Matilda of Tuscany
Matilda of Tuscany, or Matilda of Canossa, also referred to as la Gran Contessa, was a member of the House of Canossa in the second half of the eleventh century. Matilda was one of the most important governing figures of the Italian Middle Ages. She reigned in a time of constant battles, political intrigues, and excommunications by the Church.
She ruled as a feudal margravine and, as a relative of the imperial Salian dynasty, she brokered a settlement in the so-called Investiture Controversy. In this extensive conflict with the emerging reform Papacy over the relationship between spiritual and secular power, Pope Gregory VII dismissed and excommunicated the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV in 1076. At the same time, Matilda came into possession of a substantial territory that included present-day Lombardy, Emilia, Romagna, and Tuscany. She made the Canossa Castle, in the Apennines south west of Reggio Emilia, the centre of her domains.
After his famous penitential walk in front of Canossa Castle in January 1077, Henry IV was accepted back into the Church by the Pope. However, the understanding between the Emperor and the Pope was short-lived. In the conflicts with Henry IV that arose a little later, from 1080, Matilda put all her military and material resources into the service of the Papacy. Her court became a refuge for many displaced persons during the turmoil of the investiture dispute and enjoyed a cultural boom. Even after the death of Pope Gregory VII in 1085, Matilda remained a vital pillar of the Reform Church. Between 1081 and 1098, grueling disputes with Henry IV meant Canossan rule was in crisis. The historical record is sparse for this time. A turning point resulted from Matilda forming a coalition with the southern German dukes, who opposed Henry IV.
In 1097, Henry IV retreated past the Alps to the northern portion of the Holy Roman Empire, and a power vacuum developed in Italy. The struggle between regnum and sacerdotium changed the social and rulership structure of the Italian cities permanently, giving them space for emancipation from foreign rule and communal development. From autumn 1098, Matilda regained many of her lost domains. Until the end, she tried to bring the cities under her control. After 1098, she increasingly used the opportunities offered to her to consolidate her rule again. Since she was childless, in her final years, Matilda developed her legacy by focusing her donation activity on Polirone Abbey.
The account of Donizo reports that between 6 and 11 May 1111, Matilda was crowned Imperial Vicar and Vice-Queen of Italy by Henry V at Bianello Castle. With her death, the House of Canossa became extinct in 1115. Well into the thirteenth century, popes and emperors fought over what was called the Terre Matildiche as their rich inheritance.
The rule of Matilda and her influence became identified as a cultural epoch in Italy that found expression in the flowering of numerous artistic, musical, and literary designs and miracle stories and legends. Her legacy reached its apogee during the Counter-Reformation and the Baroque Period. Pope Urban VIII had Matilda's body transferred to Rome in 1630, where she was the first woman to be buried in Saint Peter's Basilica.
Origins of the House of Canossa
Although these names were only created by later generations, Matilda came from the noble House of Canossa, also named the Attonids. The oldest proven ancestor of the House of Canossa was the nobleman Sigifred, who lived in the county of Lucca during the first third of the tenth century. He probably increased his sphere of influence in the area around Parma and in the foothills of the Apennines. His son, Adalbert-Atto, was able to bring several castles in the foothills of the Apennines under his control in the politically fragmented region. Adalbert-Atto married Hildegard, of the Supponid Frankish noble family who had been very influential in northern Italy.Adalbert-Atto built the Canossa Castle in the southwest of the mountains of Reggio Emilia. After the unexpectred death of King Lothair II of Italy in 950, Adalbert-Atto provided refuge in Canossa Castle to Lothair's widow, Queen Adelaide, after Berengar of Ivrea attempted to take power in Italy and imprisoned her for a short time. King Otto I of East Francia then intervened in Italy and married Adelaide in 951. This resulted in a close bond between the House of Canossa and the Ottonian dynasty. Adalbert-Atto appeared in documents from the reign of Otto I as an advocate and he was able to establish contacts with the Papacy for the first time in the wake of the Ottonians. Otto I also awarded the counties of Reggio and Modena to Adalbert-Atto. In 977 at the latest, the county of Mantua was added to the domains awarded to Adalbert-Atto.
Adalbert-Atto's son, Tedald, continued the close ties to the Ottonian rulers from 988. Tedald was the grandfather of Matilda. In 996 he is listed as dux et marchio in a document. This title was adopted by all subsequent rulers of the House of Canossa, an inheritance preventing disputes among the three sons of Tedald.
The rise of the family reached its apex under Matilda's father, Boniface. The three successive Canossa rulers instituted monasteries for their expansion of rule. The founded monasteries were established in places of transport and strategic importance for the administrative consolidation of their large estates. Three family saints were used to stabilize the House of Canossa's power structure and the family sought to exert influence on convents that had been in existence for a long time. Transfer of monasteries to local bishops and the promotion of spiritual institutions also enlarged their network of alliances. An appearance as the guardian of order consolidated their position along the Via Aemilia. Historian Arnaldo Tincani was able to prove the considerable number of 120 farms in the Canossa estate near the Po river.
