Queen of the Conqueror: The Life of Matilda, Wife of William I - Couverture rigide

1

"Of Kingly Line"

From the very beginning, Matilda's life was shrouded inmystery. Even the date of her birth cannot be deduced with any certainty fromthe surviving sources. At the earliest, it would have been toward the end ofthe year 1031. Her parents were the future Count Baldwin V of Flanders andAdela, daughter of Robert II "the Pious," King of France, by histhird wife, Constance of Arles. Their marriage took place in 1028. The Normanchronicler William of Jumièges, who was a direct contemporary of Matilda,claims that it was not consummated until 1031, and that the long period ofwaiting was one of the factors that incited Baldwin to rebel against his fatherthat year. In fact, young Baldwin had already rebelled soon after the wedding;it seemed that an alliance with French royal blood had given him an inflatedsense of his own importance, and he therefore contested his father's positionas count. The two men came to terms in 1030 and a truce was concluded wherebythey agreed to rule jointly.

Despite the rumor of its delayed consummation, Baldwinand Adela's marriage was said to have been blessed with "a numerousprogeny of gifted sons and daughters." However, the only children we canbe certain of are Matilda and her two brothers, Baldwin and Robert, and it isnot clear in what order they were born. Matilda is often referred to last inthe lists provided by contemporary chroniclers, but this does not necessarilymean that she was the youngest child: daughters were seen as being of secondaryimportance to sons and were often left out of accounts altogether.

If Matilda's age was uncertain, her pedigree was not. Oneof the most prominent chroniclers of the age introduces her to his readers as"the highly born Matilda." This was no mere flattery. Born into theruling family of one of the most important principalities in Europe, she couldtrace her descent from impressive stock. The Flemish counts had the mostdistinguished lineage of any nonroyal house in Europe. Her father's maleforebears had been counts of Flanders since the ninth century and weredescended from the great Charlemagne, founding father of the French and Germanempires. Count Baldwin II had married the daughter of King Alfred the Great-analliance with Saxon blood that would prove useful to Matilda. Moreover, as thegranddaughter of a French king, she retained strong royal connections. OnRobert II's death in 1031, her maternal uncle, Henry, had become king ofFrance, and another uncle, Robert, had inherited the dukedom of Burgundy the followingyear, and so through her mother's side of the family, Matilda was related tomost of the great nobility of France.

Her parents chose a name to emphasize this impressivepedigree. "Matilda" was a highly unusual moniker in Flanders andFrance at the time of her birth. It came from the old Teutonic"Machtild" and was firmly rooted in Baldwin's German ancestry. Withher illustrious lineage, Matilda was a great prize in the internationalmarriage market-even more so given the immense strategic importance of theprincipality in which she was born. Flanders was situated in the heart ofwestern Europe, embracing parts of modern-day Belgium, northern France, and theNetherlands. Its name derived from the area around Bruges known as the PagusFlandrensis. It had been dominated by Germanic tribes for several hundred yearsbefore becoming part of an empire established by Charlemagne in the ninthcentury. The first known count, Baldwin I, ensured his family's fortune in late861 by eloping with Judith, the eldest child of the Carolingian emperor Charlesthe Bald. His lands were at that time limited to the prosperous town of Ghentin eastern Flanders, but when he finally married Judith in 863, he was grantedthe Pagus Flandrensis. The marriage greatly enhanced the prestige of the countyby uniting it with both the French and English royal families.

Under Baldwin I's leadership and that of his son, BaldwinII, Flanders was made secure against the incursions of the Vikings, who hadplagued the province for many years. The latter added other territories to thecounty so that it comprised a sprawling area of land bordering parts ofNormandy, northern France, and the Germanic empire. Baldwin II's marriage toAelfthryth, the daughter of King Alfred the Great, also strengthened ties withEngland. In the early part of the tenth century, their grandson, Baldwin III,laid the basis for the future industrial and commercial greatness of the regionby establishing the wool and silk industries at Ghent and instituting annual fairsat Bruges and other towns. Prior to this, their son, Arnulf I, who succeeded ascount in 918, had embarked upon an ambitious campaign to extend the Flemishterritory southward. His attempt to take the strategically important town ofMontreuil-sur-Mer led to conflict with William Longsword of Normandy. Therefollowed a prolonged period of hostilities as each tried to gain the upperhand, which culminated with William's murder by Arnulf's men in 942. Thisrivalry between Flanders and Normandy continued to dominate Flemish foreignpolicy until the middle of the eleventh century, when Matilda's marriagebrought it to an end.

