Matilda of Flanders

Matilda was born into the House of Flanders to Baldwin V of Flanders and Adela of France.^[1] Flanders was of strategic importance to England and most of Europe as a "stepping stone between England and the Continent" necessary for strategic trade and for keeping the Scandinavian intruders from England.^[3] Matilda's principal attribute was her descent from Charlemagne and her many royal ancestors, her closest being her grandfather Robert II of France. She was the niece of King Henry I of France, William's suzerain, and at his death in 1060, first cousin to his successor King Philip I of France. A member of the aristocracy, she was closely related to most of the royal families of Europe. A marriage to a member of the (Carolingian) royal family was a means of upward mobility for a soldier or nobleman like William. Her descent from Alfred the Great (whose daughter Ælfthryth was the mother of Arnulf I, Count of Flanders, and great-great-great-great-grandmother of Matilda) also proved a legitimizing factor as queen of England.^[4][5][6] For these reasons, Matilda was of grander birth than William, who was illegitimate.

William started to negotiate as early as 1047 with Baldwin V about a marriage with Matilda.^[7] Both Baldwin and William had a common interest in stabilizing the relations between Flanders and Normandy and settling border disputes through a marriage.^[7][8][9] For William the marriage had the added value of marrying into a house with a very strong ancestral bloodline which would compensate his own illigimite ancestry.^[7] Despite a papal ban in 1049 by Pope Leo IX at the Council of Reims on the grounds of consanguinity,^[10] William and Matilda were married after a delay in c. 1051–1052.^[11] According to the eleventh-century Gesta Normannorum Ducum compiled by William of Jumièges, the marriage took place at the castle of Eu.^[12]

Like many royal marriages of the period, it breached the rules of consanguinity, then at their most restrictive (to seven generations or degrees of relatedness); Matilda and William were third cousins once removed, so fifth-grade relatives: the great-great-grandmother of Matilde was Gerloc, the daughter of Rollo. The great-great-grandfather of William was William Longsword, the son of Rollo.^[13] As the ban gave his opponents an argument to dispute his authority as the Duke of Normandy, William sent his friend and adviser Lanfranc, at the time prior of Bec Abbey, to Rome in order to advocate a lift of the ban. Lefranc was not successful with Pope Leo IX nor his two successors Victor II and Stephen IX, who were all of German origin and anti-Normandic due to the Norman conquest of southern Italy,^[14] but finally he was more successful with Pope Nicholas II and obtained a papal dispensation in 1059.^[15]

The marriage was by all accounts very happy and fruitful. Matilda bore her husband at least nine children in a period of twenty years, and most contemporaries believed that William was never unfaithful to her.^[16][8] There is no evidence of any illegitimate children born to William.^[17]

Only one of her children was born in England; Henry was born in Yorkshire when Matilda accompanied her husband in the Harrying of the North.^[18]

Matilda took a close interest in the education of her children, who were unusually well educated for contemporary royalty. Her daughters were educated and taught to read Latin at the Abbey of Sainte-Trinité in Caen.^[19] The boys were tutored by Lanfranc, who was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1070.^[20]

When William embarked on the Norman Conquest of England, he sailed in his flagship Mora, which Matilda had given him.^[21] William appointed Matilda as regent for the Duchy of Normandy during his absence.^[22] Matilda successfully guided the duchy through this period in the name of her fourteen-year-old son; no major uprisings or unrest occurred.^[23] She served as regent in Normandy during the absence of William six times: in 1066–1067, in 1067–1068, in 1069, in 1069–1072, in 1074 and, finally, in 1075–1076.^[24]

Matilda travelled for the first time to England in April 1068, nearly two years after William conquered England.^[25][26] She was crowned queen on 11 May 1068 in Westminster Abbey during the feast of Pentecost (Whit Sunday), in a ceremony presided over by the archbishop of York. Three new phrases were incorporated to cement the importance of a queen, stating that she was divinely placed by God, shared in royal power, and blessed her people by her power and virtue.^[27][28] Her claims to authority were enhanced through a special acclamation, or laudes, crafted especially for her.^[29] William was re-crowned at the same time in order to demand the court's respect.^[25]

William was furious when he discovered she sent large sums of money to their exiled son Robert.^[30] She effected a truce between them at Easter 1080.^{[citation needed][31]}

She stood as godmother for Matilda of Scotland, who would become Queen of England after marrying Matilda's son Henry I. During the christening, the baby pulled Queen Matilda's headdress down on top of herself, which was seen as an omen that the younger Matilda would be queen some day as well.^[32]

Matilda fell ill during the summer of 1083 and died on 2 November 1083.^[1] Her husband was present for her final confession.^[33] William swore to give up hunting, his favorite sport, to express his grief after the death of his wife.^[34][35][36] He himself died four years later in 1087.^[37]

She was buried in Caen at the Abbaye aux Dames. An 11th-century slab of black ledger stone decorated with her epitaph, marks her grave at the rear of the church. Over time Matilda's tomb was desecrated and her original coffin destroyed. Her remains were placed in a sealed box and reburied under the original black slab.^[38][39] In 1959 Matilda's incomplete skeleton was examined and her femur and tibia were measured to determine her height. Her height was 5 feet (152 cm), a normal female height for the time.^[39] However, as a result of this examination she was misreported as being 4 feet 2 inches (127 cm)^[40] leading to the myth that she was extremely small.^[41]

Matilda and William had four sons and at least five daughters.^[16] The birth order of the boys is clear, but no source gives the relative order of birth of the daughters.^[16]

There were rumours that Matilda had been in love with the English ambassador to Flanders and with the great Anglo-Saxon thegn Brictric, son of Algar, who (according to the account by the Continuator of Wace and others^[51]) in his youth declined her advances. Whatever the truth of the matter, years later she is said to have used her authority to confiscate Brictric's lands and throw him into prison, where he died.^[52]

According to a twelfth-century chronicler from Saint-Martin de Tours^[53], when the Norman duke William the Bastard (later called the Conqueror) sent his representative to ask for Matilda's hand in marriage, she replied that she was far too high-born to consider marrying a bastard. After hearing this response, William rode from Normandy to Bruges, found her at the Burg square emerging from Saint-Donatian church, threw her on the ground and pursued his rough courtship in the roadside mud.^[25][31][54] Naturally, Baldwin took offence at this; but before they could draw swords, Matilda settled the matter^[55] by refusing to marry anyone but William.^[4] In the thirteenth-century Chronique Rimée of Philippe Mouskes, Matilda exclaims preferring to become a nun instead of the wife of a bastard.^[56]

As penance for the dispensation Matilda and William promised to found an abbey each: the Abbaye aux Hommes and the Abbaye aux Dames or the Sainte-Trinité Abbey.^[57] William and Matilda indeed built these abbeys but it is not proven that penance was the motive for the foundation of these abbeys. As his capital Rouen was situated too far in the East of his territories, William wanted to expand Caen as his capital in the West, where he built a large castle. The two abbeys were a further testimony to their authority and wealth.^[58]

For many years it was thought that Matilda had some involvement in the creation of the Bayeux Tapestry (commonly called La Tapisserie de la Reine Mathilde in French), but historians no longer believe that; it seems to have been commissioned by William's half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and made by English artists in Kent.^[59]