The late 1050s and early 1060s were one of the most stable periods of William and Matilda’s marriage. Their domestic harmony and burgeoning dynasty made them a formidable partnership. This was bolstered by the duke’s military successes, which helped to establish Normandy’s preeminence in western Europe. The growing self-confidence of the duchy was reflected in a marked cultural and economic development during the 1050s. The towns of Rouen, Caen, and Bayeux throve on the profits of merchants and artisans, while to the south, a prosperous wine trade brought wealth to the duchy from neighboring principalities and overseas.

Normandy’s prosperity was reflected by the style in which its duke and duchess lived. Although little survives of their palaces at Falaise, Bayeux, Bonneville-sur-Touques, Rouen, and Fécamp, the locations still evoke a powerful sense of the past. It is easy to see why Bonneville-sur-Touques was said to be William and Matilda’s favorite residence, as it commanded breathtaking views of the sea to the north and the Touques valley to the south.

There is more tangible evidence of the buildings in which they lived at Caen, where excavations carried out in the 1960s provided an impression of what the ducal palace would have looked like. It was built on a huge scale and would have dominated the entire city as well as the surrounding countryside. Designed for defense as much as for comfort, it was encircled by a thick stone wall that would have had a continuous walkway for William’s guards to patrol. The entrance to the palace was through an imposing tower gateway, no doubt designed to impress visitors with the power of the residents within.

Once they had passed through the gateway, visitors would have been confronted by a bewildering array of buildings. In addition to the structure holding the duke and duchess’s suite of rooms, there were also numerous private houses for their officials and attendants. At the center of the complex was the Great Hall. Measuring eighteen meters by six, this was modest compared to the halls in the palaces that William would later build in England, and was less than half the size of the Great Hall that Henry VIII would build at Hampton Court some five centuries afterward. Traces of a chapel were also found, which would have been for William and Matilda’s private use.

Comfortable they may have been, but such residences were by no means as luxurious as those enjoyed by later rulers. Space was at a premium within each palace and castle, so it was common for the larger rooms to serve several purposes. The Great Hall, for example, was intended for large assemblies, but it was used as a dining hall in between times. Trestle tables were erected for meals and then removed at night so that the hall could be transformed into a dormitory for hundreds of courtiers. The lucky ones might secure a bench on which to sleep, but most would have to make do with the rushes that covered the floor.

The ducal couple enjoyed rather more creature comforts. Their private apartments were situated in the warmest—and safest—part of the castle, above the Great Hall. This area, known as the solar, included a bedchamber each for the duke and duchess. Their beds were surrounded by curtains made from heavy, richly embroidered fabric to keep out the drafts in winter, as well as to provide some privacy.

Throughout the duchy, castles were more common than palaces. Some of these, such as Falaise, William’s birthplace, as well as Arques and Brionne, were made of stone, but most were the so-called motte-and-bailey construction that would later dominate England. The motte, or mound, was a raised earthwork on top of which was built the bailey, an enclosed courtyard typically surrounded by a high wooden fence. In the center would be the keep, also most often made from wood, which is why so few examples of this once prevalent type of castle survive today. All of these castles were essential to the duke’s exercise of power within Normandy, and to withstand threats from outside.

William and Matilda’s residences formed an important backdrop to the ducal courts, which became more frequent and imposing as their authority and prestige increased. The venue was to a large extent dictated by the duke’s campaigns, although the Easter court would usually be held in the castle at Fécamp. Set within a coastal town that is as picturesque today as it was then, it is easy to see why it was so favored by William and Matilda. State business was not always conducted in the splendor of the ducal palaces, however. For example, one charter was witnessed by William as he sat on a carpet between a forester’s house and the church at Bénouville, near Caen.¹

The ducal courts were essential to the administration of the duchy. The overall function of the court was in theory to provide support and advice to the duke, although in practice it became increasingly a means by which William could assert his power. The business that was most often transacted, judging from the surviving evidence, was the confirmation by the duke of land or privileges to religious houses. The courts also fulfilled an important judicial function by settling long-running claims or disputes. The resulting charters are one of the most valuable historical sources for the period, for the clues that they provide both to Matilda’s itinerary and, more important, to her role in government, which steadily grew more prominent throughout the 1050s and early 1060s.

