

nobility, Orderic by association praised her husband (and children), again

emphasising her position as a symbol of the Norman dukes’ status. Matilda served as

a good role model because she was amenable to her father and husband – those with

direct authority over her – who organised the marriage.101

Orderic was well aware of the political use to which marriage could be, and was, put.

Much modern ink has been spilled discussing the institution of marriage, particularly

in the Middle Ages.102 Medieval thinkers did not present a uniform attitude towards it;

ideas were in a state of flux during Matilda’s life and during the composition of these

histories. Georges Duby has presented an influential paradigm of medieval

aristocratic marriage, suggesting a medieval Europe struggling to balance two

different models: “the lay model of marriage, created to safeguard the social order,

and the ecclesiastical model, created to safeguard the divine order.”103 However, his

model is not reflected in these sources; Orderic did not present a struggle between lay

and ecclesiastical models. Rather, marriage was usually political. For example, to

pacify the invading Danes, the French king “gave his daughter Gisla to Rollo as his

wife, and surrendered [land] to him in perpetuity.”104 The count of Maine sealed an

alliance by marrying his sister to Matilda’s son.105 In mistakenly claiming Judith as

Matilda’s sister, rather than aunt, Orderic suggested that her husband Tostig visited 100 Ibid., 2:105, 223. 101 Laura Gathagan suggested that Matilda may have had a say in the matter, but did not make a convincing case. Laura Gathagan, "Embodying Power: Gender and Authority in the Queenship of Mathilda of Flanders" (Unpublished PhD thesis, The City University of New York, 2002), 37. 102 See, for example: Constance B. Bouchard, "Consanguinity and Noble Marriages in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries," Speculum 56 (1981): 268-287; James A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago, 1987); Neil Cartlidge, Medieval Marriage: Literary Approaches, 1100-1300 (Cambridge, 1997); Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, a History: from Obedience to Intimacy or How Love conquered Marriage (New York, 2005); Georges Duby, Medieval Marriage: Two Models from Twelfth-Century France, trans. Elborg Forster (Baltimore, 1978); Georges Duby, Love and Marriage in the Middle Ages, trans. Jane Dunnett (Cambridge, 1994); Robert R. Edwards and Stephen Spector, eds., The Olde Daunce: Love, Friendship, Sex, and Marriage in the Medieval World (Albany, 1991); Frances Gies and Joseph Gies, Marriage and the Family in the Middle Ages (New York, 1987); Jack Goody, The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe (Cambridge, 1983); Angela M. Lucas, Women in the Middle Ages: Religion, Marriage, and Letters (Brighton, 1983); Frederik Pedersen, "'Maritalis affectio': Marital Affection and Property in Fourteenth-Century York Cause Papers," in Women, Marriage, and Family in Medieval Christendom, ed. Constance M. Rousseau and Joel T. Rosenthal (Kalamazoo, 1998), 173-210; Marilyn Yalom, A History of the Wife (New York, 2001). 103 Duby, Medieval Marriage, 3. 104 Vitalis, HE, 2:9. 105 Ibid., 2:117.

24

Normandy because in marrying sisters he and William “had strengthened the bonds

between them.”106 After the Conquest, Orderic mentioned at least one marriage

designed to bring peace: “when King William had made his peace with Earl Edwin…

[William] promised to give him his daughter in marriage.”107 Orderic thus stressed the

usefulness of marriage in bringing men, and families, together. Matilda’s experience

fit into this pattern.

Despite this emphasis on the political, Orderic did not view marriage as an

exclusively political manoeuvre. Having been influenced by witnessing “mutual

[marital] support and comfort” in families associated with St. Évroul, he suggested

that marriage could be a union where love existed or companionship grew.108 Earl

Edwin, for example (mentioned above), had “greatly desired… and… long waited

for” William’s daughter. Elsewhere, Orderic described wives as “beloved” of their

husbands.109 The church’s teaching “underlay his view on marriage,” and Chibnall

has argued that Orderic knew of the growing insistence on individual consent to

marriage.110 Whether descriptions such as “beloved wife” and its ilk were stock

phrases or not is beside the point. Their appearance in Orderic’s history suggests that

this view of marriage was being normalised. Chibnall also regarded Orderic as having

an ‘idealised’ concept of marriage, held in tension with the sometimes harsh reality of

the Norman world.111 Orderic’s portrayal of William loving Matilda “as [his] own

soul” fit this pattern. Her marriage, therefore, while perhaps personally irrelevant to

his monastic audience, was an appropriate model for Orderic’s hoped-for lay

audience.

Malmesbury’s first mention of Matilda in his history regarded her marriage: she was

noted as having “long been married” to William when her father Baldwin became

guardian to his wife’s nephew Philip, King of France.112 The marital connection was

relevant because this situation could have seen Baldwin implicated in political tension

106 Ibid., 2:139-141. Other political marriages can be found at 2:207, 263, 305, 353; and 3:65, 73, 83, 117, 183. 107 Ibid., 2:215-217. 108 Marjorie Chibnall, "Women in Orderic Vitalis," HSJ 2 (1990): 118. 109 For example, Vitalis, HE, 3:197 and 2:43. 110 Chibnall, World, 128, 131. 111 Chibnall, "Women in Orderic Vitalis," 118. 112 Malmesbury, Gesta, 437.

25

between his nephew-by-marriage, a king, and his son-in-law, a potentially over-

mighty subject of that same king. Malmesbury noted the political utility of the

marriage when he recorded William giving money to Baldwin every year “in

recognition of his loyalty and kinship,” for aiding the invasion of 1066.113 Conversely,

William found “King Philip, whose aunt’s daughter he had married…

untrustworthy.”114 It is clear that Malmesbury believed trust ought to have developed

because of their connection. The implication is that William honoured these ties, and

was therefore an honourable man and king. This attitude of honour, and morality, was

one Malmesbury desired in his audience, and presented as appropriate kingly

behaviour. Matilda was a conduit for the development and expression of such

behaviours in William.

Malmesbury placed emphasis on the familial connections established by marriage

throughout his narrative. Most women in his text appeared solely in conjunction with

their diplomatically-arranged marriages. The women were generally daughters or

sisters of important men.115 They married an important man, or his son, and

Malmesbury explicitly described some of these marriages as serving military or

political purposes. For example, “Burgred married Æthelswith, daughter of King

Æthelwulf… and by this alliance found relief both from the payment of tribute and

from the depredations of the enemy,” while Charles of France gave Rollo his daughter

Giselda along with Normandy “to be a pledge of peace and guarantee of the

agreement.”116 Malmesbury portrayed alliances created by marriages as so strong that

breaking them could lead to war, and making them prevent it: the king of Mercia

invaded Wessex because the king of Wessex divorced the Mercian king’s sister, and

Æthelfrith did not raid Kent because he wanted to marry the Kentish king’s sister.117

For Malmesbury, war despite an alliance made by marriage was an outrage. He noted

that Earl Waltheof married William the Conqueror’s niece Judith, but “[e]ven so he

did not remain loyal” (my emphasis), and Ralph the Gael conspired against the king

113 Ibid., 729. 114 Ibid., 477. 115 Daughters: Ibid., 59, 67, 157. Sisters: Malmesbury, Gesta, 43, 113, 217-219. Suetonius, Malmesbury’s model, frequently portrayed women as forming ties between families. Gunhild Vidén, Women in Roman Literature: Attitudes of Authors under the Early Empire (Göteborg, Sweden, 1993), 72. 116 Malmesbury, Gesta, 141, 171. 117 Ibid., 43, 67

26

despite being married to his kinswoman.118 Matilda fit this pattern. She was the

daughter of an important man, married another for political reasons, and expectations

of cooperation with her relatives attended the alliance.119 Overall, Malmesbury

stressed William’s behaviour as a morally responsible husband and kinsman, and

Matilda aided that portrayal.

Interestingly, Malmesbury (unlike Orderic) did make note of the possibly

consanguineous nature of Matilda and William’s marriage, in his discussion of

Mauger, archbishop of Rouen. Malmesbury reported “[s]ome say[ing]” that Mauger

threatened the pair with excommunication because Matilda was a “near relation” to

William. In response, William “was furious, [and] his wife added her protests.”

Mauger was eventually deposed. Rather than blaming his threatening behaviour,

however, Malmesbury implied that his deposition was due to Mauger’s tendency “to

forget his sacred calling, devoting himself more often than was right to hunting and

cockfighting and spending the treasures of his church on over-lavish hospitality.”

Malmesbury thus called Mauger’s reputation into question, and hence also his motive

in making the accusation of consanguinity. Malmesbury did not deny that

consanguinity might have existed, recording that “as William grew old, by way of

atonement for the offence, he built the monastery at Caen in honour of St. Stephen,

and [Matilda] built one for the Holy Trinity in the same town.”120 Ultimately,

however, he did not question William’s fitness as king. Matilda, in also protesting

Mauger’s accusations, acted as a prop to William’s position and strengthened

Malmesbury’s presentation of him as a moral husband and king.

 

The  marital  relationship  

As well as discussing its initial circumstances, Orderic described Matilda and

William’s relationship after marriage, using terms that implied affection. Matilda was

William’s “beloved wife,” and there was disappointment as well as anger in the words

Orderic attributed to William during Robert’s rebellion. Even if Orderic did not know

118 Ibid., 469 and 473. 119 Malmesbury occasionally conceded an emotional aspect to marriage, such as Henry I “long desir[ing]” Edith-Matilda. This, of course, flattered his original patron. Ibid., 715-717. 120 Ibid., 495. This patronage is examined in more detail in Chapter Three.

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(or believe) that this was genuinely the case for Matilda and William, still he

presented them thus.

Orderic characterised Matilda as an obedient, loving wife (except during the Robert

incident). When William sent for her to join him in England and be crowned, in 1068,

Matilda “gladly obeyed her husband’s commands” immediately.121 This appeared in

stark contrast to “certain Norman women, consumed by fierce lust” who, a few

paragraphs on, “sent message after message to their husbands urging them to return at

once, and adding that unless they did so with all speed they would take other

husbands for themselves.”122 Matilda was the opposite of these “lascivious” and

“wanton” wives. They were too afraid to cross the sea; Matilda was not. They gave

orders to their husbands; Matilda obeyed hers. By extension, Matilda was restrained

and chaste, where these women were not. Because of their wives’ immoral behaviour,

those husbands who returned to Normandy could never “recover the fiefs which they

had held and chosen to abandon.” Matilda’s husband, however, neither lost nor

abandoned the land that he conquered, and his sons inherited his domains. Matilda

therefore stood for an alternative, approved model of wifely behaviour. She was

obedient, chaste, and supported her husband. William, too, benefited from this

representation of his spouse, since those lascivious wives brought shame on their

husbands. Matilda was one of Orderic’s didactic tools, employed to demonstrate right

living, and furthering Orderic’s suggestion of what wives, and marriage, should be

like.

Like Orderic, Malmesbury was keen to present the marriage of Matilda and William

in a positive light. Faced with the questionable nature of their marriage William and

Matilda both protested, demonstrating their commitment to one another. Malmesbury

rhapsodised that, “with her willingness to please her husband and her ability to bear

him children, [Matilda] kindled a passionate attachment in the spirit of that great

man.”123 This explained, for Malmesbury, how and why William avoided “any

suggestion of misbehaviour.” That is, he did not have affairs or father illegitimate

children because Matilda was such a good wife. Unwilling to avoid a good rumour,

121 Vitalis, HE, 2:215. 122 Ibid., 2:219-221. 123 Malmesbury, Gesta, 501.

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Malmesbury did relate one story of William ‘misbehaving’. In this story Matilda,

upon discovering his extramarital relationship, “sent [the other woman] packing after

having her hamstrung by one of her vassals.”124 Since the rumour also included

Matilda later being “flogged to death with a horse’s bridle,” it is clearly nonsense, and

Malmesbury discredited it: “to believe this of so great a king I regard as lunacy.”125

Whether Matilda was capable of such actions was beside the point for Malmesbury,

because his focus was squarely on William and his worthy kingship.

Malmesbury followed the rumour of William’s infidelity with his account of Robert’s

rebellion. It is important to note the emphasis Malmesbury placed on the rebellion’s

aftermath. Malmesbury insisted “that this occasioned no lessening of their affection as

man and wife.” William’s reaction to Matilda’s death five years later confirmed this.

He

gave her a most splendid funeral, and showed by many days of the deepest

mourning how much he missed the love of her whom he had lost. Indeed from

that time forward, if we believe what we are told, he abandoned pleasure of

every kind.126

Again, the focus is on William. Malmesbury insinuated that William followed the

church’s teaching that chastity upon widowhood was the moral option, and was not

interested in how Matilda met her death. Additionally, he followed this description of

Matilda’s funeral with a description of the funeral held for the widowed queen

Eadgyth, which William also organised. This comparison celebrated William’s piety,

by demonstrating the honour he showed his predecessor’s wife.127 Once more, the

focus was on William, his piety and appropriate behaviour. For Malmesbury, Matilda

was a convenient lens through which the righteous behaviour of William could be

viewed.

124 Ibid., 503. 125 Ibid., 501-503. 126 Ibid., 503. In using Suetonius as a model, Malmesbury anachronistically presented personal information about William in the same section of his narrative. See Jean Blacker, The Faces of Time (Austin, 1994), 55, 66; Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England, c.550 to c.1307 (London, 1974), 171; Ruth Morse, Truth and Convention in the Middle Ages: Rhetoric, Representation, and Reality (Cambridge, 1991), 162. 127 Malmesbury, Gesta, 503. See Chapter Three for the implications of these events for both Matilda and William’s piety.

29

Marilyn Yalom has asserted that “since arranged marriages… were the norm in

premodern times, brides and grooms did not enter marriage with the expectation of

‘loving’ each other as we understand the term.”128 Of this particular marriage, Frank

Barlow has suggested that “William seems to have been an adequately faithful

husband” and “it is hard to believe that there was much tenderness or domesticity in

[their] relations.”129 However, from these sources it is clear that – alongside the

political – Orderic and Malmesbury both imagined an affectionate side to the

marriage of Matilda and William. Michael Sheehan has suggested that by the twelfth

century the term maritalis affectio did involve overtones of love or affection within

marriage, and Orderic’s discussion of marriage in particular appears to contradict

Yalom.130

In general, both historians wanted to record appropriate examples of marital

interaction, for the benefit of present and future audiences. They used Matilda and

William in that function. Orderic also used the pair to present the Church’s teachings

in a positive light, while for Malmesbury they reinforced the moral, righteous

behaviour of William. Having considered the marriage of Matilda and William, I now

proceed to explore what some in the medieval world perceived as its sole purpose:

procreation.

 

Children  

Whether or not a marriage involved affection, there was a strong expectation in

medieval society that children would result from it. A male heir was increasingly a

prerequisite for land-owning families in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as

primogeniture became the preferred mode of family property transference. The

expectation that a queen would bear children, and especially sons, was particularly

pronounced. For example, Malmesbury recorded Pope Paschal congratulating Henry I

on having “been blessed by [his] noble and devout consort with the male issue [Henry

128 Yalom, A History of the Wife, xvi. She accepted that the church stressed individual consent at this time (46), but did not see this as implying an expectation of love. 129 Barlow, William I and the Norman Conquest, 185. 130 Michael M. Sheehan, "Maritalis Affectio Revisited," in The Olde Daunce: Love, Friendship, Sex, and Marriage in the Medieval World, ed. Robert R. Edwards and Stephen Spector (Albany, 1991), 32-43.

