by Lisa Hilton
A strong connection between the religious life and female scholarship was also current at the time. It was suggested to Matilda’s daughter, Adela of Blois, that learning was one way in which daughters could surpass their fathers, devoting their leisure to cultivating knowledge and a love of books. Early education was very much a domestic, maternal responsibility, and one that was taken seriously. Throughout the medieval period, an extensive clerical literature advises mothers on proper childcare and education and as early as Asser’s ninth-century Life of King Alfred, this was emphasised in Saxon England. The writer notes that ‘with shame be it spoken, by the unworthy neglect of his parents … [Alfred] remained illiterate even till he was twelve years old or more’. But Alfred’s mother, Osburgh, ‘a religious woman, noble by birth and by nature’, gave Alfred and his brother a book of Saxon poetry, saying, ‘Whichever of you shall the soonest learn this volume shall have it for his own.’ When Alfred succeeds, his mother ‘smiles with satisfaction’.
The cult of the Virgin, which was to play such a resonant part in contemporary conceptions of medieval queenship, also connected royalty, sanctity and learning. An engraving from ninth-century Mercia shows the Queen of Heaven holding a book, connecting three dynamics which were to be central to Matilda’s own conduct and the manner in which she raised her children. The northern, pagan concept of the queen as wise and judicious counsellor to her husband was absorbed, in Christian education, into St Paul’s edict in I Corinthians on the duty of wives to influence their ‘unbelieving husbands’ — an obligation adopted by Matilda’s Saxon predecessors with evident success, there was a new tension between the dynamic, evangelising role of the queen as a source and symbol of sacred power and the injunction, also found in St Paul, that Christian wives should be meek, passive and silent. Later stipulations on the education of women suggest that Matilda would also have been exposed to this new conception of her wifely role. In the influential manual The Book of the Knight of the Tower, Geoffrey de la Tour-Landry suggested that women’s learning should be limited ‘to the virtuous things of scripture, wherefore they may better see and know their salvation’. The fifteenth-century commentator Bartholomew Granville16 stressed the importance of deportment to the well-bred woman’s character. Her carriage should be erect, but her eyes modestly cast down; she should be ‘mannerly in clothing, sober in moving, wary in speaking, chaste in looking, honest in bearing, sad in going, shamefast among the people’. Writers from the end of the period such as Giles of Rome and Christine de Pisan concurred that spinning, sewing and embroidery were ideal activities to keep girls from idle and potentially sinful imaginings.
Extrapolating from these two slightly variant traditions, it is not possible to do more than give a sense of the intellectual atmosphere in which Matilda of Flanders was raised, though evidence of her character and activities can be stretched to support the theory that she was successful in creating a role combining both active pious queenship and suitably modest personal conduct. Literacy in Latin had been a notable feature of the Flemish court, and since Matilda’s daughters could certainly read the language, it seems likely that she too had some knowledge of it, which in turn suggests that her own mother had favoured a ‘royal’ education. Writing, however, was extremely uncommon among laywomen, and it is probable that Matilda, like her daughter-in-law, used a clerk for her letters. What other practical skills she acquired is not known, though the thirteenth-century French romance Silence suggests that appropriate accomplishments for girls of her class were music, particularly the harp and viol, and embroidery. Matilda’s daughter-in-law, Matilda of Scotland, was to be a patron and promoter of the skills of English needlewomen, and while the nineteenth-century writer Agnes Strickland’s assertion that the Bayeux Tapestry was made by Matilda of Flanders and her ladies has been proved false, Matilda did leave some fine work in her will, and her husband certainly patronised one Leofgeat of Wiltshire, who is recorded as making gold embroidery for the King’s use. Saxon needlework is one example of the cultural validation that was as essential to the Norman project of conquest as military might, in that the Anglo-Saxon past was reclaimed and absorbed into a new tradition.
However profound were the wider implications of such activities, there was much more to Matilda’s life than sitting around sewing. Aristocratic women were the principal managers of their family’s households and estates, particularly in a time when their men were often absent for long periods on campaign. Their effectiveness in applying themselves to a role that might be seen as the equivalent of running ‘a major business enterprise’17 is borne out by the frequency with which they were named as executrixes in widowhood. Whatever the precise details of Matilda of Flanders’ early training, it seems to have equipped her well for life as a ruling duchess and a successful, fully engaged consort.
