MATILDA OF TUSCANY

Countess of Tuscany and faithful ally of the papacy in the investiture struggle; b. 1046; d. Bondeno, near Ferrara, Italy, July 24, 1115. From her father Boniface of Canossa (d. c. 1052) she inherited the marches of Tuscany and Lombardy-Emilia, which she ruled jointly with her mother beatrice of tuscany from 1069 to 1076. In 1069 she married Godfrey the Hunchback, Duke of Lorraine, but by 1071 had separated from him. Of mystical temperament and with aspirations toward an ascetic life, she became the ardent disciple of gregory vii. At Canossa in 1077 she interceded with Gregory for henry iv and guaranteed the Emperor's pledges, but after Henry's breach of faith she dedicated herself completely to the papal cause. For two decades she was the mainstay of the reform party in Italy. In 1081 Henry deposed her from her margraviate and drove her forces from Tuscany. After the election of Pope urban ii, she resumed open warfare against Henry. In 1089 she contracted a short-lived political marriage with the young Welf V of Bavaria. She supported Conrad of Germany in his rebellion against his father. By an act of 1079 or 1080, confirmed in 1102, she donated to the papacy her allodial lands on both sides of the Alps, reserving the usufruct of them during her lifetime (see states of the church). In 1111 she was reconciled with the Emperor Henry V and made him her heir, without prejudice to the prior donation and in the hope of ending the investiture struggle. This donation later gave rise to a prolonged controversy. In 1115 Matilda's body was buried in the Mantuan monastery of san benedetto polirone. Five centuries later Pope Urban VIII had her body transferred to St. Peter's in Rome, where it rests in the tomb designed by Bernini in 1635.

Bibliography: donizo, Vita Mathildis, ed. l. simeoni, Muratori RIS 2 5.2 (1940). a. overmann, Gräfin Mathilde von Tuscien (Innsbruck 1895). r. davidsohn, Geschichte von Florenz, 4 v. (Berlin 1896–1927) v.1. l. tondelli, Matilde di Canossa (2d ed. Rome 1926); Studi gregoriani 4:365–371; Il millenario di Canossa (Reggio Calabria 1951). n. grimaldi, La contessa Matilde e la sua stirpe feudale (Florence 1928). a. ferrua, "La donazione della contessa Matilde," La civiltà cattolica 94.1 (1943) 212–223. l. simeoni, "Il contributo della contessa Matilde al Papata nella lotta per le investiture," Studi gregoriani 1:353–372.

[c. e. boyd]