30

I] so much desired.”131 Huneycutt has pointed out that “[n]o matter how politically

successful the queen was, or how culturally influential, her primary duty was to

produce a male heir.”132 For Matilda, pregnancy and motherhood followed soon after

marriage. Robert, her first recorded child, was born around 1053.133

In recent years, scholars have begun scrutinising what the idea of motherhood meant

in medieval societies.134 Huneycutt has asserted that “[t]he mother-image was often

foremost in the minds of the ecclesiastical writers and was taken seriously by the

queens themselves.”135 Despite this, the expected relationship between mother and

children in the Middle Ages is difficult to assess, largely thanks to a dearth of sources.

More generally, Elisabeth Badinter has challenged the very notion of “maternal

instinct.”136 Slightly older than this discussion of motherhood is the historiography of

childhood. Ever since the ‘discovery’ by Philippe Ariès that childhood has a history,

the issue has prompted debate amongst historians.137 Ariès claimed that for medieval

parents, “the idea of childhood did not exist… [although the] idea of childhood is not

to be confused with affection for children.”138 His work has not gone unchallenged,

however, with Adrian Wilson for example demonstrating serious flaws in Ariès’

work.139 While this research has suggested insights into medieval families, Orderic

131 Malmesbury, Gesta, 747-749. There has been discussion of whether coronation rites for queens involved aspects of fertility rites: John Carmi Parsons, "Family, Sex, and Power: the Rhythms of Medieval Queenship," in Medieval Queenship, ed. John Carmi Parsons (New York, 1993), 8; Pauline Stafford, QCD (London, 1988), 134. 132 Huneycutt, "Images of Queenship," 69-70. 133 Stephanie Mooers argued for an earlier date for Robert’s birth: Mooers, "Backers and stabbers," 1. 134 Atkinson, The Oldest Vocation; Elisabeth Badinter, The Myth of Motherhood: an Historical View of the Maternal Instinct, trans. Roger DeGaris (London, 1981); Jennifer Fellows, "Mothers in Middle English Romance," in Women and Literature in Britain, 1150-1500, ed. Carol M. Meale (Cambridge, 1993); John Carmi Parsons and Bonnie Wheeler, eds., Medieval Mothering (New York, 1996); John Carmi Parsons, "Mothers, Daughters, Marriage, Power: Some Plantagenet Evidence, 1150-1500," in Medieval Queenship, ed. John Carmi Parsons (New York, 1993), 63-78; Stephen Wilson, "The Myth of Motherhood a Myth: the Historical View of European Child-Rearing," Social History 9, no. 2 (1984): 181-198. 135 Huneycutt, "Images of Queenship," 70. 136 Badinter, The Myth of Motherhood, eg. xix-xxiii. 137 Philippe Ariès, Centuries of Childhood: a Social History of Family Life, trans. Robert Baldick (London, 1962); Lloyd deMause, ed., The History of Childhood (New York, 1974); Jerome Kroll, "The Concept of Childhood in the Middle Ages," Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 13 (1977): 384-393; Nicholas Orme, From Childhood to Chivalry (New York, 1984); Shulamith Shahar, Childhood in the Middle Ages (London, 1990); Adrian Wilson, "The Infancy of the History of Childhood: an Appraisal of Philippe Ariès," H&T 19 (1980): 132-153. 138 Ariès, Centuries of Childhood, 128. This view of medieval parenthood has been disputed by numerous scholars: see Lois Huneycutt, "Public Lives, Private Ties: Royal Mothers in England and Scotland, 1070-1204," in Medieval Mothering, ed. John Carmi Parsons and Bonnie Wheeler (New York, 1996), 296. 139 Wilson, "The Infancy of the History of Childhood," 136-137.

31

and Malmesbury – like most historians of their time – showed little interest in

Matilda’s relationship with her children as minors. Nor were they interested in her or

her children’s experiences of childhood. My interest, therefore, lies in what these

historians did discuss of Matilda’s maternal experience, as further means of providing

role models (for Orderic) and exemplifying kingly behaviour (for Malmesbury).

It was important to Orderic that Matilda fulfilled William’s desire for children, and he

admired her maternal devotion.140 His first mention of their marriage described it as

“blessed with sons and daughters.”141 Later, he described Matilda as “[bearing] her

distinguished husband the offspring he desired, both sons and daughters.”142 In

providing a male heir to William’s possessions (and some ‘spares’), Matilda was

fulfilling her role as a good wife and duchess or queen, and provided a role model for

other wives to follow.

Listing Matilda’s children was characteristic of Orderic’s approach to his history, and

he mentioned numerous other mothers with their progeny. Often the only time

Orderic mentioned women was upon their marriage, and in most cases he detailed

their children immediately afterwards.143 This was commensurate with his interest in

dynastic history. He also detailed instances of mothers being active and intervening in

their children’s affairs. For example, after the son of Albert of Cravent attacked a

monk, and Albert refused to provide restitution, Albert’s wife Aubrée began “to

lament and wring her hand and tear her hair, and to weep for her son as though he

were already dead.” Albert was “deeply moved and terrified” by this, and

consequently made amends for their son.144 Another time, a mother agreed to hand

over a castle she was defending against the besieging King Stephen as a ransom for

her son’s life.145 These two cases developed Orderic’s theme of good examples.

Aubrée brought restitution to a monk, and the anonymous mother was self-sacrificial. 140 Chibnall, "Women in Orderic Vitalis," 112. 141 Vitalis, HE, 2:105. 142 Ibid., 2:225. Sons: Robert Curthose (Duke of Normandy); Richard (killed as a youth); William (nicknamed Rufus, King of England); and Henry (King of England). A list of daughters is more uncertain, but probably included Adeliza (probably died young); Cecilia (abbess at her mother’s monastery in Caen); Matilda (attested in charters); Constance (married Alan of Brittany); and Adela (married Stephen of Blois). Gathagan, "Embodying Power", 45-46. See also Douglas, William the Conqueror, 393-395; Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest, Appendix O. 143 Vitalis, HE, eg. 2:23, 4:51, 77, 161, 203, 213. He did not discuss experiences of childhood. 144 Ibid., 3:243-245. 145 Ibid., 6:533-535.

32

Matilda complemented these events. Matilda and Aubrée followed, in Orderic’s

narrative, a pattern set centuries previously – not least by the Virgin Mary herself

(weeping at the foot of the cross in John 19:25, and frequently depicted in medieval

art weeping over Christ crucified). Chibnall has proposed that Orderic was

deliberately echoing the mater dolorosa, while Atkinson has indicated that “salvific

tears of mothers over lost children, generally sons, are persistent religious and

sentimental elements in Western literature.”146 I suggest that Orderic was presenting

Matilda as part of a distinguished lineage of mothers, all of whom were role models

for others.

The specifics of Matilda and William’s family interested Malmesbury less than

Orderic. His concern was, after all, primarily with the English family of Edith-

Matilda. Immediately following the discussion of Matilda and Eadgyth’s funerals, he

noted for the first time that William’s “sons were Robert, Richard, William, and

Henry,” and that he “had five daughters,” naming Cecilia, Constance, and Adela

(“[t]he names of two [he had] forgotten”).147 These lists did not mention Matilda as

mother, although elsewhere Malmesbury related that their son William was

“[b]rought up… by his parents with the greatest care,” and Henry I “enjoy[ed] his

father’s blessing and his mother’s inheritance.”148 In general, Malmesbury presented

Matilda’s fidelity and fertility as a boon both for her reputation and William’s. After

all, “she, with her willingness to please her husband and her ability to bear him

children, kindled a passionate attachment in the spirit of that great man.”149

Malmesbury suggested that Matilda’s fertility was a prime reason for William’s

attachment to her, and it was praiseworthy because it ensured continuity for the

kingdom. The barrenness of Edward the Confessor and Edith was not so long behind

them that England could forget the ramifications of lacking an heir. More

immediately the death of William, Henry I’s only legitimate son, would have brought

the succession issue to the historian’s mind once again.

146 Chibnall, "Women in Orderic Vitalis," 112; Atkinson, The Oldest Vocation, 106. 147 Malmesbury, Gesta, 503-505. 148 Ibid., 543, 711. Orderic too noted that Henry I was “heir to all [Matilda’s] lands in England.” Vitalis, HE, 2:215. 149 Malmesbury, Gesta, 501.

33

Like Orderic, Malmesbury almost never discussed childhood, but a mother’s character

and lineage could be important to her children. He described Godfrey, son of Count

Eustace of Boulogne, as being “of more distinguished lineage on his mother’s side”

because she, Ida, descended from Charlemagne.150 Three of Margaret of Scotland’s

sons “breath[ed] the fragrance of their mother’s pious life,” while Empress Matilda

displayed both “her father’s courage and her mother’s piety.”151 Mothers were

therefore significant. This is an unsurprising angle, since Malmesbury was

consciously seeking the approval of Edith-Matilda (a mother), and later her daughter

(also a mother). Additionally, Malmesbury presented mothers as active in their adult

children’s affairs. For example, Ida “encouraged her son Godfrey with high hopes to

aim at the duchy of Lorraine,” and there was significant disagreement at one time

between the King and Queen of France over which of their sons ought to inherit the

throne.152 Matilda fit at least part of Malmesbury’s concept of motherhood, with her

support for Robert in his rebellion.

Although probably neither historian approved of a queen opposing the king, their

discussion of Matilda’s involvement in Robert’s rebellion clearly showed their

sympathy for the tension that mothers could face when son and husband argued. One

significant reason for Matilda’s support of Robert may have been her expectation of

outliving William – particularly with the ongoing difficulties in England. As a widow,

Matilda could have expected to be largely dependent on Robert, her eldest child, to

ensure access to resources and any hope of power. She may have hoped for influence

over him once he became duke and, possibly, king.153 For early modern France,

Badinter has suggested a maternal obsession with the eldest son, because in

widowhood a mother depended on the eldest son for survival.154 Orderic narrated

some instances of sons and mothers working together, such as “Adalwald and his 150 Ibid., 657. 151 Ibid., 727, 783. 152 The queen bribed influential people to be allies. Ibid., 657, 335. Suetonius also included examples of maternal involvement in the affairs of sons. See Vidén, Women in Roman literature, 81, 88. 153 Widowed mother/son alliances were common in this period. See, for example, Mavis E. Mate, Women in Medieval English Society (Cambridge, 1999), 11; Stafford, QCD, 112-113. Matilda’s mother, Adela, was active in her son Robert the Frisian’s governance of Flanders, as a widow: Gathagan, "Embodying Power", 14, 31-32. Despite mentioning the rebellion and Matilda’s support, David neglected to analyse or suggest a reason for it: David, Robert Curthose, 24-25. Judith Abbott has highlighted occasions in English history when queen mothers were influential, particularly Aelfthryth and Emma: Judith Abbott, "Queens and Queenship in Anglo-Saxon England, 954-1066: Holy and Unholy Alliances" (Unpublished PhD thesis, The University of Connecticut, 1989), 174-184, 372-393. 154 Badinter, The Myth of Motherhood, 65-66.

34

mother Theodelinda… rul[ing] the Lombards for ten years,” and he implied that

“Constantine and his mother Irene” also did so.155 Malmesbury did not make these

same connections, but he did condemn King Edward for poor behaviour towards his

mother Emma.156 Thus Orderic, at least, was apparently aware of the issues

potentially faced by widows, and may have thought it a prudent reason for Matilda to

support Robert, partly explaining why he did not condemn her actions.

Modern studies of childhood and motherhood have almost overwhelmingly

concentrated on the attitude of mothers towards their infant children, perhaps because

this is seen as the time when ‘maternal’ feelings are most strongly felt.157 However,

neither historian described Matilda – nor other parents – with infants. She was only

presented as a mother in her dealings with an adult son. I argue that from Orderic and

Malmesbury’s descriptions of Matilda’s attitude towards Robert, they expected

mothers to be nurturing and protective, and that their audience would accept this as

representing reality. Henrietta Leyser has used this precise story as an example of

‘maternal’ feelings in medieval women.158 The event also fed into both historians’

purposes. The presentation of exemplary stories to their audiences was important for

both Orderic and Malmesbury. Particularly in her defence of Robert, Matilda was

setting an example of how mothers might look after their sons. Additionally, she had

fulfilled her uxorial duty of providing heirs for her husband.

 

Natal  family  

Having considered Matilda as wife and mother, it is relevant that I also consider her

as daughter and sister. Orderic generally mentioned a woman’s parents or siblings in

the context of her marriage, demonstrating the useful alliances thereby created.

Matilda was no exception. Orderic outlined Matilda’s immediate family connections

in describing her marriage to William. She was “daughter of Baldwin count of

Flanders, and niece of Henry king of France through his sister.”159 Later, he recorded

that “numbered among [Baldwin’s] distinguished children [were] Robert of Frisia,

155 Vitalis, HE, 3:73, 75. 156 Malmesbury, Gesta, 351. 157 On later queens and their influence on heirs, see J.L. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens (Oxford, 2004), 150-156. 158 Henrietta Leyser, Medieval Women: a Social History of Women in England, 450-1500 (London, 1995), 132. 159 Vitalis, HE, 2:105.

35

Matilda queen of England, and Odo archbishop of Trier.”160 It is possible that Orderic

thought this was the order in which Baldwin’s children were born, although he later

stated that “Robert the Frisian, Arnulf, Baldwin, Odo archbishop of Trier, Henry the

clerk, Queen Matilda, and Judith… were the children of Baldwin and Adela.”161

Orderic also described Matilda’s wider kinship connections. She was “a kinswoman

of Philip the king of France, she sprang from the stock of the kings of Gaul and

emperors of Germany.”162 He clearly situated Matilda within a noble, worthy lineage,

and reinforced the connection between her birth and her moral character by describing

her as “renowned equally for nobility of blood and character.” Matilda’s nobility of

blood was obvious to Orderic from her kin, and her nobility of character presumably

stemmed from the same source. I argue that Orderic was suggesting, to his hoped-for

lay audience, that with such a lineage came an expectation of the virtue demonstrated

so clearly in Matilda’s life.

Orderic further highlighted Matilda’s natal family in his discussion of the Flemish war

of succession, between Matilda’s brother and her nephew. He was at pains to describe

her emotional reaction:

[a]lthough Queen Matilda was now a powerful ruler with vast resources at her

command she was overwhelmed with grief at her father's death, her mother's

bereavement, and the cruelty of her brother, who had brought about the ruin of

another brother, a dear nephew, and many friends.163

Orderic held family connections in high esteem. He praised his own father, and

described himself as exiled upon leaving his family and England.164 Harold

Godwinson, “the perjurer,” was shown not just ignoring his mother’s pleas, but also

“insolently spurn[ing] her with his foot.”165 Ignoring one’s family was a sign of

arrogance, and Harold’s death is placed in close proximity to this behaviour,

suggesting a connection in the historian’s mind. Discussing the long term

160 Ibid., 2:89. 161 Ibid., 2:281. However, Judith was Matilda’s aunt; Robert was not her eldest brother; Arnulf was not her brother but her nephew by her actual eldest brother, Baldwin. 162 Ibid., 2:223. 163 Ibid., 285. 164 Ibid., 6:555. 165 Ibid., 2:143, 173.