Although it was later to become a thriving center ofcommerce and culture, in the early eleventh century Flanders was a primitiveplace. The landscape to the west was dominated by swamps and was barelyhabitable. The east, which was densely wooded, was comparatively more civilizedand had a higher number of inhabitants. But in contrast to neighboringNormandy, there were no bustling urban centers, and the towns that did existwere small, with rudimentary buildings. Language also presented a problem.There was no uniformity, with some areas speaking a Germanic dialect and othersFrench. It was only gradually that Flemish was adopted as the nationallanguage. It seems the populace, too, retained a certain primitivism. In 900,for example, Archbishop Fulk of Rheims scorned the inhabitants as being"of barbarous...savagery and language." Indeed, the Flemish soonbecame the butt of jokes among the more civilized nations, such as England andFrance, where they were derided for their crudity and backwardness. Theirreputation had improved little by the late twelfth century, when Richard ofDevizes advised a young man who was due to travel to England that he shouldexpect nothing but ignorance and boorishness from Cornishmen, "as we inFrance consider our Flemings."

Flanders was also a notoriously lawless area, whereviolence and uprisings were commonplace. "Daily homicides and spilling ofhuman blood had troubled the peace and quiet of the entire area," claimedthe twelfth-century Life of St. Arnulf. "Thus a great number of nobles,through the force of their prayers, convinced the bishop of the lord to visitthe places where this atrocious cruelty especially raged and to instruct thedocile and bloody spirit of the Flemings in the interest of peace andconcord."

Nevertheless, under the stewardship of Count Baldwin IV(988-1035), Flanders began to show signs of improvement. Its salvation wastrade. The textile industry became particularly successful, thanks to importsof wool from England and Spain. Matilda's father, Baldwin V, commissioned thebuilding of new roads and canals to stimulate the growth of trade both withinand outside Flanders. Before long, he had amassed more wealth than any of hispredecessors. This dramatically improved standards of living among hissubjects, particularly within the major urban centers. Handsome stone housesreplaced the ramshackle wooden dwellings of former days, and the citizens alsobenefited from the dazzling array of exotic goods that arrived into theprincipality from far-flung corners of the globe.

By the time of Baldwin V's reign, then, Flanders wasenjoying increasing wealth. Given the new count's overweening pride andambition, it is likely that he would have built magnificent residences for hisfamily. There are very few contemporary descriptions of the buildings andpalaces that Matilda would have known, but a detailed account by thetwelfth-century chronicler Lambert of Ardres of the castle there gives a senseof a typical stately residence of the principality. The castle was built ofwood and stood atop a large mound, towering over the rest of the town. Itsrooms were structured according to a strict hierarchy:

The first storey was on the surface of the ground, wherewere cellars and granaries, and great boxes, tuns, casks, and other domesticutensils. In the storey above were the dwelling and common living-rooms of theresidents, in which were the larders, the rooms of the bakers and butlers, andthe great chamber in which the lord and his wife slept. Adjoining this was aprivate room, the dormitory of the waiting maids and children. In the innerpart of the great chamber was a certain private room, where at early dawn or inthe evening or during sickness or at time of blood-letting, or for warming themaids and weaned children, they used to have a fire...In the upper storey ofthe house were garret rooms, in which on the one side the sons (when they wishedit), on the other side the daughters (because they were obliged), 5 of the lordof the house used to sleep. In this storey also the watchmen and servantsappointed to keep the house took their sleep at some time or other. High up onthe east side of the house, in a convenient place, was the chapel, which wasmade like unto the tabernacle of Solomon in its ceiling and painting. Therewere stairs and passages from storey to storey, from the house into thekitchen, from room to room, and again from the house into the loggia, wherethey used to sit in conversation for recreation, and again from the loggia intothe oratory.

This castle belonged to the lord of Ardres, so it islikely that, as the daughter of the count of Flanders, Matilda would have knowneven greater luxury.