William and Matilda’s courts were attended by the most powerful nobles and churchmen in the land. Chief among the ecclesiastics were bishops Odo of Bayeux, Hugh of Lisieux, William of Évreux, and John d’Avranches, later archbishop of Rouen. Meanwhile, the counts of Eu, Mortain, and Évreux—who belonged to some of the oldest and most distinguished families in Normandy—were particularly prominent secular advisers, along with William fitzOsbern, Roger de Beaumont, and Roger de Montgomery. The latter three men all shared kinship with the duke. William fitzOsbern was one of his most trusted counsellors. His father, Osbern the Steward, had been killed while defending William from an assassination attempt during his minority. Osbern’s son had probably been raised as part of the young duke’s court, and the two men had struck up a close friendship. FitzOsbern’s fellow adviser Roger de Beaumont was nicknamed “La Barbe” because of his mustache and beard, which made him stand out among the clean-shaven Norman crowd. His family had long enjoyed influence in the duchy. The other principal adviser, Roger de Montgomery, had one of the sharpest minds of any of the duke’s courtiers. When the court was in full session, it was usually also attended by members of William’s family, most notably Matilda and their eldest son, Robert.

This group of Norman aristocrats—or comtes—in whom William vested power was extraordinarily tight-knit. Together with the vicomtes, the second tier of nobles, they served as agents of ducal justice, finance, and military administration. They occupied castles on William’s behalf, which gave them a pivotal role in the defense of the duchy and the maintenance of order within it. It was thus through these men that the duke implemented his authority at a local level, and the fact that national and local power was concentrated in so few hands lent William’s system of government a cohesion that was unrivaled elsewhere in contemporary Europe.

As well as being the nexus of political power, the ducal court was also a center of culture and refinement, largely thanks to Matilda’s influence. Her husband was a military man at heart, and this was reflected by the company that he kept. He preferred rough, bawdy entertainments to the refinements favored by more learned rulers, and he often used violence in jest. On one occasion, he beat a forester with an animal bone for querying a grant to a monastery.² That he took such pleasure in terrifying and humiliating the victims of his cruel jests proved him more a bully than a man of genuine humor.

Although the duke did welcome poets to court, the surviving works that were presented to him were often crude rhymes rather than the eloquent and romantic verses that Matilda inspired.³ As one recent commentator has observed, “this was a rough existence, the life of a crude, unlettered soldier, always surrounded by men of similar accomplishments and interests.”⁴ This is perhaps not surprising, given that William was far more used to living off the countryside while on campaign than enjoying the niceties of court ceremonials.

But it was Matilda, rather than William, who increasingly set the tone for court life. Having been raised in one of the most cosmopolitan courts in medieval Europe, she soon brought her influence to bear on the etiquette and ceremonial of the Norman court. Given her interest in intellectual pursuits, it was no doubt thanks to her that literature flourished there. She and William became active literary patrons, and the chronicler Jumièges noted approvingly that “illustrious men excellently versed and learned in letters” surrounded the duke and his family.⁵ As well as encouraging Latin poets, the Norman ruling house commissioned histories of its dynasty from the likes of Dudo of Saint-Quentin and William of Poitiers.

Matilda’s role at court included overseeing the preparation of the banquets held in honor of important visitors or to mark significant days in the religious calendar. The fare served was among the finest of any court in Europe, influenced by French and Scandinavian cuisine. An array of meats and poultry was presented, including venison, pork, beef, swan, heron, and duck, all flavored with spices and dressed with rich sauces. The entertainments that followed were provided by musicians, jesters, dancers, and poets, and would last long into the night. Such occasions were devised for more than mere frivolity, however. They were a highly effective way of emphasizing the potency and prestige of the Norman dynasty.

In between the magnificent occasions of court, William and Matilda’s daily life there would have followed a more routine pattern. The duchess’s household, like her husband’s, was strict in its observances, and she heard Mass every day. For the duke, this was followed by several hours of rigorous exercise. His great passion was hunting. A satirical poem written shortly after his death claimed: “He loved the stags so very much, as if he were their father.”⁶ If anyone killed a stag or a wild boar unlawfully, his eyes were “put out” as a punishment.⁷ William would typically go hunting in the morning, return for lunch, and continue the chase or embark upon martial training in the afternoon.