Parents, birth, and early years
Matilda's parents, Boniface and Beatrice of Lorraine first met on the occasion of the wedding of Conrad II's son Henry with Gunhilda of Denmark in 1036 at the city of Nijmegen shortly after Boniface had become a widower early that year. Beatrice was the niece and foster daughter of Empress Gisela of Swabia. A marriage covenant was arranged and one year later, in June 1037, Boniface and Beatrice celebrated their marriage in high style, keeping court at Marengo for three months afterward. According to the marital agreements, Beatrice brought important assets in Lorraine: the Château of Briey, the Lordships of Stenay, Mouzay, Juvigny, Longlier, and Orval that constituted the northern part of her paternal family's ancestral lands. Beatrice and her sister, Sophia, were the daughters of Duke Frederick II of Upper Lorraine and Matilda of Swabia. After the deaths of their parents she and her sister had been raised in the imperial court by their maternal aunt, Empress Gisela. For Boniface, the marriage to Beatrice, a close relative of the emperor, brought him not only prestige, but also the prospect to have an heir. His first wife had been Richilda, a daughter of Giselbert II, Count Palatine of Bergamo and their only child was a daughter who was born and died in 1014. Boniface and Beatrice had three children, Beatrice, Frederick, and Matilda. Matilda, probably born around 1046, was the youngest child.Matilda's birthplace and exact date of birth are unknown. Italian scholars have been arguing about her place of birth for centuries. According to Francesco Maria Fiorentini, a doctor and scholar of the seventeenth century, she was born in Lucca, an assumption reinforced by a miniature in the early twelfth-century Vita Mathildis by the monk Donizo, where Matilda is referred to as 'Resplendent Matilda' : since the Latin word lucens is similar to lucensis, this also may be a reference to Matilda's birthplace and he interpreted it as such. For Benedictine scholar Camillo Affarosi, Canossa was her place of birth. Lino Lionello Ghirardini and Paolo Golinelli both advocated Mantua as her birthplace. A recent publication by Michèle Kahn Spike also favors Mantua, as it was the center for Boniface's court at the time. In addition, Ferrara or the small Tuscan town of San Miniato have been discussed as the possible birthplace. According to author Elke Goez, sources cannot prove that there was a permanent household location for Boniface of Canossa in either Mantua or any other place.
Scholars generally believe that Matilda must have spent her early years around her mother, who was renowned for her learning. She was literate in Latin, as well as reputed to speak German and French. The extent of Matilda's education in military matters is debated. It has been asserted that she was taught strategy, tactics, riding, and wielding weapons, but some scholarship challenges these claims. Her father, Boniface of Canossa was a feared and hated prince for some small vassals throughout his life. On 7 May 1052, he was ambushed while hunting in the forest of San Martino dall'Argine near Mantua and killed. Following the death of their father, Matilda's brother, Frederick, inherited the family lands and titles under the regency of their mother, who not only managed to hold the family patrimony together, but also made important contacts with leading figures in the Church renewal movement. Beatrice developed into an increasingly important pillar of the reform of the Papacy. Matilda's older sister, Beatrice, died the next year, making Matilda heiress presumptive to Frederick's personal holdings. Beatrice was Regent of Tuscany from 1052 until her death in 1076, during the minority of and in co-regency with Matilda.
In mid-1054, determined to safeguard the interests of her children as well as her own, Beatrice of Lorraine married Godfrey the Bearded, a distant kinsman who had been stripped of the Duchy of Upper Lorraine after openly rebelling against Emperor Henry III. Emperor Henry III was enraged by his cousin Beatrice's unauthorised union with his most vigorous adversary and took the opportunity to have her arrested, along with Matilda, when he marched south to attend a synod in Florence on Pentecost in 1055.
Her brother Frederick's rather suspicious death soon thereafter, made Matilda the last member of the House of Canossa. Mother and daughter were taken to Germany, but Godfrey the Bearded successfully avoided capture. Unable to defeat him, Henry III sought a rapprochement. The Emperor's early death in October 1056, which brought to throne the underage Henry IV, seems to have accelerated the negotiations and the restoration of the previous balance of power.
Godfrey the Bearded was reconciled with the imperial family and recognized as Margrave of Tuscany in December, while Beatrice and Matilda were released. By the time she and her mother returned to Italy, in the company of Pope Victor II, Matilda was formally acknowledged as sole heiress to the greatest territorial lordship in the southern part of the Empire. In June 1057 the Pope held a synod in Florence; he was present during the infamous capture of Beatrice and Matilda, and, with the deliberated choice of location of the synod also made it clear that the House of Canossa had returned to Italy, strengthened at the side of the Pope and had been completely rehabilitated; with Henry IV being a minor, the reform Papacy sought the protection of the powerful House of Canossa. According to Donizo, the Panegyric biographer of Matilda and her ancestors, she was familiar with both French and German due to her origins and living conditions.
Matilda's mother and stepfather thus became heavily involved in the series of disputed papal elections during their regency, supporting the Gregorian Reforms. Godfrey the Bearded's brother, Frederick, became Pope Stephen IX, while both of the following two popes, Nicholas II and Alexander II, had been Tuscan bishops. Matilda made her first journey to Rome with her family in the entourage of Nicholas II in 1059. Godfrey and Beatrice actively assisted them in dealing with antipopes, while the role of adolescent Matilda remains unclear. A contemporary account of her stepfather's 1067 expedition against Prince Richard I of Capua on behalf of the papacy mentions Matilda's participation in the campaign, describing it as the "first service that the most excellent daughter of Boniface offered to the blessed prince of the apostles".