As well as encouraging the commercial development of hisprincipality, Matilda's father also capitalized upon Flanders's immensestrategic importance. Its situation enabled the counts to hold the balance ofpower between the kings of France to the south, the dukes of Normandy to thewest, and the German rulers to the east. This made Flanders a power to bereckoned with in medieval Europe. Baldwin V made the most of this advantage bynegotiating favorable treaty terms and arranging prestigious marriages for eachof his children. Keenly aware of his family's distinguished pedigree, he tookevery opportunity to enhance his own prestige, and became known as "princeof the fatherland" in Flemish texts.

The eleventh-century chronicler William of Poitiers wasapparently in some awe of Baldwin V, describing him as "a man of greatpower who towered above the rest" and "this wisest of men."According to his account, "Counts, marquises, dukes, even archbishops ofthe highest dignity were struck dumb with admiration whenever the duty of theiroffice earned them the presence of this distinguished guest...Kings too reveredand stood in awe of his greatness." William of Malmesbury, whose GestaRegum Anglorum (The Deeds of the Kings of the English) was completed in around1125, was no less impressed, but he paints a rather more benevolent picture of"a man admirable alike for loyalty and wisdom, grey-haired yet with thevigour of youth, and of exalted position as husband of the king's sister."

The growth of Flanders's status, and that of Baldwin,ensured that Matilda enjoyed a privileged upbringing. Most of her childhood wasspent at the comital palace in Bruges, which was by now the foremost city inthe principality, Baldwin V having rebuilt and "greatly beautified"it as an expression of his dynasty's growing status. Bruges was immensely rich,having evolved into a thriving center of commerce. This lent it a cosmopolitanatmosphere, with traders from across the globe converging upon the city. Onecontemporary visitor observed that it "enjoys very great fame for thenumber of its merchants and for its affluence in all things upon which mankindplaces the greatest value." Matilda and her family also regularly stayedat Lille, Ghent, Thérouanne, and the coastal town of St.-Omer, where herfather's court met on "special days" such as religious festivals.

Matilda's upbringing was superintended by her mother. Assuch, she had a powerful female role model from her very earliest days. Eventhough women were assigned the inferior role in marriage, politics, and societyin general, Adela's relationship with Count Baldwin was a marriage of equals.Not for her the traditional duties of a consort, which were confined toproducing heirs and leading a godly life. Instead she played an active part inthe government of Flanders, and her name appears in more than half of thecharters that were issued during her husband's reign. In many of these she wasstyled as the "sister of the king of France," an indication of the samepride in her ancestry that she would pass on to her daughter. Few of her peersenjoyed such prominence in the political life of their kingdoms, and it is rareto find a consort's name on more than a handful of legal documents: Adela'scontemporaries were obviously aware of her connections. The biography of QueenEmma of England, who was well acquainted with Adela, claimed that her namemeant "most noble," and it was careful to describe her as the"daughter of Robert, king of the French."

It was by no means unusual that Adela should superviseMatilda's education. The role of the mother was seen as paramount in thisrespect throughout the medieval period. A ninth-century account praised KingAlfred's mother, Osburgh, "a religious woman, noble by birth and nature,"who gave her two sons a book of Saxon poetry, saying, "Whichever of youshall the soonest learn this volume shall have it for his own." WhenAlfred triumphs over his brother, his mother "smiles withsatisfaction."

Mothers were expected to attain a high standard oflearning themselves so that they might pass this on to their offspring. Despitebeing rarely praised by contemporary sources, it was in fact common at thistime for wives to exceed their husbands in intellect. The early eleventhcentury was one of the most enlightened periods in the education of women, whenit was taken every bit as seriously as-and often more seriously than-that oftheir male counterparts. Daughters were encouraged to spend their leisure timecultivating their knowledge through reading, while sons would undertake moreactive pursuits such as hunting and training for warfare. Royal women, inparticular, tended to be better educated than men. Even though many others weretaught little else but how to read the psalter and sign their name, this wasmore than most laymen were capable of.

The relative enlightenment of the period is proved bycomparing it with the later Middle Ages, when the entire emphasis of a woman'seducation seemed to be upon how she might best serve her future husband. Theinfluential fourteenth-century manual The Book of the Knight of the Toweradvocated submissiveness and modesty in young girls in preparation formarriage, and said t...