Matilda lived a more sedentary life, but she was by no means idle. Her time would be taken up with hearing petitions, overseeing her accounts, and receiving important visitors. Her leisure hours would have been spent with her ladies, either embroidering, reading, or conversing. They may also have played or listened to music. Contemporary manuscript drawings show a variety of instruments, such as early forms of harps, viols, and horns. The resident court minstrels would sometimes be joined by singers, who performed the popular ballads of the day. Other pastimes at court included games such as chess and “tables,” a form of backgammon.

For all the stability and status of William and Matilda’s regime that their court life suggests, the specter of the papal ban was forever in the background. But in 1059, everything changed. In January of that year, Nicholas II deposed Benedict X and was formally elected pope. The ousted Benedict soon began drumming up a powerful opposition force, and Duke William saw an opportunity. He quickly offered the new pope military assistance against Benedict in the hope that it would persuade him to revoke the ban on his marriage to Matilda. As an insurance measure, he sent representatives to Rome to reinforce his case. The duke’s two-pronged strategy worked. At a Lateran Council convened that Easter, Pope Nicholas granted a retrospective papal sanction for their union. Perhaps repeating the arguments used by William’s negotiators, he “wisely pointed out that if he were to order a divorce this might cause a serious war between Flanders and Normandy.”⁸ William and Matilda’s triumph was complete.

Perhaps to appease his ecclesiastical colleagues, the Pope ordered the duke and duchess to make a penance by founding a monastery “where monks and nuns should zealously pray for their salvation.”⁹ This was a small price to pay for legitimacy, and William and Matilda undertook it with alacrity. Indeed, they exceeded Nicholas’s instructions, founding hospitals at Cherbourg, Rouen, Bayeux, and Caen “to feed and clothe a hundred poor people, the maimed, the powerless, the infirm, the blind” in reparation.¹⁰ But their greatest benefactions by far were the lavish new abbeys that they built. Matilda’s—named La Trinité—was a convent for nuns, while her husband’s, St.-Étienne, was a monastery. The couple chose the same location for their twin projects. Two centuries later, the chronicler Wace reflected:

In Caen at last their work to crown

Two abbeys rose within the town:

Two monasteries side by side,

That should for monks and nuns provide.¹¹

William and Matilda wasted no time in setting their architects and craftsmen to work, and both buildings sprang up with astonishing speed—thanks in part to the preponderance of the famous white stone of Caen.¹² Before the year 1059 was out, La Trinité was operating under the supervision of the appropriately named Abbess Matilda, who was a cousin of William, and a choir of resident nuns “daily praised the Lord in their hymns.” The abbey must have been built in phases, because in its final incarnation, it was a vast, elaborate edifice that could not possibly have been constructed in the space of a few months. It would be another seven years before it was consecrated, and even then it was unfinished.¹³ But it is a testament to Matilda’s relief and gratitude at finally having her marriage sanctified that she threw herself into the project with such abandon. She was unquestionably the driving force behind the building of her abbey—and its later success as one of the most influential and prosperous religious houses in the duchy. Her enthusiasm may also have stemmed from a possible interest in architecture inherited from her father, who commissioned a series of splendid new buildings in Flanders during his ascendancy. Her mother, Adela, would surely have proved another inspiration during the project, having herself founded several abbeys and collegiate churches in Flanders.

The attention to detail that Matilda lavished on La Trinité extended to ensuring that the abbey had a sufficiently impressive collection of relics. Once more her interest no doubt derived from her natal family. Her aunt Judith was a renowned collector of relics, and Count Baldwin had once given her a vial of the Holy Blood. Among Matilda’s array were splinters of wood from Christ’s manger and cross, a piece of bread that he had touched, and a strand of his mother Mary’s hair. Meanwhile there was a veritable Aladdin’s cave of minor saints’ body parts: the finger of St. Cecile, a hair of St. Denis, the blood of St. George, and even several entire corpses. This may seem macabre to modern observers, but enormous importance was placed upon such items in the Middle Ages. Bones,body parts, or other items closely associated with saints were believed to be imbued with that saint’s power, and many miracles were attributed to such relics in popular tales and legends. The better a religious house’s collection, the more blessed it was considered to be.¹⁴

That Matilda should amass such an impressive collection for La Trinité reveals not just the meticulous care she showed in the creation of her new abbey, but her own belief in the “magical” powers of the relics. For all her political shrewdness and guile, Matilda was known to be superstitious, and during critical periods of her life she occasionally sought the advice of mystics or magicians—she is recorded to have once consulted the bones of a sheep’s shoulder in the hope of foretelling the future, a practice that was common in her native Flanders.

