Queens of the Conquest

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Queens of the Conquest Page 53

by Alison Weir


  1. Orderic Vitalis

  2. William of Malmesbury

  3. William of Poitiers

  4. William of Jumièges

  5. Bates: William the Conqueror

  6. Aird

  7. William of Malmesbury

  8. Orderic Vitalis

  9. William of Poitiers

  10. Williams: “Godfrey of Rheims”; Hilton: Queens Consort; Fettu: Queen Matilda

  11. Houts: “The Echo of the Conquest in the Latin Sources”

  12. Extensive foundations of the Norman nave were found beneath the existing one in 1930, and the undercroft of the Confessor’s church still survives.

  13. Rose: The Coronation Ceremony

  14. Barlow: “The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio”

  15. Rose: The Coronation Ceremony

  16. William of Jumièges

  17. A late-eleventh-century copy of the Laudes Regiae survives in the British Library, and is probably the text used for William’s coronation (Cotton MS. Vitellius, E. xii. Fo. 160v)

  18. Orderic Vitalis

  19. William of Poitiers

  20. Cited Fettu: William the Conqueror

  21. William of Poitiers

  22. Today it is an impressive ruin.

  23. Orderic Vitalis

  24. William of Poitiers

  25. Orderic Vitalis

  26. William of Poitiers

  27. William of Jumièges

  28. The Cygne de Croix—the Swan’s Cross—stands on the site.

  29. Fettu: Queen Matilda; Boüard; Turgis

  30. Planché; Borman

  31. Orderic Vitalis

  32. William of Jumièges; Orderic Vitalis

  33. William of Malmesbury

  34. Strickland

  35. Ibid.; Robert of Gloucester; Borman

  36. Hilton: Queens Consort; Borman

  37. Crouch: The Normans

  11. “Power and Virtue”

  1. Stafford: Queen Emma and Queen Edith; Hilton: “Medieval Queens”

  2. Hilton: Queens Consort

  3. Huneycutt: Matilda of Scotland

  4. Asser, Bishop of Sherborne

  5. Hilton: Queens Consort; Huneycutt: Matilda of Scotland

  6. Stafford: Queen Emma and Queen Edith

  7. Orderic Vitalis

  8. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  9. Borman

  10. Orderic Vitalis

  11. Ibid.

  12. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  13. William of Malmesbury

  14. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that Matilda was crowned in the Old Minster at Winchester, soon to be demolished to make way for a new Romanesque cathedral. However, a charter of William I is dated the day of the coronation, “when my wife Matilda was consecrated in the church of St Peter at Westminster” (Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum: The Acta of William).

  15. The Life of King Edward who rests at Westminster

  16. Keynes

  17. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  18. Crispin

  19. Rose: The Coronation Ceremony

  20. Women and Sovereignty

  21. Stafford: Queen Emma and Queen Edith

  22. Strong: Coronation

  23. Ibid.

  24. Hilton: Queens Consort

  25. Borman

  26. Lack; Gathagan: “The Trappings of Power”

  27. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  28. Cadell and Davies; Hilliam: Crown, Orb and Sceptre; Dowling; Domesday Book

  29. Baudri de Bourgeuil

  12. “In Queenly Purple”

  1. Turgot, Prior of Durham

  2. McNamara and Wemple

  3. Hollister

  4. Abbott

  5. Orderic Vitalis. Godfrey of Winchester, Prior of St. Swithun’s, Winchester, having met Matilda, wrote a short laudatory poem about her in his “Epigrammatica Historia” (The Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets).