36

consequences of the Flemish incident, Orderic noted ongoing tension between the two

states: “mutual and lasting loathing hostility arose between the Normans and

Flemings, partly because of the slaying of the queen’s brother and other kinsfolk.”166

Matilda’s reaction was thus a precursor to the attitude of the whole region, and indeed

part of the reason for it. Her depth of feeling was not to be condemned. I suggest that

Orderic approved of this deep familial feeling, perhaps because it reflected his own

and other child oblates’ experiences. Orderic might have hoped that sharing such a

connection with Matilda could comfort others in his audience experiencing grief, both

monastic and lay.

Orderic twice referenced Matilda as a family connection. Gilbert, son of Richard of

Heugleville, married Beatrice, “a cousin of Queen Matilda.”167 In listing the knights

who participated in the First Crusade, Orderic mentioned “Robert, marquis of

Flanders, who was the nephew of Matilda queen of England.”168 In contrast to James

Brundage’s assertion that the late eleventh century saw women increasingly incapable

of transmitting identity to the next generation, I argue that Matilda did serve as a point

of reference in the social hierarchy for Orderic.169 She played a valuable part in

establishing lineage in Orderic’s twelfth-century history.

Malmesbury used Matilda’s natal family far less frequently than Orderic. He

introduced her as Baldwin’s daughter (“long… married to William”), and

Malmesbury began his own account of the Flemish succession issue by calling

Baldwin “Matilda’s father.”170 He used the familial connection as a way of

condemning Phillip of France: despite marrying his “aunt’s daughter… [William]

always found [Phillip] untrustworthy.”171 Malmesbury’s purpose in writing his history

was to exalt the family of Edith-Matilda, and justify the Norman Conquest. Matilda’s

natal family did not fit within this plan to any great extent, explaining its comparative

absence.

166 Ibid., 2:285. 167 Ibid., 3:257. 168 Ibid., 5:35. 169 Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society, 227. 170 Malmesbury, Gesta, 437, 475. 171 Ibid., 477.

37

Conclusion  

Most of the references to Matilda in the works of Malmesbury and Orderic related to

family. She featured as the wife of William the Conqueror, in whom both historians

were most interested. While their marriage was almost certainly politically motivated,

both historians also suggested that there was genuine affection. Both approved of

Matilda producing numerous children, and connected this fertility with pleasing her

husband. She thereby acted as a model of the good wife, obedient and fertile, for

women in their audiences to emulate. Her behaviour in general reflected well on

William, which is Matilda’s purpose in Malmesbury’s text. It also enabled Orderic to

present Matilda as a virtuous person, obedient to her husband and fulfilling her

uxorial duties, furthering Orderic’s objective of presenting good examples to emulate.

Malmesbury and Orderic’s histories can be read on many levels. Understanding that

their representations of Matilda had didactic purposes, in demonstrating appropriate

kingly as well as uxorial behaviour, enables historians to understand these texts in yet

more nuanced ways. Matilda’s meritorious familial behaviour was matched by her

laudable political behaviour, the subject of my second chapter.

38

Chapter  Two  

A  Political  Woman  

Matilda of Flanders grew up in a political world that included political women. Her

mother Adela (daughter of the King of France) was actively involved in ruling

Flanders with her husband, Baldwin V.172 Laura Gathagan has suggested that further

role models for Matilda were women such as Beatrice of Lorraine and Adelaide,

Margravine of Turin, who ruled elsewhere in eleventh-century Europe in their own

right.173 As William of Normandy’s duchess, Matilda’s world was no less political.

She may well have been regent in Normandy as early as 1051, and certainly witnessed

charters.174 Upon William’s conquest of England, Matilda’s scope for political action

further increased, when she became queen.

There is no question that Orderic and Malmesbury saw the holding and exercise of

political power as primarily a masculine right. They expressed no surprise that,

overwhelmingly, the powerful figures in their histories were male. However, this

association of masculinity with power did not prevent some women of the Middle

Ages from also being associated with it, often positively. Nor did they, as Betty

Bandel has suggested, express “astonishment… [at] women who play[ed] active roles

in government and war.”175 For the purposes of this chapter, I focus on the idea of

‘power’ in its political manifestation. That is, how women who found themselves in

the right place, especially queens, could exercise power politically. Orderic, seeking

to show God’s actions in history but frequently not explaining them, represented

female agency as just another aspect of God’s will, and their actions could therefore

be put to didactic use. Matilda formed part of this programme. Malmesbury, likewise

seeking to be instructional, used Matilda’s appearances to develop his portrayal of

William as a just, righteous king, and consequently validating the Norman Conquest. 172 Laura Gathagan, "Embodying Power: Gender and Authority in the Queenship of Mathilda of Flanders" (Unpublished PhD thesis, The City University of New York, 2002), 14. 173 Ibid., 15. 174 Ibid., 47. As duchess, Matilda witnessed half the ducal diplomas still extant: Susan M. Johns, Noblewomen, Aristocracy, and Power in the Twelfth-Century Anglo-Norman Realm (New York, 2003), 100 n.28. 175 Betty Bandel, "The English Chronicler's Attitude toward Women," Journal of the History of Ideas 16 (1955): 114.

39

It is problematic, for Anne Duggan, that “even positive images of royal women [were]

didactic programmes, not authentic portrayals of real women.”176 However, here I

recover exactly that didactic programme, because it reveals the attitudes and

expectations of both authors and audience. It is important to identify these in order to

consider the atmosphere in which the ‘real’ women (and men) were functioning.

Somewhat surprisingly, Orderic and Malmesbury displayed an overall lack of interest

in Matilda’s political activities. This was despite her position, the evidence of her

significant political involvement from other sources, and their own discussions of

other political women. Yet by examining what Orderic and Malmesbury do say about

Matilda’s involvement in politics, primarily as regent in Normandy and in

ecclesiastical and diplomatic endeavours, I demonstrate how these historians used her

to further their overall objectives.

In her study of public uses of power, Arlene Saxonhouse has asserted that the modern

western world commonly employs a “paradigm [which] prevents the actions of

women from being considered according to the same criteria as those of males.”177

Modern historians have sometimes seen a similar issue in the Middle Ages. However,

Kimberley LoPrete has taken this tendency to task, saying that historians who

differentiate the fundamentally ‘private’ powers of medieval lords from the

truly ‘public’ powers of the authorised agents of modern states and then deny

medieval women the exercise of acknowledged authoritative powers are

blinded by their own dichotomies. The powers of medieval noblewomen were

those of lords.178

Gathagan’s thesis on Matilda has demonstrated that this was emphatically true for her.

Additionally, the eleventh and twelfth centuries were a period in which the opposition

176 Anne J. Duggan, "Introduction," in Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe, ed. Anne J. Duggan (Woodbridge, 1997), xv. 177 Arlene Saxonhouse, "Introduction – Public and Private: the Paradigm's Power," in Stereotypes of Women in Power: Historical Perspectives and Revisionist Views, ed. Barbara Garlick, Suzanne Dixon, and Pauline Allen (New York, 1992), 6. 178 Kimberly LoPrete, "The Gender of Lordly Women: the Case of Adela of Blois," in Pawns or Players?, ed. Christine Meek and Catherine Lawless (Dublin, 2003), 110.

40

of state and family, public and private, was simply not valid.179 Erin Jordan has stated

that imagining a dichotomy “not only presupposes a distinction between personal and

political activity, which may not have been present in the medieval mind, but it posits

the existence of clearly differentiated public and private spheres of action” – which

may not have existed.180 Some modern historians and anthropologists have also

perceived a division between power and authority, and how they were exercised. In

an influential anthropology essay, Michelle Rosaldo, following and expanding on

Max Weber, suggested that power is the ability to effect change, and gain compliance;

authority is legitimated power, within a hierarchy.181 However, this is not an issue I

focus on, both for reasons of space and because neither Orderic nor Malmesbury

addressed such a differentiation.182 As well, neither represented Matilda as flouting

gender expectations by being involved in political activity. I concentrate on how

Orderic and Malmesbury represented Matilda’s political actions, and how this

portrayal furthered their intentions for their texts.

 

Active  in  Normandy  

Neither Orderic nor Malmesbury discussed Matilda’s involvement in the politics of

Normandy when she was simply duchess. While they did discuss the situation in

Normandy prior to the invasion of England, both historians were more interested in

the battles and the diplomacy William utilised in bringing his unruly subjects to heel

after the troubles of his minority. Given Matilda’s later role as regent for William, it is

reasonable to suggest (as Gathagan has done) that Matilda was indeed active at this

time, perhaps in providing advice and certainly in witnessing charters and other legal

179 Lois Huneycutt, "Female Succession and the Language of Power in the Writings of Twelfth-Century Churchmen," in Medieval Queenship, ed. John Carmi Parsons (New York, 1993), 190; Johns, Noblewomen, 1; John Carmi Parsons, "Family, Sex, and Power: the Rhythms of Medieval Queenship," in Medieval Queenship, ed. John Carmi Parsons (New York, 1993), 9; John Carmi Parsons, "Mothers, Daughters, Marriage, Power: Some Plantagenet Evidence, 1150-1500," in Medieval Queenship, ed. John Carmi Parsons (New York, 1993), 78. 180 Erin L. Jordan, Women, Power, and Religious Patronage in the Middle Ages (New York, 2006), 24. 181 Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo, "Woman, Culture, and Society: a Theoretical Overview," in Woman, Culture, and Society, ed. Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere (Stanford, 1974), 21; Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, trans. A.M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons (New York, 1964), 152. See also Mary Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski, "Introduction," in Women and Power in the Middle Ages, ed. Mary Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski (Athens, 1988), 2. 182 Other works examining the issue of power and authority at this time include: Theresa Earenfight, "Preface: Partners in Politics," in Queenship and Political Power in Medieval and Early Modern Spain, ed. Theresa Earenfight (Aldershot, 2005), xviii-xix; Jordan, Women, Power, 24; Pauline Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith (Oxford, 2001), 161.

41

documents.183 She must have proved herself capable of being left as regent in 1066. It

is tempting to speculate that, if she was directly involved in political activities, it was

mostly behind the scenes and therefore unnoticed by the sources these two historians

used. It is unlikely, given the presence of other political women in their narratives

(and Matilda’s own appearances later in the text) that these historians neglected to

mention her because they disapproved of her actions.

Orderic made it clear that Matilda’s position changed along with the overall political

situation in Normandy when William set out in 1066 to conquer England. In

preparation for the invasion, William “entrusted the duchy of Normandy to his wife

Matilda and his young son Robert.”184 Orderic expressed no surprise at and no

condemnation of a woman having this position. Matilda was regent again after her

coronation in 1068, when William “sent his beloved wife Matilda back to Normandy

so that she… together with the boy Robert could keep the duchy secure.”185 She was

subsequently regent whenever William was out of Normandy: Orderic noted that “[i]n

the fifth year of his reign King William sent William fitz Osbern to Normandy to act

as regent of the province with Queen Matilda.”186 Frank Barlow has suggested that

Matilda was only the “nominal head” of “an informal regency council.”187 However,

the opposite is suggested by Orderic, and Janet Nelson has pointed out that “powerful

men could accept [Matilda as regent]… as reasonable and authoritative.”188 Matilda

exercised power in what Karen Glente and Lise Winther-Jensen have identified as one

of three ways medieval women were able to do so: as a substitute for a man.189

Additionally, Matilda was not left in sole command of the duchy. William entrusted

183 Gathagan has discussed the evidence of Matilda’s actions in Normandy before the conquest of England: Gathagan, "Embodying Power", 21-74. David Bates has claimed that her place in consenting to, and confirming, the grants of William elevated her above the aristocracy. David Bates, Regesta regum Anglo-Normannorum: the Acta of William I (Oxford, 1998), 93-94. 184 Orderic Vitalis, Historia Ecclesiastica, trans. Marjorie Chibnall, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1969-1980), 2:209. 185 Ibid., 2:223. 186 Ibid., 2:281. 187 Frank Barlow, William I and the Norman Conquest (London, 1965), 127. 188 Janet L. Nelson, "Medieval Queenship," in Women in Medieval Western European Culture, ed. Linda E. Mitchell (New York, 1999), 200. Bates has pointed out that as regent, Matilda exercised “authority which was regarded as equivalent to [William’s]” own. David Bates, "The Origins of the Justiciarship," ANS 4 (1981): 8. 189 The other two ways are “indirect use of power in influencing male use of power and… an ‘own’ power of women, exercised vertically in the family and horizontally in the village.” Karen Glente and Lise Winther-Jensen, "Preface and Introduction," in Female Power in the Middle Ages: Proceedings from the Second St Gertrud Symposium, ed. Karen Glente and Lise Winther-Jensen (Copenhagen, 1989), 18.

42

Robert with responsibility alongside her from the outset, and appointed “God-fearing

bishops and warlike lords… to help them protect the province.”190 If Orderic had felt

uncomfortable with Matilda’s position, therefore, the presence of these men could

assuage his fears. A somewhat similar occasion, related by Orderic, occurred when

age incapacitated the count of Évreux and “his wife administered the whole county”

in his stead. Orderic condemned her not for taking this position, but because she

“placed more reliance than she should have done on her own judgement” and in doing

so was “ignoring the counsel of her husband’s barons.” Consequently, the countess

was “heartily disliked”, and eventually both she and her husband were forced into

exile because they “gave offence to the king.”191 In contrast to this woman, Orderic

could present Matilda as a positive example to those in his audience who might wield

power in similar situations, because she did not rely only on her own judgement.

Although Chibnall has suggested that Orderic was “particularly well informed” about

Matilda, because she spent most of her time in Normandy, he still recorded little about

her activities there.192 It may be that Matilda did little that was newsworthy, in

Orderic’s view; he was mostly concerned with either intensely local (to St. Évroul)

events or the consequences of William’s post-conquest actions in England, quelling

revolts and reforming the English church. One comment on her time as regent might

be seen in a coda to Normandy’s disastrous involvement in the Flemish war of

succession (1072), which led to the death of William fitz Osbern. At that time,

“Normandy was in a disturbed condition.” William hurried back from England, “in

order to make a just and statesmanlike settlement there. At the news of the king’s

coming peace-lovers everywhere rejoiced, but trouble-makers and criminals trembled

in their evil hearts and quailed before the approaching avenger.”193 However, Orderic

did not condemn Matilda as derelict in her duty, and he was not one to shy from such

a judgement if it were called for (especially when his subject was dead). Upon his

arrival in Normandy, William called a council apparently more concerned with good

190 Vitalis, HE, 2:209. There has been some debate about Robert’s position: see Charles Wendell David, Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy (New York, 1982), 12-13; R.H.C. Davis, "William of Jumièges, Robert Curthose and the Norman Succession," EHR 95, no. 376 (July 1980): 597-606; Elisabeth van Houts, "Introduction," in The Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis, and Robert of Torigni (Oxford, 1992-95), xxxiv. The lords left to help Matilda included Roger of Montgomery and William fitz Osbern. Vitalis, HE, 2:211, 281. 191 Vitalis, HE, 6:149. 192 Marjorie Chibnall, "Women in Orderic Vitalis," HSJ 2 (1990): 112. 193 Vitalis, HE, 2:285. See Chapter One for a discussion of Matilda’s reaction to the Flemish war.