Matilda’s superstition was by no means unusual among the ruling elite. Interest in magic extended across the entire society of medieval Europe, from kings, princes, and dukes to members of the clergy and even the papacy. It also cut across social boundaries, uniting peasants and noblemen, the uneducated and intellectuals. Most communities had a “wise woman” or “soothsayer” who used the mystical arts to heal the sick or protect against evil. Reading palms, rolling dice, and using randomly selected passages from the Bible to predict the future were widely practiced by such individuals, as well as by members of the clergy. There was also a more sophisticated profession dedicated to the exploration of astrology and alchemy. Training for such a profession took place at universities and other educational establishments, but its expert practitioners were often found at court, which provided an invaluable source of patronage for their endeavors. It was common for rulers to seek the advice of these practitioners, particularly at times of crisis in their reign.

Although many ecclesiasts were involved in the practice of magic, during the tenth and eleventh centuries it was increasingly condemned by the church, which saw it as a threat to its own authority. There was thus an interesting dichotomy between Matilda’s celebrated Christianity and her belief in the mystical arts. In the years to come, it was the latter that she would draw upon more at times of crisis, casting doubt on the apparently intense piety that she was always so keen to display in gestures such as the creation of La Trinité.

Like his wife, William took enormous pride in the building and fitting out of his abbey. Work on St.-Étienne apparently progressed more slowly than on La Trinité, because it was not consecrated until 1077, but like its sister abbey, it was functional from a much earlier date. Lanfranc, by now the duke’s closest ecclesiastical adviser, was appointed abbot in 1063. The Italian’s influence had been increasing steadily during the 1050s and 1060s, and this appointment signified the preeminence that he now enjoyed. It was said that “William venerated him as a father, respected him as a teacher, and loved him like a brother or son.”¹⁵

Although they were built for the same purpose, William’s and Matilda’s churches were as different architecturally as their founders were in character. In contrast to the functional starkness of William’s St.-Étienne, with its vast, unadorned west front and imposing towers, La Trinité was complex, intricate, and elaborate. As one later commentator observed: “The one is the expression in stone of the imperial will of the conquering Duke; the other breathes the true spirit of his loving and faithful Duchess.”¹⁶ Comparatively little survives of Matilda’s original building today, but the fragments that do—such as the bases of the towers and the arcading of the nave—give an impression of how spectacular it must have been in its heyday.

Both St.-Étienne and La Trinité were of huge personal significance to William and Matilda. Just how much they meant to the duke and duchess is demonstrated by the fact that they would later choose to be buried in them. There could have been no more fitting a resting place. They may have been built as a penance, but there was nothing apologetic about William’s and Matilda’s abbeys. They were symbols of the power and magnificence of the ducal family, and of just how far William had come since the turbulent days of his minority. According to one authority, they represented a “golden age” in Normandy’s history.¹⁷

Orderic Vitalis claims that the commissioning of St.-Étienne and La Trinité sparked a new religious fervor in the principality, providing a role model for the nobility to follow: “The barons of Normandy were inspired by the piety of their princes to do likewise, and encouraged each other to undertake similar enterprises for the salvation of their souls.”¹⁸ Suddenly, powerful magnates were vying with each other to create the most lavish ecclesiastical buildings. These would prove a lasting legacy of William and Matilda’s regime.

By the beginning of the 1060s, when Matilda was in her thirtieth year, she had grown in influence and prestige, not just as the wife of the duke and the mother of his children, but as a political power to be reckoned with in her own right. Her active involvement in the building of La Trinité was one indication of her influence, and it gave her the confidence to undertake other pious commissions elsewhere. In 1063, for example, she began work on the magnificent cathedral of Nôtre Dame du Pré at Emendreville, a suburb of Rouen.¹⁹ She also founded two other abbeys, St.-George at Boscherville and St.-Florent at Saumur.

Matilda’s growing importance was also beginning to manifest itself in other ways. Whereas before their marriage William had relied upon older relatives for support in government, notably his uncles Mauger, the archbishop of Rouen, and William of Arques, now he began to place his trust in his wife and children. As a result, Matilda began to play an increasingly important role in the political life of the duchy.