  6. Ibid.

  7. Keynes; Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum: The Acta of William I

  8. Crouch: The Normans

  9. Norton: England’s Queens

  10. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum: The Acta of William I

  11. Turgis

  12. Domesday Book

  13. Recueil de travaux d’érudition dédiés à la mémoire de Julien Havet

  14. Holmes

  15. Davey; Scott: Medieval Dress and Fashion

  13. “Sword and Fire”

  1. Orderic Vitalis; William of Poitiers

  2. Some websites state, incorrectly, that Sancho’s wife, Alberta, was William and Matilda’s daughter.

  3. William of Poitiers

  4. Orderic Vitalis; William of Poitiers

  5. Rouleaux des morts du Ixe au Xve siècle

  6. Additional MS. 50002, British Library

  7. Orderic Vitalis

  8. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  9. William of Jumièges

  10. Fuller

  11. Dugdale: Monasticon Anglicanum

  12. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that Henry’s birth took place “not many days” after Matilda’s coronation, but William of Malmesbury says he was “born in England the third year after his father’s arrival,” that is, after 28 September 1068, while Orderic states he was born “before a year was ended,” meaning within the year after Matilda’s coronation, i.e. before Whitsun 1069. If he was conceived before his father left Normandy on 6 December, he could have been born anytime up to early September 1068; but if he had been conceived late in March, after Matilda arrived in England, he would have arrived around 17 December. As king, in 1122, Henry is said to have celebrated his birthday in York; he was there en route to Carlisle that year, in November, and returned on 6 December (The Historians of the Church of York and its Archbishops; Early Yorkshire Charters).

  13. Orderic Vitalis

  14. Borman

  15. Simeon of Durham

  16. Borman

  17. Orderic Vitalis; Henry of Huntingdon; Robert of Torigni; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  18. William of Malmesbury

  19. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; Bates: William the Conqueror

  20. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154; Borman

  21. Stafford: Queen Emma and Queen Edith. They would not be assigned to Matilda on Edith’s death in 1075 because by then Matilda was already provided for.

  22. Walker

  23. Orderic Vitalis

  24. Hilton: Queens Consort; Lofts

  25. “Vita Beati Simonis”; Orderic Vitalis

  26. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum: The Acta of William I; Williams: “A west-country magnate of the eleventh century”; Borman. Matilda later bestowed Tewkesbury on Roger de Busci, and granted other lands formerly owned by Brihtric to the abbeys of Holy Trinity and Saint-Étienne, Caen, and Bec-Hellouin.

  27. The Chronicle of Tewkesbury Abbey; Wace; Cotton MS. Cleopatra, British Library; Williams: “A west-country magnate of the eleventh century”

  28. Domesday Book

  29. Gathagan: “ ‘Mother of Heroes, Most Beautiful of Mothers’ ”

  30. Strickland

  31. Borman

  32. Letters of the Queens of England

  33. Domesday Book

  34. Borman

  35. Saul

  36. William of Jumièges

  37. Bates: William the Conqueror

  38. Steane

  39. Domesday Book

  40. William of Jumièges

  41. Orderic Vitalis

  42. John of Worcester

  43. Simeon of Durham

  44. Orderic Vitalis

  14. “Much Trouble”

  1. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  2. Orderic Vitalis

  3. Green: Henry I, King of England and Duke of Normandy

  4. Orderic Vitalis

  5. Ibid.; William of Malmesbury

  6. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum: The Acta of William I

  7. Ibid.; Couppey

  8. Substantial ivy-clad ruins of the château remain today.

  9. Regesta Regum Anglo
-Normannorum: The Acta of William I; Houts: The Normans in Europe. Trials by ordeal lost favor with the Church and the practice began to die out in the twelfth century.

  10. Gathagan: “ ‘Mother of Heroes, Most Beautiful of Mothers’ ”

  11. Hilton: Queens Consort; Aird

  12. Orderic Vitalis

  13. Hilton: Queens Consort

  14. Baudri de Bourgeuil

  15. Orderic Vitalis

  16. Ibid.

  17. Ibid.

  18. “The Life of Lanfranc”

  19. William of Malmesbury

  20. Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon

  21. William of Malmesbury

  22. Gathagan: “ ‘Mother of Heroes, Most Beautiful of Mothers’ ”

  23. William of Jumièges

  24. Orderic Vitalis

  25. Douglas

  26. Orderic Vitalis

  27. Ibid. Matilda would later be reconciled with her brother Robert.

  28. William of Jumièges

  29. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  30. Ingulph

  31. Orderic Vitalis

  15. “An Untimely Death”