43

governance of the church than anything else. It may be that he had planned this

council before the disaster occurred, and the timing was serendipitous. In any case,

this event did not detract from Orderic’s presentation of Matilda as a character to

imitate.

Matilda’s positive appearance as a powerful woman was not unusual in Orderic’s text.

Early on, he had claimed that historians could “write a memorable history of these

great men and women” should they wish (my emphasis).194 This broad view reflected

Orderic’s ambition to write a universal history, rather than be restricted to his initial

commission (the history of his monastery), or a list of ducal deeds (like his

predecessor, William of Jumièges). It also reflected his view of society as primarily

divided between clerical and lay, not male and female. The most prominent woman in

Orderic’s history, whose power most directly affected Orderic’s monastery, was

Mabel of Bellême, whom Orderic used to demonstrate the misuse of power. He

related stories of her “forcibly disinherit[ing] many lords,” as well as committing

crimes against St. Évroul itself. Mabel did nothing but evil towards his monastery.195

She was, however, by no means the stereotypical powerful woman in Orderic’s

text.196 On the contrary, he could write of his contemporary, Matilda’s daughter

Adela, receiving acclaim as countess of Blois, both while her husband Stephen was

crusading and after his death.197 Throughout his narrative, Orderic generally showed

active countesses and queens in a positive light, as good influences on their husbands

and the rest of their family.198 Orderic did not attempt to force the women in his

narrative into one mould, but rather presented them – just as he presented men – as

working within their political milieux in a variety of ways, with a variety of motives

and consequences. As Susan Johns has demonstrated, Orderic’s attitude towards

women with power was not monolithic, but ambiguous – just as it was towards lay

194 Ibid., 2:105. 195 Ibid., 3:137, 2:55. Mabel’s one redeeming feature, apparently, was her great respect and love for Abbot Thierry: Vitalis, HE, 2:49. See Chapter Three for a discussion of Mabel’s death and its comparison with Matilda’s. Monika Otter has pointed out that for all its claims to being a universal history, Orderic’s work was still “very local in its concerns.” Monika Otter, Inventiones: Fiction and Referentiality in Twelfth-Century English Historical Writing (Chapel Hill, 1996), 3. 196 Susan Johns noted that this portrayal was “reflective of both contemporary clerical distrust of women in power and the nature of contemporary politics in Normandy” – the Bellême family being hereditary enemies of the Giroie, founders of St. Évroul. Johns, Noblewomen, 15. 197 Vitalis, HE, 6:43; LoPrete, "The Gender of Lordly Women," 90-110. 198 Chibnall, "Women in Orderic Vitalis," 111.

44

men.199 Nor was Orderic suggesting that these women were exercising power simply

“through the auspices of legitimate male authority, in their positions as elite male

appendages,” as Charles Beem would have it.200 Rather, queens “appear[ed] naturally,

helping in government in any time of crisis.”201 Orderic was not writing for an

exclusively monastic audience, and he hoped to provide positive examples for

everyone in his audience to follow, women as well as men. Matilda contributed

towards this aim.

Orderic was clearly at ease with powerful, lordly women. This may partly have

derived from the fact that, alongside and sometimes in tension with the gender

division in his society, there was a differentiation along lines of status, or class.

Although historians today dispute the idea of hard and fast feudal divisions that were

once touted as rigid delineations, there is no denying that social status was a

significant aspect of medieval life. Yet sometimes, class trumped gender. Jo Ann

McNamara, in her discussion of changing perceptions of gender – and particularly of

masculinity – has pointed out that

where dynastic needs occasionally decreed that princes should be women,

family and class interests could supersede gender without threatening the right

order of things. The noble blood of ladies triumphed over their female

weakness in competition with men of inferior status.202

Following McNamara, I argue that by virtue of her birth into a powerful family, and

because of her marriage to a reigning duke, Matilda was acceptable as regent to

Orderic. By the same token, the other powerful women were also acceptable. The

exercise of authority by queens or other noblewomen in the past or their own time

was not exceptional.

199 Johns, Noblewomen, 14. 200 Charles Beem, The Lioness Roared: the Problems of Female Rule in English History (New York, 2006), 5. 201 Chibnall, "Women in Orderic Vitalis," 111. 202 Jo Ann McNamara, "The Herrenfrage: the Restructuring of the Gender System, 1050-1150," in Medieval Masculinities: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages, ed. Clare A. Lees with the assistance of Thelma Fenster and Jo Ann McNamara (Minneapolis, 1994), 4.

45

Demonstrating his own awareness that contemporary and historical women could and

did take part in political activities, Malmesbury portrayed numerous women wielding

power in his narrative. Wives gave counsel, as in the case of Raedwald of the East

Angles, who was “emboldened by the counsel of his stout-hearted wife.”203 They

could personally exercise authority, such that King Cenwealh left authority to his wife

Seaxburh on his deathbed. Malmesbury noted that Seaxburh had “the energy to face

the duties of the throne.” She organised troops, kept alliances and ruled mercifully,

“in such a way that there was no difference to be seen, except her sex.”204 Yet her sex

did not make her ineffective, and nor did it hamper another queen, Æthelflæd,

described as “a very powerful influence and help in her brother's policy and no less

effective as a builder of cities.”205 These examples show that Malmesbury too was

comfortable with women being actively involved in political actions and decisions.

His position as client of Edith-Matilda must have been a factor in how he represented

these women. Joan Ferrante highlighted Malmesbury’s Gesta in her study To the

Glory of her Sex, in which she explored how women influenced the composition of

medieval texts. She based the Gesta’s inclusion in her survey on its commissioning by

Edith-Matilda, and Malmesbury’s later hopes of presenting it to Empress Matilda.

Ferrante claimed that Malmesbury’s text was “filled with active women,” and that he

named a “striking” number of them.206 In showing queens exercising authority in a

‘good’ way, Malmesbury was providing examples for Edith-Matilda (and later her

daughter) to follow. There was great political utility in encouraging a queen to follow

the example of her powerful, yet still humble and obedient, predecessors. Further,

Malmesbury reinforced the notion that moral leadership was not gender specific. Both

men and women in positions of power could learn from the examples presented.

Given all of this, it is somewhat surprising that Malmesbury had nothing to say about

Matilda as regent in Normandy. Against Ferrante’s discussion of the numerous

“active women” in his text, Kirsten Fenton has noted that Malmesbury’s “lack of

reference to women may stem from the resources available to him as well as the

203 William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, trans. R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford, 1998), 67. 204 Ibid., 47. 205 Ibid., 199. 206 Joan Ferrante, To the Glory of her Sex: Women's Roles in the Composition of Medieval Texts (Bloomington, 1997), 100.

46

overall aims of his texts.”207 It seems unlikely that the former reason should explain

Matilda’s absence, given Malmesbury’s close proximity to her in time and the access

he had to historical sources. However, his overall aims may explain her absence.

Malmesbury described his history as primarily focussed on the “illustrious” ancestors

of Edith-Matilda, who commissioned his work, and noted that he would include only

“[s]ome things… which happened in the time of those kings in other countries.”208

Matilda spent most of her time in Normandy, and most of her actions were not

directly connected with England. This may account for Malmesbury devoting little

attention to her actions as regent. It does not, however, account for the fact that he

also devoted very little time to her as queen of England.

 

Queen  of  England  

William was crowned King of England on December 25, 1066. Matilda’s official

status in England may have been ambiguous for a time, but she was officially

crowned as England’s queen on Whitsunday, 1068.209 The development of the

position and role of English queens in the early to central Middle Ages, and what

made a woman not just a wife but also a queen, was a largely unstructured process.

While there had apparently been queens in the early Anglo-Saxon period, medieval

writers themselves believed the use of the term ‘queen’ to have been abandoned

because of the evil Eadburh who, married to the king of the West Saxons, shed

innocent blood.210 Æthelwulf revived the title in the ninth century, when he married

Judith, daughter of the King of France.211 Emma and Edith, Matilda’s predecessors,

had both been crowned and named queen. By the time Orderic and Malmesbury

completed their histories, so had Edith-Matilda and Adeliza of Louvain (wives of

Henry I). There is a growing body of historiography around the issue of what a

coronation entailed, what it meant to contemporaries, and how it changed over

207 Kirsten A. Fenton, Gender, Nation and Conquest in the Works of William of Malmesbury (Woodbridge, 2008), 130. It almost certainly had nothing to do with misogyny, despite Robert Bartlett’s claim that he was a “misogynist Angevin propagandist” (which seems an unlikely combination anyway): Robert Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings (Oxford, 2000), 41. 208 Malmesbury, Gesta, 5. 209 The delay may have been because of turmoil within England, making it unsafe for Matilda to cross over to England and not giving William the time to arrange (and be present at) the ceremony. 210 Malmesbury, Gesta, 171-173. 211 Lois Huneycutt, "Medieval Queenship," HT 39 (1989): 16.

47

time.212 Matilda’s position in the development of the ritual is, however, not the focus

of this chapter, since neither Orderic nor Malmesbury commented on it. Indeed,

neither of them gave much space to the ritual at all.213

Matilda’s coronation may ultimately have been more about William’s position as

legitimate king of England than about her position as queen. Her coronation was

presented as very different from his, being unhurried and uninterrupted, allowing

William to gain “all the pomp, ceremony and trappings missing from his own

[coronation].”214 Gathagan has claimed that this ceremony allowed the Norman claim

to the English throne to be flaunted as legitimate and God-given, because the ritual

was a sacral one.215 However Malmesbury, who was very interested in justifying the

Norman claim on the throne, referred to Matilda just once as ‘queen’ (and never as

duchess) and made no reference to the coronation at all.216 This seems a puzzling

omission, since Malmesbury was writing for an anointed queen (and another woman

who hoped to be). However, neither did he mention the coronations of other queens,

even of his patron, Edith-Matilda. It is possible that, despite modern interest, at least

some contemporaries accorded the coronation ritual little significance. And while

Orderic did mention Matilda’s coronation, he simply stated that “Ealdred archbishop

of York, who had anointed her husband, now anointed Matilda as queen consort on

Whit Sunday.”217 It appears that Matilda’s official position as queen did not need to

be highlighted or ratified to validate either her use as a didactic tool, for Orderic, or

the legitimacy of the Norman Conquest, for Malmesbury.

212 For example, Judith Abbott, "Queens and Queenship in Anglo-Saxon England, 954-1066: Holy and Unholy Alliances" (Unpublished PhD thesis, The University of Connecticut, 1989); H.E.J. Cowdrey, "The Anglo-Norman Laudes Regiae," Viator 12 (1981): 37-78; Janet L. Nelson, "The Rites of the Conqueror," ANS 4 (1981): 117-132; Janet L. Nelson, "Early Medieval Rites of Queen-Making and the Shaping of Medieval Queenship," in Queens, ed. Anne J. Duggan (Woodbridge, 1997), 301-315; Percy Ernst Schramm, A History of the English Coronation (Oxford, 1937); Julie Ann Smith, "Queen-Making and Queenship in Early Medieval England and Francia" (Unpublished PhD thesis, University of York, 1993); Julie Ann Smith, "The Earliest Queen-Making Rites," Church History 66, no. 1 (1997): 18-35; Pauline Stafford, QCD (London, 1988); Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith. On the French coronation tradition, see Marion Facinger, "A Study of Medieval Queenship: Capetian France, 987-1237," SMRH 5 (1968): 3-48. 213 For discussion of her coronation, see Laura Gathagan, "The Trappings of Power: the Coronation of Mathilda of Flanders," HSJ 13 (2004): 21-40. 214 Ibid.: 31. 215 Ibid.: 23, 30. 216 Malmesbury, Gesta, 503. 217 Vitalis, HE, 2:215.

48

Having been involved in political matters as duchess, coronation was presumably not

necessary to enable Matilda’s participation in politics in Normandy, although it may

have increased her influence. Orderic primarily discussed her involvement in political

activities after William’s conquest of England not because she had become queen, but

because of her role as regent in Normandy while William was absent. Malmesbury

was nearly as reticent about her activities after coronation as he was about them

before. Later references to Matilda’s political activities can be divided, somewhat

artificially, into ecclesiastical and diplomatic matters.

 

Matilda  and  ecclesiastical  politics  

Although sacred and secular authorities were attempting, throughout the eleventh and

twelfth centuries, to effect greater separation between the spheres of lay and

ecclesiastical matters, there was still overlap. Lay rulers sometimes appointed Church

officials (although the papacy tried to halt this). Bishops, archbishops, and popes

regularly counselled, advised, and interfered with counts, dukes, and kings. There was

a long tradition in Western Europe of queens working together with bishops, not least

because the bishops were often already involved in the politics of the realm.218

Stafford has noted, with regard to the English queen Eadgifu’s involvement in the

appointments of Dunstan and Æthelwold, that “[q]ueens who advance saints are not

corrupt dabblers in simony.”219 Elsewhere, she has suggested that “queens found

Church affairs and ecclesiastical politics a fruitful area of activity.”220 Additionally,

Judith Abbott has made a convincing case for an association between consecrated

English queens and Benedictine monks from the late tenth century to the end of the

Anglo-Saxon period, including Matilda’s immediate predecessors.221 It is unsurprising

therefore to discover Matilda also involved in ecclesiastical politics and, given the

positive portrayal of other aspects of her life, involved in positive ways.

In a section of his history devoted to Lanfranc (a prominent monk, and later

Archbishop of Canterbury) and his various ministries, Orderic described “the queen

218 Stafford, QCD, 94-95, 120. 219 Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith, 151. 220 Stafford, QCD, 120. The Empress Matilda was involved in ecclesiastical appointments: Marjorie Chibnall, The Empress Matilda: Queen Consort, Queen Mother, and Lady of the English (Oxford, 1992), 137-141. 221 Abbott, "Queens and Queenship", e.g. 343, 481. Gathagan has outlined other instances of Matilda’s participation in issues concerning bishops: Gathagan, "Embodying Power", 56, 174-227.

49

[Matilda] with the prince her son” imploring Lanfranc to comply with Abbot

Herluin’s command that he become archbishop of Canterbury.222 Chibnall has

suggested that the queen’s plea may be imaginary because it appeared only in this

text.223 However, even if it is imaginary – perhaps especially so – it was vital to

Orderic’s representation of Matilda. Clearly Orderic thought that Matilda could, or

perhaps should, be involved in this appointment of Lanfranc to the archiepiscopacy.224

In representing Matilda as involved in this way, with no recrimination, he suggested

to his audience that it was appropriate for Matilda to be involved in church politics.

Of course, Orderic approved of the appointment of Lanfranc to Canterbury – as he

and everyone else apparently approved of Lanfranc generally – so he had little reason

to be concerned by Matilda’s influence over the appointment. From other queens, this

sort of action had sometimes garnered disapproval.225 However, in this case, it was

right and just that Lanfranc should be pushed toward the position of archbishop, being

considered so righteous and holy a man, and Matilda was apparently an appropriate

person to encourage him. It was, for Orderic, an acceptable use of queenly authority.

In acting thus, Matilda once more appeared as an exemplar to Orderic’s audience.

Instead of championing a possibly dubious royal favourite, as other queens sometimes

had, she supported the man who was (apparently) the best one for the job. This was to

be commended, especially in ecclesiastical appointments, by supporters of the church

such as Orderic.