Nothing demonstrates this more clearly than the charters. One of the earliest documents that she witnessed as William’s consort dates from 1053 and relates to Holy Trinity in Rouen. This marked the beginning of a dazzlingly successful career on the political stage. Although the lists of witnesses indicate only who was present, not who participated in any accompanying debates, the sheer frequency with which Matilda attested these documents is proof that she played an active role. During her tenure as duchess, she put her signature to a total of one hundred charters, covering a wide range of business.²⁰ This far outweighs the number attested by even the most powerful members of the aristocracy, second only to William himself. Often it was specified that she was acting alongside William, or that the grants were made with her consent as well as her husband’s. This was particularly true of the charters relating to her abbey at Caen, but there are various other examples.²¹ Her consent for such grants is sometimes placed on the same level as William’s—an honor that was not even accorded to his sons.²² Only very occasionally was Matilda able to grant charters in her own right: she did not have the financial resources to do so. She had brought a relatively meager dowry and no titles to her marriage, and the lands with which William had endowed her were confined to some modest estates in the Pays-de-Caux region of Normandy.²³ This was rather less than her predecessors had received, or than she might have expected as duchess of Normandy. The fact that she was able to lavish independent bequests upon La Trinité must therefore have required her to levy funds from elsewhere.

As well as granting land and titles, Matilda also became increasingly involved in the legal affairs of the duchy. The cases that she dealt with varied enormously in nature and complexity. One of the more unusual concerned some property at Bayeux that had been granted to the abbey of St. Peter in Jumièges. This property had formerly belonged to Stephen, the nephew of a ducal chaplain, who had married a widow named Oringa by whom he had a son. This son had died without Stephen’s knowing, and Oringa had bought a replacement child from a woman named Ulburga. Stephen had made this boy his heir, but after the couple’s death, Ulburga tried to reclaim her child. Oringa’s relatives, realizing that they would then have to forfeit the land, prevented her from doing so, which prompted her to bring the case before William and Matilda at Bonneville-sur-Touques. It was decided that the woman ought to undergo an ordeal by carrying a red-hot iron rod, and that if she emerged unscathed, she might have her son back. Ulburga passed the test, which meant that the property was forfeit to the duke. William subsequently gave it to Matilda, who in turn passed it to Rainald, a ducal chaplain.²⁴

Up until this point, women had rarely played even a supporting role in the history of the reigning dukes. They had been obscure mistresses or illegitimate offspring, easily dispensed with and rarely named in the sources. Now Matilda was enjoying a position of such prominence that she would have been the envy of consorts across western Europe. The fact that she had carved out such a position for herself was all the more impressive given that her husband was a ferocious and indomitable ruler—far from the likes of Edward II or Henry VI, whose weakness enabled their wives to gain the ascendancy. It seemed that William had met his match—and he appeared to revel in the fact.

Although Matilda’s power was remarkable in the context of other ruling dynasties at the time, she was not the only woman to play an active role in political and legal affairs. Indeed, in this respect, Normandy seems to have been more enlightened than many other countries. In the collection of charters relating to the Caen abbeys, twenty-three out of thirty mention women as signatories, grantors, attestees, or involved in the transaction in some other way.²⁵ Wives, mothers, and even daughters became involved in the granting of property or land, not just alongside the male members of the family but sometimes, like Matilda, in their own right. For example, a contemporary of Matilda, Mabel, heiress of Bellême in the heart of Normandy, was one of the most formidable noblewomen of the eleventh century. She was as remarkably fecund as the duchess, mothering nine children, but this did not distract her from her primary objective, which was the defense of her inheritance. She had considerable resources at her disposal—it was said she traveled with a retinue of one hundred armed men—and possessed a dangerous combination of cunning and ruthlessness, poisoning her own brother-in-law and disposing of any other rival who crossed her path. Having lived by the sword, she died by it, too. According to Orderic, she was murdered in her bath by a man whose land she had taken. Her epitaph describes her as “A shield of her inheritance, a tower guarding the frontier; to some neighbours dear, to others terrible.”²⁶