  1. William of Malmesbury

  2. Herman the Archdeacon

  3. Camden

  4. The others were at Berkhamsted, Hertford, Ongar, Rayleigh, Rochester, Tonbridge, Reigate and Guildford.

  5. Robinson: Royal Palaces: Windsor Castle

  6. Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon; English Lawsuits from William I to Richard I

  7. Ingulph

  8. Orderic Vitalis

  9. Eadmer

  10. Bates: William the Conqueror

  11. William of Malmesbury

  12. Ibid.

  13. Henry of Huntingdon

  14. William of Malmesbury

  15. Godfrey of Cambrai, Prior of Winchester, recorded the date (The Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets); Robert of Torigni records the year as 1074. After 1073 Richard witnessed no more charters—Rufus was signing them instead. According to a seventeenth-century genealogist, Père Anselme de Guibours, cited by Lane, he died in 1081. Some modern historians suggest he could have died as early as 1069.

  16. Later chroniclers claimed that Richard was gored to death by a stag about four years before his father’s death.

  17. Orderic Vitalis

  18. Godfrey of Cambrai, in The Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets. Robert of Torigni also says that Richard “died in his youth.”

  19. William of Malmesbury; Orderic Vitalis

  20. Barlow: William Rufus; William of Malmesbury; Orderic Vitalis

  21. Stevenson; Keen

  22. Williams: The English and the Norman Conquest; Williams: “A west-country magnate of the eleventh century”; Borman; Stafford: Queen Emma and Queen Edith. Matilda exempted a widow, Edgiva of Edmondsham, Dorset, from paying geld, a tax on each hide of land, which was used to raise armies; William gave the town of Tewin, Hertfordshire, to one Halfdane and his mother.

  16. “The Praise and Agreement of Queen Matilda”

  1. Orderic Vitalis

  2. William of Malmesbury

  3. Borman

  4. Letter 2 in Appendix II

  5. Orderic Vitalis. She would be elected abbess of Caen in 1112.

  6. Kerr; Borman

  7. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum: The Acta of William I. She was also there when William gave a charter in 1077.

  8. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum: The Acta of William I

  9. “Vita Beati Simonis”

  10. Lack

  11. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  12. William of Malmesbury

  17. “Ties of Blood”

  1. Orderic Vitalis; William of Malmesbury

  2. Orderic Vitalis

  3. William of Jumièges; Bates: William the Conqueror

  4. Orderic Vitalis

  5. Who Made the Bayeux Tapestry?

  6. Leete

  7. Wace

  8. Montfaucon

  9. Beech: “Could Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy have owned the Bayeux Tapestry in 1430?”

  10. Stenton: The Bayeux Tapestry; Who Made the Bayeux Tapestry?

  11. Orderic Vitalis

  12. William of Jumièges

  13. “Vita Beati Simonis”; Guibert of Nogent-Sous-Coucy. There were supposedly two rival suitors for Adela’s hand: “Anfursus, King of the Spains,” and Robert Guiscard, Prince of Apulia, who was sixty-two and married. The only possible identification of “Anfursus” can be with Alfonso VI of León, who in 1077 was designated “Emperor of all Spain” and was a widower. There appears to have been some confusion with the earlier marriage of Adela’s sister Agatha to Alfonso.

  14. The History of the King’s Works. The little castle has long since disappeared, all traces of it swept away by succeeding building works.

  15. It was not called the White Tower until Henry III had it whitewashed in 1241.

  16. The third floor was not added until the fifteenth century.

  18. “A Mother’s Tenderness”

  1. Orderic Vitalis

  2. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  3. William of Jumièges

  4. John of Worcester

  5. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  6. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says this happened in 1079, but John of Worcester is more likely to be correct, given the sequence of events.

  7. Orderic Vitalis

  8. John of Worcester

  9. William of Malmesbury

  10. John of Worcester

  11. Adela, who claimed to have seen a vision of the Virgin Mary, was later canonized as a saint.

  12. Orderic Vitalis

  13. Ibid.

  14. Ibid.

  15. William of Malmesbury

  16. Strickland says it was Roger de Beaumont, William’s most trusted counselor and friend, but there is no contemporary evidence to support this (Borman).