Although not mentioning her involvement with Lanfranc, Malmesbury also noted an

instance of Matilda’s involvement in ecclesiastical matters. Stating that he had

“formed a desire to set down the decisions arrived at in the time of King William in

the controversy… between the archbishops of Canterbury and York,” Malmesbury

documented William’s decision that primacy belonged to the Archbishop of

Canterbury. He also recorded Matilda witnessing this decision, second only to

222 Vitalis, HE, 2:253. 223 Ibid., 2:252 n2. 224 Lanfranc was key to William’s ecclesiastical reform policies in England after the Conquest, and helped him to introduce moral reform throughout the country. At this stage he was a “favourite son of the papacy.” Christopher Harper-Bill, "The Anglo-Norman Church," in A Companion to the Anglo-Norman World, ed. Christopher Harper-Bill and Elisabeth van Houts (Woodbridge, 2002), 174. See also H.E.J. Cowdrey, Lanfranc: Scholar, Monk, and Archbishop (Oxford, 2003). 225 See Stafford, QCD, 94-95, 120. Their involvement often attracted accusations of sexual impropriety, generally when either the queen or cleric had done something in another sphere requiring censure (Ibid.). This was never the case for Matilda.

50

William himself.226 Malmesbury did not comment on her presence at, and

involvement in, so momentous an occasion. She was present in the same way that the

other witnesses, important people in the kingdom (all men), were. Malmesbury clearly

accepted that Matilda had a public role to play in these matters, as he had experienced

Edith-Matilda being involved and presumably expected Empress Matilda to be.

Malmesbury’s presentation of these events flies in the face of Joan Haahr’s assertion

that this historian saw “the king's authority [as] wholly secular, and even the slightest

intervention in ecclesiastical matters a violation of clerical independence… as a

violent encroachment upon forbidden territory.”227 Malmesbury did not suggest that

William’s involved in this discussion was a violation, again perhaps because the

Archbishop of Canterbury was Lanfranc, and this decision would further empower

him. Matilda was present in Malmesbury’s history as a support to her husband in his

kingship.

Matilda’s involvement in ecclesiastical issues, while minimal in their records, fit in

with Orderic and Malmesbury’s overall aims. Orderic provided an example of the

appropriate use of royal influence in discussing Lanfranc’s appointment. In

Malmesbury’s record, Matilda was yet another voice in the list of powerful people

present and witnessing a charter, by implication approving of it and William’s

decisions. Matilda also appeared, lending her voice and approval, in another instance

of political action, one that only Orderic recorded.

 

Matilda  and  diplomacy  

In 1077/78, Matilda and William’s oldest son Robert rebelled against his father. Both

Orderic and Malmesbury recorded Matilda supporting Robert, thereby becoming

actively involved in the political situation.228 Only Orderic, however, presented her as

being involved in the aftermath.

In Orderic’s narrative, Matilda helped to negotiate peace between her husband and

son in the wake of Robert’s rebellion. “The bishops and other men of religion strove

226 Malmesbury, Gesta, 529, 533. 227 Joan Gluckauf Haahr, "The Concept of Kingship in William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum and Historia Novella," Mediaeval Studies 38 (1976): 371. 228 See Chapter One for a discussion of this event.

51

to soften [William’s] proud heart with the words of God; the queen and

representatives of the king of France, with noble neighbours and friends, all combined

to restore peace.”229 As queen and duchess, Matilda clearly had authority to intervene

in circumstances such as this. Gathagan noted that she had “adjudicated cases and

handed down judgements” throughout her career as duchess and, later, queen.230 For

example, one charter mentioned William and Matilda hearing a case together and

ordering an archbishop to make a judgement on it.231 Similarly, Orderic here

envisaged a queen whose male contemporaries accepted her as having a place in the

negotiations. She obviously had the authority to work alongside them in encouraging

William and Robert to reach a settlement. Orderic called her queen, not William’s

wife nor Robert’s mother. His understanding of her ability to intervene in this affair

stemmed from her consecrated position, not her marital or maternal identity. That she

was working towards a peaceful resolution, one advocated by powerful men,

enhanced Matilda’s position as an exemplary, powerful woman.

Although he did not explicitly use the imagery in this instance, Orderic may have

been tapping into the intercessory expectations of the Esther topos in this

representation of Matilda. This topos, which exercised many medieval writers,

suggested that medieval queens should seek to imitate Queen Esther, whose story was

narrated in the Old Testament and involved interceding with the king, her husband, on

behalf of her people, the Jews in exile.232 The queen’s role as intercessor with the king

was long-established. Discussion of this topos clearly had a didactic purpose, and

matched Orderic’s intentions for his portrayal of this event, since Matilda’s

intercession was for the good of the kingdom. It was exemplary behaviour that ought

229 Vitalis, HE, 3:113. 230 Gathagan, "The Trappings of Power," 30. 231 Bates, Regesta regum Anglo-Normannorum: the Acta of William I, no. 29. 232 Esther’s story was recounted in her eponymous book of the Bible. For discussion of this topos, see: Sandy Bardsley, Women's Roles in the Middle Ages (Westport, 2007), 194-195; Lois Huneycutt, "Intercession and the High Medieval Queen: the Esther Topos," in Power of the Weak: Studies on Medieval Women, ed. Jennifer Carpenter and Sally-Beth MacLean (Urbana, 1995), 127-146; Henrietta Leyser, Medieval Women: a Social History of Women in England, 450-1500 (London, 1995), 85; Pauline Stafford, "Emma: the Powers of the Queen in the Eleventh Century," in Queens, ed. Anne J. Duggan (Woodbridge, 1997), 18. M.J. Enright has discussed the mediating role of the queen in the Germanic warband: M.J. Enright, "Lady with a Mead-Cup. Ritual, Group Cohesion and Hierarchy in the Germanic Warband," Frühmittelalterliche Studien 22 (1988): 170-203. Sharon Farmer has noted that monastic authors often wrote about influential wives more generally: Sharon Farmer, "Persuasive voices: Clerical Images of Medieval Wives," Speculum 61 (1986): 517-543.

52

to be emulated, because queens were in an ideal position to use such Christian

behaviour for the good of others.

 

Conclusion    

Despite political activity being a predominantly masculine domain in medieval

society, both Orderic and Malmesbury portrayed Matilda, a woman, as politically

active. They did so without requiring her (or any other women in a similar position) to

be masculinised or de-feminised, as some historians have suggested occurred in the

minds and writings of medieval authors.233 Since both Orderic and Malmesbury aimed

to provide examples of appropriate behaviour to their audience, their portrayal of

Matilda shows that they expected important women to be involved in politics, and did

not see this involvement as defeminising.

Although Matilda appeared infrequently as a political agent in these histories, her few

appearances were significant. Orderic featured her most often, perhaps because he

was writing the longer work and was based in Normandy, and therefore had more

information about her. Malmesbury, focussing predominantly on England, discussed

Matilda less frequently. When either of these historians mentioned Matilda, they

praised her in order to further their thematic ends. Her actions, as Orderic and

Malmesbury portrayed them, were useful didactic examples because she used her

political power for morally good ends. Both historians hoped and expected that their

histories would be read or heard by those beyond the cloister walls, who could put

these examples to direct use in their own lives.

Orderic and Malmesbury could present Matilda as using her political power in

morally approved ways largely because they also portrayed her as a virtuous Christian

woman. This portrayal is the theme of my third chapter.

233 Georges Duby, "Women and Power," in Cultures of Power: Lordship, Status, and Process in Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. Thomas N. Bisson (Philadelphia, 1995), 78; Susan Stuard, "The Dominion of Gender: Women's Fortunes in the High Middle Ages," in Becoming Visible: Women in European History (2nd ed.), ed. Renate Bridenthal, Susan Mosher Stuard, and Merry E. Weisner (Boston, 1987), 158; J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Frankish Church (Oxford, 1983), 404.

53

Chapter  Three  

Piety,  patronage,  virtue  

… when [Matilda] died, four years before [William], he gave her a most splendid funeral, and

showed by many days of the deepest mourning how much he missed the love of her whom he

had lost. Indeed from that time forward, if we believe what we are told, he abandoned pleasure

of every kind. The queen was buried in the monastery of the Holy Trinity at Caen.234

… growing apprehensive because her illness persisted, [Matilda] confessed her sins with bitter

tears and, after fully accomplishing all that Christian custom requires and being fortified by

the saving sacrament, she died on 3 November. Her body was carried at once to the abbey of

the Holy Trinity, which she had founded at Caen for nuns, and was reverently buried by many

bishops and abbots between the choir and the altar. Monks and clergy celebrated her

obsequies, attended by a great throng of poor people, for in her lifetime she had often been

their benefactress in the name of Christ. A monument was erected over her, wonderfully

worked with gold and precious stones, and [an] epitaph was lovingly engraved in letter of

gold.235

On 2 November 1083, Matilda of Flanders died. Both Orderic and Malmesbury noted

her death, but presented it in very different ways. Malmesbury was most interested in

what Matilda’s death and its consequences established about her husband. Orderic’s

presentation of Matilda’s death and funeral, however, focussed squarely on her life as

a pious woman. William was not even mentioned, except in her epitaph. These

differences are indicative of the differences between Orderic and Malmesbury in how

they dealt more generally with manifestations of what can broadly be termed

Matilda’s piety. Orderic presented Matilda as a virtuous Christian, whose example

ought to be followed. Malmesbury was less interested overall in the piety of his 234 William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, trans. R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford, 1998), 503. Christopher Daniell used this event to claim that grief in the Middle Ages was “normally shown by weeping,” but misidentified Matilda as William’s daughter. Christopher Daniell, Death and Burial in Medieval England, 1066-1550 (New York, 1997), 54. 235 Orderic Vitalis, Historia Ecclesiastica, trans. Marjorie Chibnall, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1969-1980), 4:45. November 3 is incorrect; the correct date is November 2, which Orderic transcribed correctly in Matilda’s epitaph (see below). William was not buried with Matilda, but at St. Stephen’s, his own foundation. John Carmi Parsons has claimed that this was indicative of seeking “individual intercession through… personal monastic foundations… the locations of which were frequently determined by prevailing geopolitical axes”: John Carmi Parsons, "'Never was a body buried in England with such solemnity and honour': the Burials and Posthumous Commemorations of English Queens to 1500," in Queens, ed. Anne J. Duggan (Woodbridge, 1997), 320.

54

subjects than Orderic. Yet when he did mention Matilda’s religious actions, they

served to compliment her husband rather than herself. Malmesbury, concerned with

justifying the Norman Conquest and with the right behaviour of kings, required that

William be seen overall in a positive light. While Malmesbury, too, wanted to

transmit exemplary actions to a future audience for emulation, in Matilda’s case he

always focussed more directly on her husband, the king.

Orderic and Malmesbury used their representations of Matilda’s piety to further their

own causes. Both historians acknowledged that she was closely involved with the

church. They recorded her founding a monastery, donating to other institutions,

explicitly praying for the expanding Norman empire, and giving alms to the poor.

Orderic also described her consulting a holy man.236 Malmesbury predominantly used

Matilda’s piety to complement (and compliment) her husband William, following

John Carmi Parsons’ notion that “writers… manipulated the images of particular

women to color their portrayals of the men with whom those women were intimately

associated.”237 For Orderic, on the other hand, it was precisely Matilda’s piety that

made her interesting. In being pious, Orderic could present Matilda’s life as worth

emulating by his audience, both the laity and the monastic brethren who would have

little opportunity to mimic her familial or political example.

 

Death  

Scholars have written very little about the deaths and funerals of medieval queens.238

A little more has attended the deaths and burials of kings.239 Parsons has pointed out

236 Vitalis, HE, 3:105. A second consultation, requesting a cure for lethargia, has been suggested in George T. Beech, "Queen Mathilda of England and the Abbey of La Chaise-Dieu in the Auvergne," Frühmittelalterliche Studien 27 (1993): 350-374. Neither Orderic nor Malmesbury mentioned this event. All of these actions raise questions of personal piety, which is difficult to assess through later historical accounts and is not my focus. 237 John Carmi Parsons, "'Loved him – hated her': Honor and Shame at the Medieval Court," in Conflicted Identities and Multiple Masculinities: Men in the Medieval West, ed. Jacqueline Murray (London, 1999), 281. 238 Noting this fact, and making a start on its remedy, is Parsons, "'Never was a body'," 317-337. In brief, see Michael Evans, The Death of Kings: Royal Deaths in Medieval England (London, 2003), 207-228 (touching on various English queens' deaths, 1066-1485); J.L. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens (Oxford, 2004), 119-129 (for the fifteenth century); Pauline Stafford, QCD (London, 1988), 188-190 (for the early medieval period). 239 See for example Clifford Brewer, The Death of Kings: a Medical History of the Kings and Queens of England (London, 2000); E.A.R Brown, "The Ceremonial of Royal Succession in Capetian France: the Double Funeral of Louis X," Traditio 34 (1978): 227-271; Evans, The Death of Kings; E.M. Hallam, "Royal burial and the Cult of Kingship in France and England 1060-1330," JMH 8 (1982):

55

that in most contemporary descriptions, “we are told simply that a queen was buried

fittingly, with clergy and nobles present.”240 He has suggested that, as with a king’s, a

queen’s funeral “could be used… to mark royal ‘centres’,” and that it was a “matter of

royal prestige.”241 This is not the place to analyse the importance of a funerary site, as

neither Orderic nor Malmesbury indicated that Matilda’s resting place (Holy Trinity,

Caen) became a royal centre. Instead, I am interested in how these historians used the

occasion for their own, primarily didactic, purposes. To do so, it is important to

contextualise Matilda’s death within these texts.

As a general rule, Orderic did not describe any death at great length. Matilda’s death

and funeral scene (above) was one of the longest given to a woman. A comparable

example is the death of Queen Margaret of Scotland, to whom, having led an

exceptionally virtuous and holy life, Orderic attributed an equally virtuous and holy

death. Being “wounded to the heart and shattered by the terrible news of her

husband’s death,” Margaret prepared for her own death by ensuring that the nobles of

the kingdom accepted her sons. Thus not only was she personally virtuous, she was

politically and maternally astute, attending to her dynastic duties. That done, she

distributed her wealth to the throngs of beggars… [then] entered a church and

asked the chaplains to celebrate Mass. She took part most devoutly in the

celebration, and after receiving the holy Eucharist died with a prayer on her

lips.242

Orderic also lavishly described the (less virtuous) death of Mabel of Bellême, that

plague of St. Évroul. One of the men she had disinherited “penetrated… the countess’

chamber. Finding her… relaxing in bed after a bath, he struck off her head with his

sword and so avenged the loss of his patrimony.” Marjorie Chibnall has pointed out 359-380. For an anthropological viewpoint, see Peter Metcalf and Richard Huntington, Celebrations of Death: the Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual, Second ed. (Cambridge, 1991), 133-190. Parsons noted the difficulty in discussing English royal funerals much before 1290, thanks to the lack of contemporary description, “probably because until then, most English kings and queens rested in France.” Parsons, "'Never was a body'," 323. For death in the Middle Ages more generally, see Paul Binski, Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation (Ithaca, 1996); David Crouch, "The Culture of Death in the Anglo-Norman world," in Anglo-Norman Political Culture and the Twelfth-Century Renaissance, ed. C. Warren Hollister (Woodbridge, 1997), 157-180; Daniell, Death and Burial. 240 Parsons, "'Never was a body'," 323. 241 Ibid., 324-325. 242 Vitalis, HE, 4:271-273.