Perhaps it was the growing equality of their relationship that meant that after a decade of marriage, William and Matilda seemed to have settled into a pattern of mutual respect and harmony. The tempestuous beginning of their courtship had apparently been forgotten. William’s respect and admiration for Matilda grew with every child she bore him. He was immensely proud of his large family, and even more so of his wife, “whose fruitfulness in children excited in his mind the tenderest regard for her.”²⁷

As far as aristocratic marriages were concerned, affection was a rare and unlooked-for quality—politics, not passion, was the driving force. But on the surface at least, that very quality was what the ducal couple seemed to enjoy. The nineteenth-century historian Agnes Strickland paints a picture of increasing intimacy and accord, claiming that the duke and duchess were “reckoned the handsomest and most tenderly united couple in Europe.” She continues: “The fine natural talents of both had been improved by a degree of mental cultivation very unusual in that age; there was a similarity in their tastes and pursuits which rendered their companionship delightful to each other in private hours, and gave to all their public acts that graceful unanimity which could not fail of producing the happiest effects on the minds of their subjects.”²⁸ A similarly rosy picture was painted by a poet of the same era who dedicated a verse to Matilda, describing her as “The fond, the faithful cherished wife/Who shared each counsel, cheered each strife.”²⁹

The records contain no instances of Matilda’s defying William in this period, and there is indeed evidence to suggest that she had come to feel a certain degree of affection for him. Sometime between 1063 and 1066, William fell seriously ill at Cherbourg. So grave was his condition that “his life was wholly despaired of and he was laid on the ground, as at the point of death, and gave the canons of that church the relics of the saints which he carried [about] in his own chapel.” As if striking a bargain with God, the duke vowed that he would establish canons in the cathedral church of St. Mary in Coutances “if God and St. Mary would raise him from this sickness.” Meanwhile, Matilda went to the same cathedral and made a gift of one hundred shillings at the main altar, praying “that God and St. Mary might give her back her dearest husband.” The monks were surprised by her informal attire, for she wore her hair loose—a detail they recorded for posterity. Her disheveled appearance may have been due to the fact that she had stayed by her husband’s side all night, frantic with worry. After making her plea, Matilda hastened back to William. It seemed that her prayers had been answered when he made a full recovery. As a token of thanks, “she helped him in her joy to re-establish the church [of St. Mary]” and to build a new one outside the castle walls in Coutances. The couple also made various other generous bequests, and their two eldest sons, Robert and Richard, were there to witness the resulting charters.³⁰

That Matilda had been so panic-stricken by her husband’s illness suggests that she cared for him deeply—and this is certainly how it was interpreted by the chronicler who recorded the episode. Malmesbury approvingly noted Matilda’s “willingness to please her husband,” and all the sources concur that she was a useful and devoted spouse.³¹ But there is another explanation for her behavior, and it is perhaps more in keeping with what we know of her character. By the time William fell dangerously ill at Cherbourg, Matilda had come to enjoy a degree of influence and prestige as duchess of Normandy that was matched by few of her predecessors or contemporaries. The active role that she played in the political sphere fulfilled the ambitions she had cherished since her youth, and she was by no means ready to relinquish them. Yet if William had died, this was precisely what she would have had to do. No matter how able she had already shown herself in the governance of Normandy, as dowager duchess the most that she could have hoped for would have been to act as regent for her eldest son until he came of age. After that, she would have been expected to retire gracefully from public life. This was not a prospect that would have appealed to Matilda’s sense of ambition. At least for now, the influential position she had been building for herself depended very much upon her husband’s survival.

By contrast, William’s attitude to his wife seems less complex. Both his words and his actions suggest that he adored her. Malmesbury claims that Matilda’s obedience and fecundity “kindled a passionate attachment in the spirit of that great man.”³² In 1079, after some twenty-eight years of marriage, the duke himself would openly declare that he had been “a companion so faithful and devoted in his affection,” and referred to Matilda as “the wife of my bosom, whom I love as my own soul.”³³ Even in a letter of business that he wrote to her, he prefaced the formal details with a tender address to “his dear wife,” wishing her “perpetual weal.”³⁴ These sentiments form a sharp contrast to the image of a brutish warrior. It seems that Matilda brought out a softer side to him.