  17. Orderic Vitalis

  18. Ibid.

  19. Ibid.

  20. Ibid.

  21. William of Malmesbury

  22. Beech: “Queen Mathilda of England”; Borman; Colbert

  23. William of Malmesbury

  24. Ibid.

  25. Orderic Vitalis

  26. Ibid.

  27. Ibid.

  28. The Register of Pope Gregory VII

  29. Orderic Vitalis

  30. Not to be confused with the Holy Shroud of Turin, it was lost in the French Revolution.

  31. “Vita Beati Simonis”; Lack; Simon Valois

  32. Orderic Vitalis

  33. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum: The Acta of William I

  34. Letter 3 in Appendix II

  35. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum: The Acta of William I

  36. LoPrete 36 Baudri de Bourgeuil

  37. William of Malmesbury

  19. “The Noblest Gem of a Royal Race”

  1. Turgot

  2. Only foundations of the later stone walls of this rectangular building survive today.

  3. Turgot. Margaret’s abbey was rebuilt in the twelfth century, but some remains of her church were found beneath the nave in 1916 (Fawcett).

  4. Orderic Vitalis; The Durham Liber Vitae

  5. William of Malmesbury

  6. Foliot, who had been told this by Edith herself.

  7. Turgot

  8. Hilton: Queens Consort

  9. Turgot

  10. Hildebert of Lavardin: “Letters”

  11. Turgot

  12. Ibid.

  20. “Twofold Light of November”

  1. Borman

  2. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum: The Acta of William I

  3. Lack

  4. Borman

  5. Orderic Vitalis

  6. “Vita Beati Simonis”; Simon Valois

  7. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum: The Acta of William I

  8. Ibid.

  9. Domesday Book

  10. Crouch: The Normans

  11. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154

  12. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum: T
he Acta of William I

  13. Ibid.

  14. Borman

  15. Orderic Vitalis

  16. Turgis

  17. It was kept, with an inventory of her wardrobe, jewels and toilette, in the archives of Holy Trinity, Caen, and is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum: The Acta of William I; “Les actes de Guillaume le Conquérant et de la reine Mathilde pour les abbayes caënnaises”).

  18. Orderic Vitalis

  19. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  20. Orderic Vitalis

  21. William of Malmesbury

  22. Orderic Vitalis

  23. William of Malmesbury

  24. Orderic Vitalis

  25. Ibid.

  26. Another translation of Orderic’s epitaph reads: “The lofty structure of this splendid tomb hides great Matilda, sprung from royal stem; child of a Flemish duke [sic], her mother was Adela, daughter of a king of France, sister of Henry, Robert’s royal son. Married to William joined, most illustrious King, she gave this site and raised this noble house, with many lands and many goods endowed, given by her, or her toil procured. It was here her holiest work was seen, this shrine, this house, where cloistered sisters dwell, and with their notes of praise the anthem swell, endowed and beautified by her earnest care. Comforter of the needy, duty’s friend, her wealth enriched the poor, left her in need. At daybreak on November’s second day, she won her share of everlasting joy.” Another modern translation by Michel de Boüard reads: “This beautiful grave shelters with dignity Matilda, of royal blood and of remarkable moral value. Her father was duke [sic] of Flanders, and her mother, Adela, daughter of Robert, King of France, and sister of Henry, who took seat on the royal throne. United in marriage to the magnificent King William, she founded an abbey and built this church, of so many lands and precious goods, endowed and hallowed by her will. She was providence to the miserable full of goodness; dealing out her treasures, she was poor to herself and rich to the needy. Thus she gained her eternal dwelling, on the first [sic] day of November, following the hour of Prime.” Both the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Orderic Vitalis, transcribing the epitaph, give Matilda’s date of death as 2 November.

  27. Gathagan: “ ‘Mother of Heroes, Most Beautiful of Mothers’ ”

 

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