56

that murdering a warrior in the bath “has been an epic tradition from the time of

Agamemnon,” and that this detail may therefore be legendary.243 In contrast to Mabel,

Matilda clearly belonged to the same category as Margaret. Exemplary Christian

deaths such as these furthered Orderic’s eschatological desire to see his audience be

right with God for their eternal salvation. Through their righteous deaths, these two

queens exemplified ways of dying that were appropriate to both lay and clerical

audiences.

In his monograph The Death of Kings, Michael Evans devoted one chapter to queens.

He suggested that Orderic’s description of Matilda was “that of the archetypal good

queen: pious, charitable and dying a good Christian death.” Additionally, he

dismissed descriptions of queens in general as “treated in conventional terms by

chroniclers, who present[ed] very bland portraits of them, and the same [was] true in

death as in life.”244 He compared Orderic’s description of Matilda’s death with that

written by Henry of Huntingdon (but not Malmesbury’s), which did not go to “such

lengths.” Evans has, however, missed the point of Orderic’s description, as well as the

aspects of her death that Orderic stressed. While it may be idealised, this was

precisely Orderic’s intention. He wanted Matilda to be regarded as an exemplar by his

audience, and therefore provided her with an exemplary death. I argue that Orderic’s

description was not “conventional” at all. By comparison, he gave the death and

funeral of her successor, Edith-Matilda, hardly any space, and Orderic had lived

through her entire reign as queen.245 It is unlikely that Orderic had more information

on Matilda of Flanders than on Edith-Matilda. Instead, I suggest that Orderic regarded

Matilda as a better tool for his purpose of providing virtuous examples, not least

because she was chronologically distant, and therefore easier to idealise.

Like Orderic, Malmesbury devoted little space to describing deaths or funerals. Of his

patron, Edith-Matilda, he remarked: “she was taken from among her people to their

great loss, but not to hers; for her body was honourably buried at Westminster and is

now at peace, while her spirit showed by tokens more than ordinary that it inhabits

243 Ibid., 3:137 and n2. 244 Evans, The Death of Kings, 213. Frank Barlow made a similar comment: Frank Barlow, William I and the Norman Conquest (London, 1965), 185. 245 Vitalis, HE, 6:189.

57

Heaven.”246 While Malmesbury did not record Henry I’s reaction to Edith-Matilda’s

death, he followed the description of her death with a note that she “was succeeded as

the king’s consort, but not immediately, by Adela, daughter of the duke of

Louvain.”247 Malmesbury thus placed her death in the context of her husband’s life.

Edith-Matilda’s mother, Margaret of Scotland, also had a virtuous death, paralleling

the description found in Orderic. Upon hearing of her husband’s death, she “lost her

taste for the world; she prayed God for death, and won her wish.”248 Thus

Malmesbury presented Margaret, too, in the context of her husband – his death

concerned her more than anything else. The lack of detail in Matilda’s death scene

(above), and the emphasis on her husband, is therefore unremarkable in the context of

Malmesbury’s work. The position of the king was Malmesbury’s focus, and his

intention was to demonstrate appropriate kingly behaviours. Indeed, demonstrating

William’s piety so interested Malmesbury that he immediately compared Matilda’s

funeral with the funeral of the widow of William’s predecessor, Queen Eadgyth,

saying that William showed “the same deep feeling” in arranging both.249 Matilda and

Eadgyth’s deaths provided opportunities for Malmesbury to laud William’s kingly

piety.250

Matilda’s death and funeral provided a contrast with William’s death and funeral in

both accounts. Malmesbury’s William “filled the house with complaints that death

should overtake him when he had long been planning to reform his life,” and his

funeral “well displayed” the “pitiful ups and downs of human life,” accompanied as it

was by various trials.251 Orderic presented a king who, while ill, talked at length about

the disposition of his kingdom after his death, and whose funeral was overcome by

such trials that Orderic was moved to exclaim: “O worldly pomp, how despicable you

are, how utterly vain and fleeting! It is right to compare you to water bubbles, one

246 Malmesbury, Gesta, 759. 247 Ibid. 248 Ibid., 555. 249 Ibid., 503. 250 Joan Haahr has suggested that for Malmesbury, a king must not be too zealous, as that could have as malign an effect on the country as impiety. However, she barely analysed Malmesbury’s representation of William the Conqueror in her article, so it is difficult to know to what extent this suggestion applied to that king. Joan Gluckauf Haahr, "The Concept of Kingship in William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum and Historia Novella," Mediaeval Studies 38 (1976): 358, 371. 251 Malmesbury, Gesta, 511-513.

58

moment all swollen up, then suddenly reduced to nothing.”252 These accounts fly in

the face of expectations that William’s death should be presented as a ‘good’ death, as

befitted a generally well-respected king.253 Orderic’s account of Matilda’s orderly

funeral contrasted with William’s disorderly one, just as Matilda’s orderly coronation

contrasted with William’s disorderly one. David Bates has suggested that this

description of the Conqueror’s funeral “may well be a sign that [Orderic] would resort

to allegory when he lacked the confidence to spell out what he thought might be

correct.”254 Although Orderic did not appear in other instances to “lack confidence,”

the suggestion of allegory may still hold. Matilda’s funeral, I propose, is perfectly

appropriate as an allegory of her entire virtuous life. William’s was appropriate for an

ultimately successful, if hindered and occasionally derailed, life. Additionally, Evans

has noted that in their descriptions of the corrupted body, monks advocated an attitude

of “contemptus mundi… to draw the reader’s attention away from worldly pomp and

glory and towards a contemplation of the life of the spirit.”255 It is notable that these

authors did so in a physical manner for William, but not for Matilda. I suggest that

this is because overall, Matilda was presented as exemplary at all times. Malmesbury

and Orderic were not as unstinting in their praise of William. Matilda had shown

more evidence of a pious life, especially in Orderic’s history.

Although he did not compose Matilda’s epitaph, Orderic transcribed it for his

audience, noting that it was “lovingly engraved in letters of gold” on the monument

“erected over her, [which was] wonderfully worked with gold and precious stones.”

This description demonstrated his approval of the sentiments recorded.256 The second

half read:

She gave this site and raised this noble house [Holy Trinity, Caen],

With many lands and many goods endowed,

Given by her, or by her toil procured;

252 Vitalis, HE, 4:101-109. 253 Crouch, "The Culture of Death," 158. 254 David Bates, "The Conqueror's Earliest Historians and the Writing of his Biography," in Writing Medieval Biography, 750-1250: Essays in Honour of Professor Frank Barlow, ed. David Bates, Julia Crick, and Sarah Hamilton (Woodbridge, 2006), 140. 255 Evans, The Death of Kings, 62. 256 By contrast, Orderic was not complimentary of the epitaph written for Mabel of Bellême. Indeed, he claimed that the positive aspects of Mabel’s epitaph were written “more through the partiality of friends than because of any special deserts of hers”: Vitalis, HE, 3:137.

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Comforter of the needy, duty's friend;

Her wealth enriched the poor, left her in need

At daybreak on November's second day

She won her share of everlasting joy. 257

Orderic presented Matilda as a model of virtue. He implicitly recommended Matilda’s

life as one worth emulating, that others might achieve the same earthly (a moving

epitaph, an impressive monument), and heavenly (everlasting joy), rewards.

 

Patronage  

As her epitaph noted, Matilda was the patron of Holy Trinity, Caen. Lay piety was

inextricably bound up with patronage of, and donation to, religious institutions. It

helped to forge connections between religious institutions and laity.258 Erin Jordan has

noted that medieval minds perceived a very real connection between an individual’s

power and the patronage or benefaction they exercised, and that this was both public

and political.259 Patronage and benefaction of religious institutions served a number of

purposes, which cannot be separated from one another. Modern historians have

occasionally tried to distinguish between ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ motives for

patronage and donations, and numerous theories have been put forward as to why

patronage existed at all.260 However, the idea that it must be one or the other – either

257 Ibid., 4:45. Chibnall has attested that the epitaph is accurate and can still be seen at Holy Trinity: Vitalis, HE, 4:46 n1. 258 Maureen C. Miller, "Donors, their Gifts, and Religious Motivation in Medieval Verona," Speculum 66 (1991): 41. The relationship between the counts of Anjou and the counts of Vendôme with the abbey of la Trinité has been examined in Penelope D. Johnson, Prayer, Patronage and Power: the Abbey of la Trinité, Vendôme, 1032-1187 (New York, 1981), especially 69-98. 259 Erin L. Jordan, Women, Power, and Religious Patronage in the Middle Ages (New York, 2006), 5. Constance Bouchard argued against necessarily seeing political and/or economic motives: Constance B. Bouchard, Sword, Miter, and Cloister: Nobility and the Church in Burgundy, 980-1198 (Ithaca, 1987), 229-232. 260 The literature is too extensive to list exhaustively, but see for example: Bouchard, Sword, Mitre, and Cloister, 225-246; V. Chandler, "Politics and Piety: Influences on Charitable Donations," Revue Bénédictine 90 (1980): 63-71; Georges Duby, The Early Growth of the European Economy: Warriors and Peasants from the Seventh to the Twelfth Century, trans. Howard B. Clarke (London, 1974), especially 55ff; Marjorie Chibnall, "Ecclesiastical Patronage and the Growth of Feudal Estates at the Time of the Norman Conquest," Annales de Normandie 8 (1958): 103-118; Christopher Holdsworth, The Piper and the Tune: Medieval Patrons and Monks (Reading, 1991); C. Warren Hollister, "Anglo-Norman Political Culture and the Twelfth-Century Renaissance," in Anglo-Norman Political Culture and the Twelfth-Century Renaissance, ed. C. Warren Hollister (Woodbridge, 1997), 2-3; J.C. Holt, "Feudal Society and the Family in Early Medieval England: II. Notions of Patrimony," TRHS 33 (1983): especially 201ff; Sharon Kettering, "The Patronage Power of Early Modern French Noblewomen," The Historical Journal 32, no. 4 (1989): 817-841; Miller, "Donors," 27-42; Miriam Shadis, "Piety, Politics, and Power: the Patronage of Leonor of England and her Daughters Berenguela

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religious/spiritual or secular/power-based – is to miss the point and “ignore the

subtleties and nuances inherent in medieval society.”261 There was no dichotomy for

most people in the eleventh and twelfth century, as the discussion found in the pages

of Orderic and Malmesbury makes clear. However, I will not address questions of

Matilda’s motives here, since neither Orderic nor Malmesbury relayed her actual

thoughts.262 Instead, my focus is on how those historians portrayed her patronage to

meet their own ends.

Issues of personal piety were relevant to both Orderic and Malmesbury on a personal

and an institutional level. Both St. Évroul and Malmesbury Abbey relied on royal and

noble donations to meet economic needs, and the noble Giroie family had (re)founded

St. Évroul.263 Patronage and donation were particularly themes in Orderic’s history.

He was intensely interested in recording the donations made to St. Évroul, and

explicitly stated that one purpose of his history was so that “alms given in faith may

be brought to the knowledge of the novices, and when they make use of them they

may know when and by whom they were given or sold at a price.”264 Living a

virtuous life should, for Orderic, include donations and patronage. Previous

benefactors “gave earthly gifts to receive heavenly ones from God,” something

Orderic encouraged his lay audience to aspire to.265 Advocating patronage and

donations to monasteries interested Malmesbury, too, especially since he hoped his

history would be read by some of the most influential people of the kingdom (Edith-

Matilda, later her daughter Empress Matilda, and presumably their entourages) who

might therefore be encouraged to follow the examples set. His own institution could

have benefited from such an attitude. Orderic and Malmesbury’s discussions of piety

and virtue served a purpose within the greater scheme of their histories, and Matilda’s

piety existed for them within this context.

of Leon and Blanche of Castile," in The Cultural Patronage of Medieval Women, ed. June Hall McCash (Athens, 1996), 202-227; Hugh M. Thomas, "Lay Piety in England from 1066 to 1215," ANS 29 (2006): 179-192. 261 Laura Gathagan, "Embodying Power: Gender and Authority in the Queenship of Mathilda of Flanders" (Unpublished PhD thesis, The City University of New York, 2002), 174. See also C.H. Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages (New York, 2001), especially 66-73 and 127-132. 262 See Gathagan, "Embodying Power", chapter 5 (174-228). 263 “William son of Giroie loved the church of God all his life long” and directed his nephews to build on a site formerly occupied by a monastery but since deserted. Vitalis, HE, 3:15-19. 264 Ibid., 3:123. 265 Ibid., 3:119.

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Matilda’s primary act of patronage was the monastic foundation of Holy Trinity.

There has been some modern discussion about this foundation, with many historians

accepting the story that she founded it at the same time as William founded St.

Stephen’s, to expiate their guilt for a non-canonical marriage.266 Orderic did not give

attention to the foundation of Holy Trinity, nor did he speculate about whether it was

a guilt-offering. He simply noted that “the monastery of Holy Trinity which Queen

Matilda founded at Caen… earned high repute.”267

Orderic saw the foundation of a monastery as an exemplary deed. His discussion of

patronage may be characterised as interpreting internal piety through external

manifestations. He recorded his father, Odelerius of Orleans, counselling Earl Roger

that patronage was “a most godly undertaking… [wherein] Christ’s garrisons struggle

manfully against the devil… [and] where the cowled champions may engage in

ceaseless combat against Behemoth for [the patron’s] soul.”268 Orderic frequently

linked acts of patronage with piety. Foundations or gifts could be made “for the

salvation of [the] souls” of men such as Roger Goulafré, Herfred of Réville and

others; or because a nobleman such as Giroie “cherished his Church;” or because men

such as St. Wandrille or Évroul of Bayeux were “faithful labourers.”269

As well as these examples of male patronage, Orderic listed instances of female

patronage. Susan Johns has gone so far as to say that “Orderic voice[d] most approval

for women who act[ed] within the context of religious patronage.”270 Examples

included that of Queen Bathilde, who along with her husband King Clovis approved

the establishment of a monastery at Jumièges, and the wife of Childebert, king of the 266 For example: David C. Douglas, "William the Conqueror: Duke and King," in The Norman Conquest, its Setting and Impact, ed. Dorothy Whitelock (New York, 1966), 61; Edward Freeman, William the Conqueror (London, 1898), 37; Allan Lloyd, Year of the Conqueror (London, 1966), 76; Acton Warburton, Rollo and his Race, 2 vols. (London, 1848), 2:25. Whether their marriage was consanguineous has been debated; see Chapter One. That their foundations might have been for this reason makes sense, since founding an abbey was “a meritorious act which might remit a long period of penance. More important, the monks, through their penitential life of continual prayer and fasting, acted as surrogates for their benefactor; they performed the satisfaction on [a patron’s] behalf.” Lawrence, Medieval monasticism, 67. 267 Vitalis, HE, 2:131. Miriam Shadis discussed some reasons for founding a female institution, which may be applicable in Holy Trinity’s case. Shadis, "Piety, Politics," 202-227. 268 Vitalis, HE, 3:143-147. 269 Ibid., 2:35, 23, 5. 270 Susan M. Johns, Noblewomen, Aristocracy, and Power in the Twelfth-Century Anglo-Norman Realm (New York, 2003), 16.