The duke appeared genuinely attracted to his wife, and the sheer number of children that they had together suggests a degree of sexual compatibility. The sources certainly suggest that Matilda was an attractive wife. She regularly won praise for her beauty from the likes of Jumièges and Fulcoius of Beauvais, as well as later writers. A nineteenth-century poet extolled her elegance and poise:

Her forehead’s calm and pure expanse,

Ne’er ruffled by an angry glance,

Those eyes, so steadfast and serene,

That peaceful, still and gracious mien.³⁵

Meanwhile, a French account of the following century described her as “beautiful and blonde,” and like “a freshly bloomed rose.” It also praised the elegance of her dress, with her “fur-lined cloak and close fitting gown, her two plaits falling near to the white veil that surrounded her neck.”³⁶ However, it is not clear upon what this account can have been based, because it matches none of the later engravings of Matilda—all of which were admittedly completed many years after her death. The description of her clothes does, however, tally with the typical apparel of a well-born lady in the eleventh century. As duchess, Matilda would have worn gowns of comparatively simple design, albeit made from rich fabrics. The fashion was for long dresses, reaching to the ground and tied around the waist with a girdle, which was often the most elaborate part of the ensemble. The gown would have been complemented by a matching cloak fastened by shoulder clasps, and a hood. Not until the twelfth century did the fashion change to more decorative and elaborate attire. Although the later engravings of Matilda show her with long, flowing tresses, in general women’s hair was concealed by a wimple, which was wound about the head and thrown over the shoulder. The fact that the monks at Coutances had been so shocked to see Matilda with her hair loose suggests that she usually conformed to this fashion.

A wall painting of the duchess, executed at her command, once adorned the outside wall of an ancient chapel in the abbey of St.-Étienne in Caen, which had been built before the abbey was founded. It was destroyed when the chapel was pulled down in 1700, but an eighteenth-century engraving of it survives.³⁷ Though it does not help us understand Matilda’s physical appearance, it does give us clues as to how she might have dressed. It shows her wearing a simple robe gathered at the waist by a belt of precious metal, possibly gold, with a cloak around her shoulders. A transparent veil covers her long, dark hair and is held in place by a crown bedecked with fleur-de-lys and precious stones. In her right hand she holds a scepter of the same design, and in her left a book—perhaps an indication of her intellect. Her graceful pose, with head slightly inclined as if to signify compliance or assent, and the simplicity of her apparel give the impression of modesty and serenity.

However, this is a heavily stylized portrait that bears more resemblance to Queen Victoria than to a woman of Norman times, so its accuracy is dubious. There is also a sketch of the fresco, which seems to date from an earlier period. This shows Matilda wearing a similar crown and carrying the same scepter, both adorned with fleur-de-lys, but her features are much plainer and her hair is shorter and fair. However, the provenance of this sketch is no more certain than that of the later engraving.

Some sources claim that Matilda’s image, flanked by two lions, can be found on a capital of one of the columns in La Trinité.³⁸ A statue of her was also erected in the eleventh century on the west front of Croyland Abbey in Lincolnshire, toward which she had proved a generous benefactress, but it was destroyed by fire in 1091. A number of statues of Matilda can be found in French cities today, notably in the Place Reine Mathilde in Caen and the Luxembourg Garden in Paris. But these are stereotypical representations of a medieval queen, and there is no consistency in facial features.

Despite the lack of visual evidence, the written accounts of Matilda’s appearance, which are overwhelmingly complimentary, suggest that she was a striking woman—and, moreover, that she retained her physical charms through much of her life. This might have helped keep her husband in thrall. Almost all of the contemporary accounts attest that William was utterly faithful to his wife. Poitiers was careful to stress that “he had learnt that marriage vows were holy and respected their sanctity.” Malmesbury concurs that from the day of their wedding, “his conduct was such as to keep him free for many years of any suggestion of misbehaviour.”³⁹ While this might be expected of one so devoted, it was highly unusual for a male ruler of the time. Aristocratic marriages being political unions rather than romantic ones, husbands tended to find sexual gratification outside the marital bed, although spousal copulation was required to beget heirs. An extreme example was King Aethelred of England, who devoted himself entirely to his mistresses at the expense of his wife, Emma. Malmesbury observed with some distaste: “He was so offensive even to his own wife that he would hardly deign to let her sleep with him, but brought the royal majesty into disrepute by tumbling with concubines.”⁴⁰ Two contemporaries of William, Henry IV and Philip I (later Holy Roman Emperor and king of France respectively), would both become embroiled in similar marital scandals.

