Around the year 1049, William, Duke of Normandy and future conqueror of England, rode furiously to the palace of Baldwin V, Count of Flanders, in Bruges. Upon reaching it, he encountered the object of his rage as she was leaving the palace chapel: Matilda, the count’s only daughter. This headstrong girl had dared to refuse his offer of marriage, haughtily declaring that she would not lower herself so far as to accept a mere bastard. Without hesitation, the young duke dragged her to the ground by her hair and beat her mercilessly, rolling her in the mud and ruining her rich gown. Then, without another word, he mounted his horse and rode back to Normandy at full speed. Shaken and humiliated, Matilda was helped to her feet by her terrified ladies and carried home to bed. A few days later, she shocked her family, the court, and most of Europe by declaring that she would marry none but William. Thus began one of the most turbulent marriages in history.
Matilda of Flanders was the diminutive yet formidable wife of William the Conqueror. She broke the mold of female consorts and established a model of active queenship that would influence her successors for centuries to come. By wielding immense power in both Normandy and England—not just on behalf of her husband, but at times in direct opposition to him—she confounded the traditional views of women in medieval society. Her remarkable story is played out against one of the most fascinating and transformative periods of European history. Dutiful wife, ambitious consort, doting mother, cold pragmatist, proud scion of a noble race, her character emerges in all its brilliantly contrasting facets.
And yet Matilda has been largely overlooked by historians, and there has never been a full biography of her in English. In the many modern-day accounts of William the Conqueror and the Norman invasion, his wife is accorded little more than an occasional reference. One leading medievalist has dismissed her as “a completely colourless figure,” and in a printed collection of contemporary legal documents (in which her name features time and again) she does not even warrant her own place in the index, which lists her instead under the entry for her father, Baldwin V of Flanders.1
Such neglect can be blamed partly upon the perceived lack of contemporary sources for Matilda’s life. The lives of women in this period are often so scarcely covered that it raises the question of whether it is possible to write a biography of any of them. The Bayeux Tapestry, for example, depicts six hundred men and only three women, and as a leading authority has observed, “the bulk of medieval records were written by men for men.”2 Moreover, even if women had wished to contribute to the historiography of the age, most were illiterate.
Nevertheless, there is a staggering array of contemporary records upon which I have been able to draw for this biography. The eleventh and early twelfth centuries were a time of intense activity among monastic historians. Motivated by a desire to preserve the traditions of their communities, they would spend many hours in the scriptorium recording the history of their own religious house, including the lives of its abbots and lay patrons. This grew to encompass local, national, and even international events that occurred during their lifetime or that could be remembered by the elders of the community in which they lived.
The accounts—or chronicles—that emerged from the labors of monks across England and Normandy span the entire period of Matilda’s story. Some were written at the time that the dramatic events of her life unfolded, whereas others were retrospective accounts from the later eleventh and early twelfth centuries. They vary enormously in scope, detail, and accuracy, from the fulsome (and often salacious) early-twelfth-century narratives of Orderic Vitalis and William of Malmesbury to accounts such as theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, which at times is so concise that the events of an entire year are covered by a single sentence.
The major chroniclers all drew upon a common pool of earlier sources, either quoting them verbatim or embellishing them with their own interpretations. Thus arose a form of historiographical “telephone game,” in which fact intermingled with fiction, real events with legend. The chroniclers also often wrote their histories as morality tales rather than strictly factual accounts. Although he claimed that each generation had a duty to keep a truthful record for the glory of God, Orderic Vitalis also firmly believed that history provided a record of events that was full of moral examples profitable to future generations: “Everyone should daily grow in knowledge of how he ought to live, and follow the noble examples of famous men now dead to the best of his ability.”3
The story of Matilda’s rejection of William—and its aftermath—is found in the Chronicle of Tours, an extraordinarily lurid and sensational account written almost two centuries after the events that it describes. It is accounts such as this that are responsible for the many myths and legends about Matilda that sprang up during the years after her death. They provide a marked contrast to the official documents that chart her public duties as duchess of Normandy and queen of England. The emerging portrait is of a woman of profound contradictions: on the one hand a model wife and consort, on the other a headstrong, adulterous traitor.
Given that she was the consort of England’s most famous conquering king, the number of established facts about Matilda of Flanders in which we can rest any confidence is surprisingly small. The years before she rose to prominence as duchess of Normandy and then as queen of England are given only the most cursory mention in the contemporary records. It is nigh on impossible to decipher such fundamental details as how many children she bore William, and in what order. But by piecing together the often fragmentary evidence, we can still paint a vivid picture of this most striking medieval queen.
Matilda spent most of her life in Normandy, and it was there that she enjoyed the greatest political power. The proliferation of Norman sources has therefore been of considerable value in exploring her history. But after 1066, her attention was increasingly drawn across the Channel to her husband’s newly conquered kingdom. She would become the first woman to be crowned queen of England and formally recognized as such, and would wield authority so effectively that she proved an inspiration for female consorts for many centuries afterward.
One of the most important sources for the period of Matilda’s reign in England is the series of charters to which she put her signature. These were usually written to record the transfer of property or estates, whereby the king and queen would grant lands to a favored subject (or in some cases a religious house) who would manage them on their behalf. Matilda signed these with an elaborate Jerusalem-style cross, which is both symmetrical and made with “une maine ferme” (a firm hand)—suggestive of her strength of character—distinguishing hers from the more mundane marks that were made by her fellow attesters.4 By following the charters, we can trace the itinerary of this most peripatetic of consorts, and the frequency with which she witnessed them helps us grasp her growing influence and enormous importance in William’s administration.
Arguably the most famous documentary source for the eleventh century is Domesday Book. Immensely valuable as a testament to the impact of the Norman Conquest upon England, it also tells us of the considerable wealth that Matilda accumulated during her tenure as queen. Moreover, it gives us an insight into her career as chief justiciar of England during William’s frequent absences, and the many references to her settling contentious property disputes prove just how active she was in this sphere. Domesday also holds a rare clue to the identity of one of Matilda’s daughters, and as such it has shed much-needed light on a subject that still confounds historians today.
As well as the documentary material, there is a rich background of architectural evidence—from the magnificent abbeys that Matilda and William commissioned at Caen and Rouen to their lavish ducal palaces at Falaise, Bayeux, Bonneville-sur-Touques, and Fécamp and the Conqueror’s imposing fortresses in England, notably the Tower of London and Windsor Castle. Other physical remains help to bring the narrative to life. These include the statues and frescoes representing Matilda and her husband that adorned the walls of cathedrals and abbeys across France, her remarkably preserved tomb at Caen, and—most famously—the unique record of the Bayeux Tapestry, which was for many years believed to be the work of Matilda and her ladies.
The making of the tapestry has in some respects served as a model for the compilation of this biography. On their own, the various threads of evidence have at first appeared fragile and insubstantial, but when carefully and painstakingly bound together, they present a rich and illuminating picture of one of the most remarkable women in history.