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Franks, who fulfilled a vow to build “a noble church.”271 Margaret of Scotland

restored “the cell of Iona,” among “other good deeds,” and Judith, wife of Duke

Richard of Normandy, “founded a monastery at Bernay.”272 Women also encouraged

their husbands to build abbeys.273 Additionally, Orderic recorded other acts of

generosity: he described Godiva, mother of Earls Edwin and Morcar, as pious because

she “lavished all her treasure upon the church,” and “countess Adela… gave generous

sums for the Pope’s needs.”274 Helvise, William Pantulf’s sister, “gave St. Peter the

whole of her marriage portion,” while Hersende and Tessa made grants.275 Orderic’s

attitude towards patronage was thus not gender-specific. In founding a monastery,

Orderic showed Matilda demonstrating her piety, and provided an appropriate role

model to other people who might be in a position to similarly demonstrate theirs.

One of Orderic’s overarching reasons for writing his history was to enumerate the

actions of people who became benefactors of his monastery, St. Évroul; as well as

founding Holy Trinity, Orderic recorded Matilda patronising his monastery with

movable goods. After hearing “good reports of the observance of the monks of Saint-

Évroul,” Matilda went to the monastery to pray. After her reception “with honour by

the monks,” she left them considerable gifts, and “asked to be remembered in the

prayers of the brethren together with her daughter Constance.”276 These gifts

consisted of a chasuble “decorated with gold and pearls,” a cope, and a hundred

pounds to be used in building a stone refectory.277 Orderic noted the value of the gift

minutely, exalting both Matilda, for her generosity, and St. Évroul, for being worthy

of such a gift from such a patron. In Orderic’s record of her donation, Lanfranc, later

Archbishop of Canterbury, and William of Rots, later abbot of Fecamp, flanked

Matilda.278 This company indicated the esteem in which Matilda – or at least her gift –

was held. Orderic also used this instance of patronage to highlight why he thought lay

patrons made these gifts: they “earnestly sought to share in the spiritual benefits

271 Vitalis, HE, 2:63, 3:285-287. 272 Ibid., 4:273, 2:9. 273 Ibid., 2:11. 274 Ibid., 2:217, 6:43. Adela was Matilda’s youngest daughter. 275 Ibid., 3:157, 185, 203. Women were also frequently attested as agreeing to their husbands’ or sons’ donations: e.g. Vitalis, HE, 3:127, 175-189. 276 Vitalis, HE, 3:241. 277 Ibid., 2:149; 3:241. Other women gave gifts to St. Évroul; e.g. Tessa, wife of Bernard the Blind, Vitalis, HE, 3:203. 278 Vitalis, HE, 2:149-151.

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which were there bestowed by the Creator of the universe.”279 Orderic believed

Matilda, and other patrons, acted wisely in giving gifts to the church. In praising her

for patronising the monastery, he presented Matilda as someone to emulate, by men as

well as by women. By patronising his monastery so lavishly, Matilda also acted as an

advertisement to Orderic’s audience. Her personal worthiness highlighted the

worthiness of the monastery as a recipient of generosity. He thereby encouraged his

hoped-for lay audience to be generous, to follow her example.

Orderic’s monastic audience benefited from the record he made. In return for gifts,

monasteries took seriously the remembrance of patrons and benefactors. Patrons

might receive privileges such as a promise of prayer, burial at the monastery, or the

opportunity to be admitted to the confraternity late in life.280 Orderic recorded that

Abbot Osbern “established a general anniversary, to be held every year on 26 June,”

on which day a roll inscribed with the names of the brothers at St. Évroul, their

families, and the monastery’s benefactors would be taken out, and those people

prayed for: “first for the dead, then for living parents and benefactors and all the

faithful.”281 After her donation to the monastery Matilda would have been included in

this institutional memorial, and her soul prayed for by the brothers. Orderic intended

his Historia to equip the brethren with greater knowledge of their benefactors, so that

they might pray more effectively. As previously mentioned, he intended novices to

thereby gain knowledge of those who gave “alms… in faith.”282 In discussing her

particular donation to St. Évroul, as well as other instances of piety and generosity,

Orderic was ensuring that later generations of monks at St. Évroul were aware of what

Matilda had done, that her soul might benefit from the brothers’ prayers, as was the

acknowledged arrangement between donor and recipient institution. This patronage

thus fit with Orderic’s overarching intentions for his history.

Malmesbury’s history, like Orderic’s, included numerous active female patrons. For

example, a grieving woman built a minster on land given as recompense for her

children’s death, while the abbey of Whitby was “started by that great religious leader

279 Ibid., 3:241. 280 Johnson, Prayer, 90-91. 281 Vitalis, HE, 2:115. 282 Ibid., 3:123.

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Hild.”283 The monastery of Bardney was Queen Osthryth’s establishment; Æthelflæd,

with “her husband Æthelred… built with great exertions” the monastery of St. Peter at

Gloucester; a king’s daughter, Eadgyth, “built [a church] for love of the martyr,” St.

Dionysius.284 None of these occasions stood alone, however; Malmesbury placed

them all within a larger historical context. He discussed the gift to the grieving mother

as evidence that King Ecgberht was not entirely evil, while Hild’s foundation was

“destroyed in the Danish invasions.” The monastery at Bardney was involved in a cult

that sprang up around the remains of Ostryth’s uncle, St. Oswald, whose bones were

later translated to Æthelflæd’s St. Peter, which the Danes also destroyed. Eadgyth and

her actions, while didactic in their own right as an example of an exemplary virginal

life, was more important for their exaltation of St. Dunstan: he blessed Eadgyth’s

finger, which was subsequently found to be incorruptible. Malmesbury did not

generally discuss female patronage for its own sake.

Like Orderic, Malmesbury credited Matilda with the foundation of Holy Trinity. He

also noted that Matilda was actively involved in choosing its members.285 Unlike

Orderic, however, Malmesbury did suggest that Holy Trinity was built in response to

Matilda and William’s apparently-consanguineous union. Although both Matilda and

William attacked Mauger for suggesting their consanguinity, “as William grew old,

by way of atonement for the offence, he built the monastery at Caen in honour of St.

Stephen, and she built one for the Holy Trinity in the same town.”286 As with other

acts of patronage in his work, Malmesbury contextualised this within Anglo-Norman

history. It appeared in a section on the deposition of Mauger as archbishop of Rouen.

This in turn led to a discussion of the deposition of Archbishop Stigand of

Canterbury, and the subsequent renewal of the English church as a whole. While

founding monasteries was clearly important, it was not the most important event of

the period. Additionally, the foundations were primarily a demonstration of William’s

piety, and Matilda’s piety was only consequentially highlighted. By stressing

William’s piety, I argue that Malmesbury sought to present him as a moral, and

legitimate, king, who could act as a model for future kings. Matilda was a detail in

Malmesbury’s (and William’s) larger picture. 283 Malmesbury, Gesta, 35, 79. 284 Ibid., 75, 199, 403. 285 Ibid., 495. 286 Ibid. See Chapter One for further discussion of the consanguinity issue.

65

There is no record in Malmesbury’s history of Matilda’s donation to St. Évroul, nor to

any other institution. This is unsurprising, since Matilda spent most of her time in

Normandy, and it is likely that she directed much of her patronage towards Norman

institutions, as the places with which she was familiar and which were most likely to

directly benefit her.287 Malmesbury was parochial, being most interested in recording

affairs with a direct connection to England. He may not have seen Matilda’s religious

donations as relevant to his narrative when they had no impact on England.

Linda Mitchell has suggested that queens “patronized and founded monastic houses

because they were supposed to oversee the religious education of the kingdom, just as

mothers did in private families.”288 Neither Orderic nor Malmesbury, however,

presented the foundation of Holy Trinity (nor other women’s foundations) in such a

light. Rather, for Orderic the foundation fit neatly into his (non gender-specific)

presentation of virtuous people founding monasteries, which made them worthy of

emulation. Given Malmesbury’s themes included the morality of kings and the justice

of the Conquest, William’s piety was important in establishing the righteousness of

his rule, and Matilda’s piety highlighted William’s.

 

Alms  and  prayer  

After her coronation in England, Orderic recorded William sending Matilda back to

Normandy while he dealt with the ongoing crises in England. Her return to the

Continent served a dual purpose: “that she might give up her time to religious

devotions in peace, away from the English tumults, and together with the boy Robert

could keep the duchy secure.”289 Orderic imagined her political role being bound

tightly with her religious actions, as well as with her role as exemplary wife. Her

“religious devotions” likely involved prayer and the giving of alms, as Orderic

recorded her undertaking the daily distribution of alms – “with such zeal [that they]

brought more succour than I can express to her husband, struggling on the field of

287 Emma Cownie has noted that William and Matilda were the most generous post-Conquest patrons of Bury St. Edmunds, in England. However, as a joint donation this is a separate issue. Emma Cownie, "Religious Patronage at Post-Conquest Bury St Edmunds," HSJ 7 (1995): 3. 288 Linda E. Mitchell, Family Life in the Middle Ages (Westport, Conn., 2007), 212. 289 Vitalis, HE, 2:223.

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battle.”290 Orderic’s remembrance of her death also highlighted Matilda’s generosity

to the poor.

Along with patronage, medieval Christianity saw almsgiving – donations to the poor

and needy – as an activity for the rich and powerful.291 Kimberly LoPrete has

characterised generosity as a “key component of political power.”292 Despite being

keen to provide good examples for his audience to follow, Orderic described

surprisingly few individuals giving alms or praying, suggesting that he did not give

almsgiving the importance that LoPrete has suggested.293 Those instances of

almsgiving that do appear are however worthy of note. He recorded Queen Margaret

of Scotland, on learning of her husband’s death, “ask[ing] for a great crowd of poor

people to be brought together and all her treasure given to them for God’s sake, and

ask[ing] all to pray to the Lord for her and her husband and children.”294 In 1066

William and his army apparently “offered themselves to God, with prayers and gifts

and vows,” while waiting for the wind to take them to England.295 Earl Waltheof was

“exceptional for his generosity and courage: a devoted Christian who… truly loved

the Church and the poor.”296 Almsgiving, therefore, was not a gender-specific

activity. By highlighting Matilda’s pious actions, Orderic held Matilda up as a model

of virtue, one that both men and women in Orderic’s audience would do well to

imitate. She was helpful to her husband, the duchy and kingdom, and the less

fortunate. Matilda, good wife to William, was personally pious. These aspects were

all strands of the knot that made a model wife, and model queen, of the twelfth

century. They made her all the more useful as a didactic model.

Malmesbury rarely included pious actions in his portrayal of historical characters,

although he too discussed Margaret, queen of Scotland and mother of his patron

Edith-Matilda. She was

290 Ibid., 2:224. 291 Marjorie Chibnall, The Empress Matilda: Queen Consort, Queen Mother, and Lady of the English (Oxford, 1992), 177. 292 Kimberly LoPrete, Adela of Blois (Dublin, 2007), 420. 293 He did mention his own abbey distributing alms “to all comers,” and brothers praying: eg. Vitalis, HE, 2:55, 63, 117. 294 Ibid., 4:271-273. 295 Ibid., 2:171. 296 Ibid., 2:321.

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famous for her generosity and holy life…. All her life long, wherever she

went, she kept twenty-four poor persons, whom she fed and clothed. … On

leaving the chapel, she used to feed the poor: three at first, soon nine, then

twenty-four, and finally three hundred.297

Margaret’s holiness had made her famous, and Edith-Matilda had received a Vita of

her mother devoted to that topic. It is therefore unsurprising that Malmesbury should

dwell on Margaret’s piety in his own work. More surprising is his mention that Queen

Emma, after marrying the Danish Cnut, “lavished her treasure… with holy

prodigality” on relics and similar in English churches.298 Malmesbury had previously

castigated Emma for agreeing “to share the bed of one who harassed her husband and

exiled her sons.”299

As with Malmesbury’s inattention to Matilda’s monastic donations, he also ignored

her almsgiving and prayerfulness. Again it is likely that her almsgiving occurred

primarily in Normandy, and thus outside Malmesbury’s sphere of interest.

 

Prophecy  

Orderic further demonstrated Matilda’s piety, and reliance on the church in its various

manifestations, when he recounted her consultation with a “good and holy hermit,”

after the rebellion of Robert Curthose and subsequent conflict between son and

father.300 Malmesbury did not record this event. Orderic included few references to

consultations with or prophecies from holy men or hermits (and Malmesbury fewer).

One that he did include was from Guthlac, son of a Mercian lord, who became a

hermit on the island of Crowland. “[A]bbots, monks, earls, men of wealth, the

troubled in spirit, and the poor” visited him, “all seeking to be healed in body or

297 Malmesbury, Gesta, 555. 298 Ibid., 323. 299 Ibid., 319. 300 Vitalis, HE, 3:105-109. Very few scholars have discussed this event. Brief mentions have appeared in W.M. Aird, "Frustrated Masculinity: the Relationship between William the Conqueror and his Eldest Son," in Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. D.M. Hadley (New York, 1999), 53-54; Elisabeth van Houts, "Gender, Memories and Prophecies in Medieval Europe," in Medieval Narrative Sources: A Gateway into the Medieval Mind, ed. Werner Verbeke, Ludo Milis, and Jean Goossens (Leuven, 2005), 30. For a brief discussion on the place of prophecy in politics, see Robert Lerner, "Medieval Prophecy and Politics," Annali dell'Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento 25 (1999): 417-432.

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soul.”301 Orderic also included extracts from the prophecies of Ambrosius Merlin,

allegedly uttered six hundred years prior to Orderic’s work.302 Orderic apparently took

these prophecies seriously, saying that he would demonstrate to his audience how

they had “in the course of six hundred years been fulfilled in many particulars.” He

closed that section of his work by reminding his audience of events that appeared to

prove them, and declaring that “unless I am mistaken more will be proved true with

sorrow or joy by future generations.”303

Knowing, then, that Orderic presented holy men as credible, his record of Matilda’s

consultation with one is significant. She did so as a result of the rift between William

and Robert, sending “messengers and gifts to [a good and holy hermit], and

[imploring] him to pray to God for her husband and her son Robert, asking him also

to send a prophecy of what would befall them in the future.”304 The reply contained

both “sad and joyful auguries,” which the holy man interpreted to mean that once

Robert was Duke of Normandy, he would allow other people to run rough-shod over

the duchy, but only after Matilda herself was dead.305 Whether or not Orderic believed

that the prophecy had actually been received is irrelevant, since he presented it as real

and discussed later events in Robert’s reign in Normandy as fulfilling it. Not only did

this event portray further evidence of Matilda’s reliance on the church – something

for his audience to emulate – but it provided occasion for Orderic to illuminate

another of his chief themes. That is, all events occur according to the will of God,

even though mortals do not always understand them, at the time or even

subsequently.306

The examples of piety I have examined so far have focussed on actions: preparing for

death; patronage; prayer and generosity; consulting holy men. Orderic, and to a lesser

extent Malmesbury, also discussed individuals’ personal virtues. Frequently, in their

narratives, physical beauty accompanied virtue.