Historically, the dukes of Normandy had chosen a different but no less problematic path, not marrying at all but instead keeping a string of mistresses. Perhaps this, as well as the shame of his own birth, made William determined to break the mold, giving him a further incentive to lead a private life beyond reproach. His intense piety was perhaps also a reaction against this shady heritage. He lent his full weight to the church’s campaign to prevent priests from keeping illicit wives and mistresses, and he believed in the strict teachings on marriage propagated by Lanfranc.

Whatever the cause, his sexual restraint still made his contemporaries uncomfortable. William’s temperance must have seemed something of an oddity amid the red-blooded warrior types with whom he was surrounded, and they no doubt sought a more scandalous explanation than that he simply loved his wife. While the rumor that he was impotent had been thoroughly discounted, they bandied about other possibilities—was he carrying on an illicit affair and, unlike so many of his contemporaries, succeeding in keeping it a secret?

Cracks do appear in the idealized vision of William and Matilda’s relationship. For example, the sources contain hints of the duke’s violent behavior toward his wife. One even has him kicking her in the breast with his spur.⁴¹ Although most of these accounts were written by hostile English chroniclers, William certainly had a strong streak of cruelty, as evidenced by the treatment that he meted out to the beleaguered citizens of Alençon. Moreover, wife beating was common in the Middle Ages, and it was not just excused but expected of a man to physically chastise his wife. It is therefore possible—even probable—that a man of William’s naturally violent temperament occasionally resorted to physical force in order to quell any disobedience on Matilda’s part.

But to the outside world, the duke and duchess were careful to present themselves as the head of a tight-knit family unit. The birth of two more daughters boosted this image—Matilda in around 1061 and Constance the following year, the latter named after Matilda’s grandmother. The younger Matilda is the most shadowy of all the daughters. She is not mentioned by any of the Norman chroniclers, but there is reliable evidence for her existence in Domesday Book, which refers to a man named Geoffrey who was employed as her chamberlain.⁴²

The apparent strength and unity of the Norman dynasty was further reinforced by William’s decision in 1063 to formally designate his eldest son Robert as the heir to Normandy. William made the great nobles swear fealty to him—just as his own father had done with him almost thirty years before. He and Matilda witnessed a charter for “Robert, their son, whom they had chosen to govern the regnum after their deaths.”⁴³ It must have been a proud occasion for Matilda, given the strong affection that she felt toward her eldest son.

In the same year, the final piece of the jigsaw was fitted into place when the duke conquered the troublesome province of Maine, which lay to the south of his principality. William had long coveted this territory, and had initially tried diplomacy to obtain it. He had arranged a betrothal between his son Robert and Margaret, a sister of the count of Maine, Herbert II. So determined was the duke to ensure the match went ahead that he had the young girl “guarded with great honour in safe places” until his son was of an age to marry her.⁴⁴ But all of his efforts proved to be in vain, for Margaret died before the marriage could take place. Malmesbury claims that the count himself subsequently asked William for the hand in marriage of one of his daughters. William agreed, but in March 1062, before the girl was of marriageable age, Herbert fell sick and died.⁴⁵ It was said that on his deathbed, Herbert promised Maine to William, “adjuring his subjects to accept no one else,” and the latter wasted no time in claiming his inheritance.⁴⁶

Acquiring Maine established William as the undisputed duke of Normandy. It also ensured that he need fear no interference from northern France in any overseas enterprise that he might undertake—a fact that would prove enormously significant during the following three years. The traditional hostility toward France had in any case been substantially reduced, thanks to Matilda’s family connections. Count Baldwin of Flanders had played an increasingly active part in international politics during the years following his daughter’s marriage to William. He had been assiduous in cultivating the goodwill of Henry I of France toward his son-in-law, drawing upon the strong blood ties that existed between the two dynasties. So successful were his efforts that the French king had even named Baldwin regent of France on behalf of his infant son, Philip. When Henry died in 1060, Baldwin took charge and “ruled the French kingdom with distinction for some years.”⁴⁷

The ducal couple, who together had established a spectacularly successful regime on their home turf, were on the brink of international glory. And Matilda, who had rapidly established her independence and authority as duchess of Normandy, would be central to their success.