Saint Mathilda or
Saint Matilda (c. 895 – March 14,
968968 was a year in the 10th century.-Europe:* The Battle near Silistra occurs in the spring near the Bulgarian town of Silistra, but most probably on the modern territory of Romania.-Religion:* The Archbishopric of Magdeburg is founded....
) was the wife of Henry I, King of the East Franks and the first ruler of the Ottonian or Liudolfing
dynastyA dynasty is a succession of people belonging to the same family, who, through various means and forms maintain power, influence or authority over the course of generations. Most commonly the term is used specifically in reference to royal houses and imperial dynasties — their authority manifests...
. Their son, Otto, succeeded his father as King (and later Emperor) Otto I.
The details of St. Mathilda's life come largely from brief mentions in the
Res Gestae Saxonicae (
Deeds of the Saxons) of the monastic historian
Widukind of Corvey Widukind of Corvey was a Saxon historical chronicler, named after the Saxon duke and national hero Widukind who had battled Charlemagne. Widukind the chronicler was born in 925 and died after 973 at the Benedictine abbey of Corvey in Lower Saxony...
, and from two sacred biographies (the
vita antiquior and
vita posterior) written, respectively, c.
Saint Mathilda or
Saint Matilda (c. 895 – March 14,
968968 was a year in the 10th century.-Europe:* The Battle near Silistra occurs in the spring near the Bulgarian town of Silistra, but most probably on the modern territory of Romania.-Religion:* The Archbishopric of Magdeburg is founded....
) was the wife of Henry I, King of the East Franks and the first ruler of the Ottonian or Liudolfing
dynastyA dynasty is a succession of people belonging to the same family, who, through various means and forms maintain power, influence or authority over the course of generations. Most commonly the term is used specifically in reference to royal houses and imperial dynasties — their authority manifests...
. Their son, Otto, succeeded his father as King (and later Emperor) Otto I.
The details of St. Mathilda's life come largely from brief mentions in the
Res Gestae Saxonicae (
Deeds of the Saxons) of the monastic historian
Widukind of Corvey Widukind of Corvey was a Saxon historical chronicler, named after the Saxon duke and national hero Widukind who had battled Charlemagne. Widukind the chronicler was born in 925 and died after 973 at the Benedictine abbey of Corvey in Lower Saxony...
, and from two sacred biographies (the
vita antiquior and
vita posterior) written, respectively, c. 974 and c. 1003.
St. Mathilda was the daughter of the
WestphaliaWestphalia is a region in Germany, centred on the cities of Arnsberg, Bielefeld, Bochum, Detmold, Dortmund, Gelsenkirchen, Hagen, Minden and Münster and included in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia....
n count Dietrich and his wife Reinhild, and her biographers traced her ancestry back to the famed Saxon hero,
WidukindWidukind was a Saxon leader and the chief opponent of Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars. In later times, he became a symbol of Saxon independence and a figure of legend, and was stylized as a prototypical Germanic hero.-Life:Very little is known about Widukind's life...
(c. 730 - 807). As a young girl, she was sent to the convent of Herford, where her reputation for beauty and virtue is said to have attracted the attention of Duke Otto of Saxony, who betrothed her to his son, Henry the Fowler. They were married in 909 and had three sons and two daughters:
- Hadwig
Hedwige of Saxony was a daughter of Henry I the Fowler, and his wife Matilda of Ringelheim.She was a sister of Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor; Henry I, Duke of Bavaria; Gerberga of Saxony; and Bruno I, Archbishop of Cologne....
, wife of the West Frankish duke Hugh the GreatHugh the Great was duke of the Franks and count of Paris, son of King Robert I of France and nephew of King Odo. He was born in Paris, Ile-de-France, France. His eldest son was Hugh Capet who became King of France in 987. His family is known as the Robertians.Hugh's first wife was Eadhild,...
- King (and later Emperor) Otto I
Otto I the Great , son of Henry I the Fowler and Matilda of Ringelheim, was Duke of Saxony, King of Germany, King of Italy, and "the first of the Germans to be called the emperor of Italy" according to Arnulf of Milan...
- Gerberga
Gerberga of Saxony was a daughter of Henry the Fowler, king of Germany, and Matilda of Ringelheim.She married first Gilbert, Duke of Lorraine. They had four children:...
, wife of (1) Duke Giselbert of LotharingiaGilbert or Giselbert was the duke of Lotharingia until 939.The beginning of the reign of Gilbert is not clear. A dux Lotharingiae is mentioned in 910 and this may have been Gilbert...
and (2) King Louis IV of FranceLouis IV , called d'Outremer or Transmarinus , reigned as King of Western Francia from 936 to 954...
- Henry I, Duke of Bavaria
Henry I was Duke of Bavaria.He was the second son of the German King Henry the Fowler and his wife Matilda. He attempted a revolt against his older brother Otto I in 938 in alliance with Eberhard of Franconia and Giselbert of Lorraine, believing he had a claim on the throne. In 939 he was defeated...
- Archbishop Brun of Cologne
Bruno the Great or Bruno I was Archbishop of Cologne, Germany, from 953 until his death, and Duke of Lotharingia from 954. He was the brother of Otto I, king of Germany and later Holy Roman Emperor....
After Henry the Fowler's death in 936, St. Mathilda remained at the court of her son Otto, until a cabal of royal advisors is reported to have accused her of weakening the royal treasury in order to pay for her charitable activities. After a brief exile at the Westphalian monastery of
EngerEnger is a town in the Herford district, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.Enger : Other men it is said have seen angels, but I have seen thee and thou art enough. ~George Moore-Geography:...