301 Vitalis, HE, 2:331-333. 302 Orderic probably came across them in Nennius’ history. Ibid., 6:381-387, 383 n2. 303 Ibid., 6:383, 387. 304 Ibid., 3:105. 305 Ibid., 3:109. 306 Marjorie Chibnall, The World of Orderic Vitalis: Norman Monks and Norman Knights (Rochester, 1996), 179.

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Spiritual  and  physical  virtue  

Orderic described Matilda as “endowed with fairness of face, noble birth, learning,

beauty of character, and – what is and ever will be more worthy of praise – strong

faith and fervent love of Christ.”307 This was a rare occasion of Orderic providing a

physical description of a person. Two things are therefore worthy of note. First,

Orderic valued her piety above her physical beauty. This is not surprising in an author

who sought to present virtuous lives to emulate, and who championed the sacred life

over the lay. Second, and despite this hierarchy of attributes, he connected her beauty

and her piety. Spiritual and physical beauty were intricately, perhaps intrinsically,

linked, although it is unclear whether Orderic was implying a ‘cause and effect’

relationship – that beauty caused virtue, or vice versa. However the relationship came

about, it is clear that Orderic believed an individual of Matilda’s birth ought to match

her lineage with her faith. She was an exemplar of behaviour for Orderic’s audience,

particularly those from a similarly exalted lineage.

Valerie Garver has noted that, for Western writers, “loveliness had long carried an

implication of virtue especially in descriptions of the highly religious and

aristocratic,” and that this association dated at least to the Hellenistic period.308 More

specifically, Johns has pointed out that Orderic frequently praised women “for their

beauty, fertility and religiosity.” However, Johns did not comment on the implications

of mentioning those traits together.309 Orderic frequently complemented these traits

with a description of a woman’s noble blood. Following Garver, who suggested that

“female saints and royal women might reflect their internal virtue through their

loveliness,” I suggest that Orderic believed these traits could, and should, go together,

and that a noblewoman ought to be both religious and beautiful.310 Given how few

individuals he described, those few descriptions are revealing. Indicative of Orderic’s

approach is a description of Matilda and William’s daughters. He described one,

Adelaide, as “a most fair maiden,” who voluntarily “vowed herself to God when she

reached marriageable age.” Her sisters Agatha (who died for love), Constance, and

307 Vitalis, HE, 2:223. That this was a generic description is not the issue. 308 Valerie L. Garver, Women and Aristocratic Culture in the Carolingian World (Ithaca, 2009), 25, 38. 309 Johns, Noblewomen, 16. 310 Garver, Women and Aristocratic Culture, 56.

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Adela (who both married), were mentioned but not physically described.311 Cecilia,

who became a nun not through her own choice but because of her father’s dedication,

was also not physically described.312 Orderic revealed his preference for the most

obviously religious of the sisters by gracing her with a description. He also included

some descriptions of men which act in a similar way. For example, Earl Waltheof was

both “a handsome man of splendid physique, exceptional for his generosity and

courage” and “a devoted Christian who showed humble obedience to all priests and

monks and truly loved the Church and the poor.”313

Unsurprisingly, Malmesbury praised his initial patron (and mother of his later, hoped-

for patron), Edith-Matilda, as “a woman of exceptional holiness, and by no means

negligible beauty, in piety her mother’s rival, and in her own character exempt from

all evil influence.”314 Thus Malmesbury, too, made a connection between holiness,

virtue and beauty. Of another queen, Ælfgifu, he stated that her “personal beauty and

her skill in handiwork might win the praise of jealousy itself,” and she was “a saintly

person… devoted to good works and endowed with such piety and sweetness of

temper that she would secretly redeem with her own money culprits who had been

openly condemned by a strict verdict of the courts,” as well as being unfailingly

generous.315 No physical description of Matilda exists in Malmesbury’s work,

although he did describe her as “a model of wisdom and exemplar of modesty without

parallel in our time.” This praise occurred in connection with Malmesbury’s praise for

her father, Baldwin, “a man admirable alike for loyalty and wisdom, grey-haired yet

with the vigour of youth, and of exalted position as husband of the [French] king’s

sister.” Matilda was “his daughter [who] had long been married to William.”316

Unlike Orderic, emphasising the connection between beauty and virtue, Malmesbury

complimented Matilda as an aside. Malmesbury’s main intention was first to

compliment her father, and second to compliment her husband. Again, Malmesbury

manifested his aim of praising William through Matilda. Malmesbury saw Matilda

311 Vitalis, HE, 3:115-117. 312 Ibid., 3:9-11. 313 Ibid., 2:321. 314 Malmesbury, Gesta, 757. 315 Ibid., 253. 316 Ibid., 437.

71

and William as a “moral package.”317 By delineating Matilda’s wisdom and modesty

he complimented William.

 

Conclusion  

Both Orderic and Malmesbury acknowledged Matilda as a virtuous, pious woman.

She founded a monastery, donated to others, was generous and prayerful, and her

beauty and lineage were directly connected to her virtue. Rather than being

understood as the ‘facts’ of Matilda’s life, this representation should be seen as

fulfilling the different aims of the two historians. For Orderic, Matilda’s piety –

exemplified through her death and funeral – made her an exemplary woman, one who

could and should be emulated by Orderic’s audience. Because she donated to St.

Évroul, recounting her story met another of Orderic’s purposes, by informing future

monks about their benefactors. On the other hand, Matilda primarily interested

Malmesbury because of her connection to William the Conqueror. Intent on both

justifying the Norman Conquest and presenting examples of righteous kingly

behaviour, and regarding husbands and wives as a ‘moral package’, Malmesbury

offered Matilda as an additional lens through which the audience could view her

husband. Manifestations of Matilda’s piety were therefore useful didactic tools for

both historians, for different reasons. Understanding the didactic nature of

descriptions of piety thus enables historians to consider more appropriately why such

records were made, and what it means more generally for the historical characters

under consideration.

317 Parsons, "Loved him," 279. Compare how King Philip of France was portrayed because of his adulterous marriage to Bertrada of Montfort: Malmesbury, Gesta, 439, 597.

72

Conclusion  

John Ward has argued that “the medieval historian was driven to harness history in

ways that modern historians have been taught to find repugnant: history as set-piece

rhetoric for a cause.”318 William of Malmesbury and Orderic Vitalis were typical of

this approach. They did not write simply to record past deeds for their present, and

future, audiences. Rather, they wrote of those deeds in order to convey messages

about God’s presence and His unknowable actions in the world; about how society

should run, and how individuals ought to behave. Both understood that history could

be used for didactic, edificatory purposes. Malmesbury aimed to present behaviour

appropriate for kings through his study of the kings of the English, and to legitimise

the Norman Conquest. By presenting God’s actions in the eleventh and twelfth

centuries, Orderic wanted to provide examples for Christians to emulate. Matilda of

Flanders was useful to Malmesbury and Orderic in meeting their purposes. I have

argued that they could manipulate their representations of Matilda through her

familial relationships, political actions, and piety, to fulfil their didactic purposes.

In Chapter One, I examined how Matilda’s familial relationships were described.

Both Orderic and Malmesbury primarily focussed on her marriage to, and subsequent

relationship with, William. Through that relationship, Orderic presented Matilda’s life

as one to emulate, thus meeting one of his goals in writing a history. Malmesbury, on

the other hand, pictured a wife whose actions glorified her husband. In doing so, her

husband William was held up as a worthy king. This both exemplified appropriate

kingly behaviour and legitimised the Norman Conquest. I also examined how

Matilda’s relationships with her children, and with her natal family, were represented.

In particular, descriptions of how Matilda supported her son’s rebellion illustrated key

differences between Orderic and Malmesbury’s intentions.

By virtue of marriage Matilda was duchess of Normandy, and later queen of England.

In Chapter Two, I examined how Orderic and Malmesbury addressed her political

actions. I focussed primarily on Matilda’s actions after the Norman Conquest, because

318 John O. Ward, "Some Principles of Rhetorical Historiography in the Twelfth Century," in Classical Rhetoric and Medieval Historiography, ed. Ernst Breisach (Kalamazoo, 1985), 103-165, 104.

73

neither historian discussed her actions before becoming queen. Orderic presented her

as more politically involved than Malmesbury, in both England and Normandy and

always in good, Christian ways, making her a good role model to his audience.

Malmesbury largely downplayed Matilda’s political involvement because his focus

was on England (not Normandy) and William as its king. When he did mention her

political involvement, it was in order to highlight the positive aspects of her husband

William’s behaviour.

Finally, in Chapter Three I considered representations of Matilda’s piety. The two

portrayals of her death epitomised the differing approaches taken by the two

historians. Orderic concentrated on the pious nature of Matilda’s attitude toward

death, allowing him to demonstrate that she was a worthy example for those

concerned to meet death in a Christian manner. Taking a different line, and following

a pattern he set elsewhere in his history, Malmesbury used the occasion of Matilda’s

death to once again focus on William’s behaviour, to stress attitudes appropriate for a

king – in particular piety and chastity. I also considered other aspects of Matilda’s

piety as the historians represented it: through patronage, prayer and almsgiving, and

the conjunction between her beauty and personal virtue. Throughout, Orderic was

most interested in using Matilda as an example of piety to copy. Malmesbury used her

to highlight William’s piety, and by extension the justice of the Norman Conquest.

Orderic included the most detail about Matilda’s life of any contemporary or near-

contemporary historian. Indeed, he discussed her in more detail than any other

historian until Edward Freeman and Agnes Strickland in the nineteenth century, who

were themselves only surpassed by Laura Gathagan’s thesis more than a century later.

Orderic did not discuss Matilda’s life simply out of interest or a desire to record as

much as possible. Instead, in Matilda Orderic found a useful exemplar to present to

his audience of how to live a virtuous life, and why. The ‘how’ was found in her

conduct as wife, mother, daughter, duchess and queen, and in external manifestations

of her piety. These things were tied together, and the ‘why’ revealed, particularly in

Orderic’s discussion of Matilda’s death, and specifically her obituary: she gained both

earthly and heavenly rewards.

74

In comparison with Orderic, Malmesbury included little detail of Matilda’s life. This

did not suggest disapproval. His inclusion of other powerful women in his history,

and his hope of presenting his work to Empress Matilda after its initial commissioning

by her mother, make such a suggestion unlikely. Instead, it is more plausible that it

resulted from his stated, parochial, aim of focussing explicitly on England, which

necessarily involved ignoring Matilda because she was infrequently directly

concerned with that country. When Malmesbury did include her – such as in

discussing her marriage to William, their children, and her death – his presentation of

her actions was largely designed to amplify those of her husband. Rather than

complimenting her piety, for example, Malmesbury used examples of it to valorise

William. This met both of Malmesbury’s intentions in writing his history: presenting

appropriate kingly behaviours, including piety, and demonstrating that the Norman

Conquest was legitimate. Showing that William was a pious king aided him in

achieving these aims.

Orderic and Malmesbury’s representations of Matilda were affected not only by their

aims for their histories, and contemporary perceptions of women, but also by their

views of Matilda’s husband and their descendants. Changing historical perceptions of,

and attitudes towards, individual women’s families could impact on the portrayal of

those women themselves. For example, the historical representations of the English

queens immediately preceding Matilda, namely Emma and Edith, changed over time.

This was primarily due to changing perceptions of the men associated with them

(especially their husbands).319 Orderic and Malmesbury both claimed to be attempting

a balanced view of Matilda’s husband. Malmesbury specifically contrasted himself

with those who either lavished praise or overly condemned. Orderic piously suggested

he would “look to neither victors nor vanquished for the honour of any reward.”320

Both of them reported actions that cast a negative light on William.321 However, they

still presented William as a worthy king. On the other hand, William’s successor, his

and Matilda’s second son William Rufus, was not treated so well by the historians,

319 See Pauline Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith (Oxford, 2001), 6-27. Judith Abbott also noted this effect: Judith Abbott, "Queens and Queenship in Anglo-Saxon England, 954-1066: Holy and Unholy Alliances" (Unpublished PhD thesis, The University of Connecticut, 1989), e.g. 336. 320 William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, trans. R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford, 1998), 425; Orderic Vitalis, Historia Ecclesiastica, trans. Marjorie Chibnall, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1969-1980), 189. 321 For example, they both reported trouble at his funeral: Malmesbury, Gesta, 511-513; Vitalis, HE, 4:101-109.

75

with the differences between him and his father frequently emphasised. After praising

the beginning of his reign, and Rufus’ nobility, Malmesbury condemned the members

of Rufus’ court as effeminate, with “[s]oftness of body rivalling the weaker sex,” and

mourned the fact that as king, Rufus “did little worthy of praise, save in the first days

of his reign.” Orderic agreed, complaining that the “wanton youth… [were] sunk in

effeminacy,” such that “the healthy customs of our fathers [had] almost wholly

disappeared.”322 Rufus’ successor, his brother Henry I (under whom both historians

were writing), redeemed the dynasty for Orderic and Malmesbury, and received their

praise and approval. Malmesbury described him as “resembl[ing] his father rather

than his brother,” while Orderic claimed he “governed the realm… prudently and well

through prosperity and adversity.”323 Courtesy of her relationships with William the

Conqueror and Henry I, of whose reigns they approved, and despite the hiccup of

William Rufus’ reign, these historians had reason to praise Matilda. Her familial

connections made her useful in furthering their didactic intentions.

I did not undertake this thesis with the intention of attempting a recovery of what

Matilda was ‘really’ like. Instead, I proposed that it is worthwhile examining the

representation of an individual in medieval historical writing because it can illuminate

the intentions of the author. This has not, of course, been an exhaustive analysis, even

of these historians; for instance, I have not examined the portrayal of Matilda in

Orderic’s interpolations into William of Jumièges’ text. How other, contemporary,

historians treated Matilda, such as Jumièges or William of Poitiers, or Robert Torigni

in his own interpolations into Jumièges’ text, would no doubt reveal other ways in

which historians used Matilda to further their own purposes. This approach could also

be applied to other individuals in medieval historical writing. I believe it could be a

particularly useful way of considering constructions of masculinity, especially given

what Gabrielle Spiegel has termed the ‘political utility’ of medieval historiography.

Malmesbury declared Matilda of Flanders to be “a model of wisdom and exemplar of

modesty without parallel in our time,” while Orderic described her as “endowed with

fairness of face, noble birth, learning, beauty of character, and… strong faith and

322 Malmesbury, Gesta, 561, 425; Vitalis, HE, 4:189. 323 Malmesbury, Gesta, 425; Vitalis, HE, 5:295.

76

fervent love of Christ.”324 These sentiments may well have been true, but both

historians intended Matilda to act as a didactic figure in their histories. She is a prime

example of how women were ‘imagined constructions’ in medieval historical texts.

324 Malmesbury, Gesta, 437; Vitalis, HE, 2:225.

77

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Minerva Access is the Institutional Repository of The University of Melbourne

Author/s:

Pierce, Alexandra Lee

Title:

"A model of wisdom and exemplar of modesty without parallel in our time": how Matilda of

Flanders was represented in two twelfth-century histories

Date:

2010

Citation:

Pierce, A. L. (2010). "A model of wisdom and exemplar of modesty without parallel in our

time": how Matilda of Flanders was represented in two twelfth-century histories. Masters

Research thesis, School of Historical Studies, The University of Melbourne.

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How Matilda of Flanders was represented in two twelfth-century histories

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