, St. Mathilda was brought back to court at the urging of Otto I's first wife, the Anglo-Saxon princess
Queen EdithEdith of England , also spelt Eadgyth or Ædgyth, was the daughter of Edward the Elder, King of England and Ælfflæd, and the wife of Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor....
.
St. Mathilda was celebrated for her devotion to prayer and almsgiving; her first biographer depicted her (in a passage indebted to the sixth-century
vita of the Frankish queen
RadegundRadegund was a 6th century Frankish princess, who founded the Convent of Our Lady of Poitiers...
by
Venantius FortunatusSaint Venantius Fortunatus or Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus was a Latin poet and hymnodist, and a Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church.-Life:...
) leaving her husband's side in the middle of the night and sneaking off to church to pray. St. Mathilda founded many
religiousA religion is a system of human thought which usually includes a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, deity or deities, or ultimate truth...
institutions, including the canonry of
QuedlinburgQuedlinburg Abbey was a former house of secular canonesses in Quedlinburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Founded in 936 on the initiative of the widow of Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, as his memorial, for many centuries it enjoyed great prestige and influence....
,
Saxony-AnhaltSaxony-Anhalt is one of the sixteen Bundesländer that make up the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of , and a population of 2.45 million...
, a center of
OttonianThe Ottonian dynasty was a dynasty of Germanic Kings , named after its first emperor but also known as the Saxon dynasty after the family's origin. The family itself is also sometimes known as the Liudolfings, after its earliest known member Liudolf and one of its primary leading-names...
ecclesiastical and secular life and the burial place of St. Mathilda and her husband, and the convent of
NordhausenNordhausen is a city at the southern edge of the Harz mountains, in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Nordhausen...
,
ThuringiaThe Free State of Thuringia is located in central Germany. It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen
Bundesländer...
, likely the source of at least one of her
vitaeVitae may refer to :*The Academia Vitae is a liberal arts college in Deventer, The Netherlands.*Aqua vitae is an archaic name for a concentrated aqueous solution of ethanol.*Arbor vitae, disambiguation....
. She was later canonized, with her cult largely confined to
SaxonyThe Free State of Saxony is a federal state of Germany, located in the southeastern part of present-day Germany. It is the tenth-largest German state in area and the sixth largest in population , of Germany's sixteen states.Long in the heart of German-speaking Europe, Saxony became one of the new...
and
BavariaBavaria , with an area of and almost 12.5 million inhabitants, is located in the southeast of Germany and is the largest state of Germany by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
. St. Mathilda's feast day is on March 14.
Primary sources
- Widukind
Widukind was a Saxon leader and the chief opponent of Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars. In later times, he became a symbol of Saxon independence and a figure of legend, and was stylized as a prototypical Germanic hero.-Life:Very little is known about Widukind's life...
, Res gestae Saxonicae, ed. Paul Hirsch and H.-E. Lohmann, Die Sachsengeschichte des Widukind von Korvei. MGHThe Monumenta Germaniae Historica is a comprehensive series of carefully edited and published sources for the study of German history from the end of the Roman Empire to 1500.The society sponsoring the series was established by the Prussian reformer Heinrich Friedrich Karl Freiherr vom...
SS rer. Germ. in usum scholarum 60. Hanover, 1935. Available online from the Digital Monumenta Germaniae Historica
- Vita Mathildis reginae antiquior (c. 974, written for her grandson Otto II), ed. Bernd Schütte. Die Lebensbeschreibungen der Königin Mathilde. MGH SS rer. Germ. in usum scholarum 66. Hanover, 1994. 107-142. Available from the Digital MGH; ed. Rudolf Koepke. MGH SS 10. 573-82; tr. in Sean Gilsdorf, Queenship and Sanctity, 71-87.
- Vita Mathildis reginae posterior (c. 1003, written for her great-grandson Henry II
- King or Emperor :*Saint Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor , crowned King of Germany in 1002, of Italy in 1004 and Emperor in 1014*Henry II of Castile , reigned 1366–67 and from 1369*Henry II of England , reigned from 1154...
), ed. Bernd Schütte. Die Lebensbeschreibungen der Königin Mathilde. MGH SS rer. Germ. in usum scholarum 66. Hanover, 1994. 143-202. Available from the Digital MGH; ed. Georg Pertz. MGH SS 4: 282-302; tr. in Sean Gilsdorf, Queenship and Sanctity, 88-127.
Secondary sources
- Corbet, Patrick. Les saints ottoniens. Sainteté dynastique, sainteté royale et sainteté féminine autour de l'an mil. Thorbecke, 1986. Description (external link)
- Gilsdorf, Sean. Queenship and Sanctity: The Lives of Mathilda and the Epitaph of Adelheid. Catholic University of America Press, 2004. Description (external link)
- Glocker, Winfrid. Die Verwandten der Ottonen und ihre Bedeutung in der Politik. Böhlau Verlag, 1989. 7-18.
- Schmid, Karl. "Die Nachfahren Widukinds," Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 20 (1964): 1-47.
- Schütte, Bernd . Untersuchungen zu den Lebensbeschreibungen der Königin Mathilde. MGH Studien und Texte 9. Hanover, 1994. ISBN 3-7752-5409-9.
Further reading
- Schlenker, Gerlinde. Königin Mathilde, Gemahlin Heinrichs I (895/96-968). Aschersleben, 2001.
- Stinehart, Anne C. "Renowned Queen Mother Mathilda:" Ideals and Realities of Ottonian Queenship in the Vitae Mathildis reginae (Mathilda of Saxony, 895?-968)." Essays in history 40 (1998). Available online