Matilda appears as William’s consort in a charter to Holy Trinity in Rouen in 1053. By then, the marriage had directed an important change in William’s policy and family attitudes. As a minor, he had relied on the older generation for support, particularly his uncles, Mauger, archbishop of Rouen, and William of Arques. As William grew more confident and emotionally involved with Matilda, he began to redefine his family more intimately, in terms of his own growing children. In a pattern that would become a familiar problem to English princes, he also began to favour his own contemporaries over his senior relations. By 1052, both uncles were in open opposition to William and in 1053, William of Arques staged a revolt. Matilda was now faced with an experience common among aristocratic brides: a conflict between her husband and her natal family. William’s relationship with Matilda’s uncle, King Henry of France, had been an important motivation for their marriage, but this aspect of the alliance had turned sour when Henry reconciled with William’s archenemy Geoffrey, Count of Anjou. Normandy was now isolated between hostile Angevin and French territory, and Henry was keen to profit from dissent within the duchy. In response to his uncle’s opposition, William besieged the fortress of Arques, and Henry led a relief force to the rebels. William succeeded in forcing Henry to retreat, and William of Arques went into exile in Boulogne, where he died. Archbishop Mauger was obliged to retire after a Church council at Lisieux in 1054, and withdrew to Guernsey, but William’s difficulties with Henry continued.
The French King made another attempt on Normandy in 1054, sending a divided army to the north and south of the River Seine. William faced Henry in the south, sending his cousin Robert of Eu to confront the northern column. Robert achieved a spectacular victory at Mortemer and once again Henry was repelled, but he continued plotting with Geoffrey of Anjou and in 1057 Normandy was attacked yet again. The French and Angevin forces invaded from the south and pressed towards the Channel, laying waste to the countryside en route. William met them at the estuary of the River Dives at Varaville, where a high tide split the enemy forces. Their battalions cut in half, Henry and Geoffrey could only stand helplessly on the bank and watch as William massacred their army. Both Henry and Geoffrey died in 1060, by which point William had already begun a long campaign to secure Maine as a border province.
Such a compression of military events might give the impression that William and his peers spent most of their time hacking at one another on the battlefield, but this would be to misunderstand the nature of medieval warfare and to neglect the significant cultural and economic development of Normandy in the 1050s. Despite the near-permanent military commitments of the duke, he was not engaging in pitched battles on a regular basis. Europeans were notoriously cautious in war, as a twelfth-century Arab commentator noted,18 and it was prudence as much as bravery that won campaigns. So when diplomacy failed, siege warfare — taming the enemy by hunger and isolation, or strategies such as taking important hostages — was tried. Outright armed combat was avoided as far as possible: it was only as a last resort that a commander would risk his men’s lives in large numbers or, worse, that of his prince.
So while the Normandy Matilda knew was certainly dominated b
y her husband’s armed struggles to control his aristocracy and expand and secure his borders, it was able concurrently to develop peacefully and profitably. A distinct ‘Norman’, as opposed to Scandinavian or French, identity was becoming clearly established. The towns of Rouen, Bayeux and Caen were expanding — a Jewish community of artisans and merchants was founded in Caen around 1060 — and the duchy was profiting from the wine-growing regions to the south as tuns were shipped down the Seine to supply Britain and the north. There was also something of a religious revival. Normandy had been Christian as far back as the fifth century, but owing to the Viking incursions, by the first decades of the tenth, there were no monasteries remaining. William’s grandfather, Duke Richard, restored the monastery of St Michel in 965, and by the eleventh century, Benedictine abbeys were flourishing at Préaux, Lyre, Corneilles, Conches and St Georges-de-Boscherville, in addition to William and Matilda’s own foundations at Caen. St Stephen and Holy Trinity were created in response to the papal recognition of William and Matilda’s marriage in 1059. The papal edict was revoked on condition that William and Matilda each performed a penance of building and endowing a monastic house ‘where monks and nuns should zealously pray for their salvation’.19 Matilda’s foundation, Holy Trinity, was functioning under its first abbess (appropriately named Matilda), by the end of the year, with a choir of nuns to sing the daily offices. The abbey was finally consecrated in 1066.
That year is, of course, the one that everyone knows: 1066, the year of Hastings, the year that English history really ‘began’. Throughout the first fifteen years of Matilda’s marriage, the manoeuvrings and manipulations that led to the battle of Hastings were fitting gradually into place. Edward the Confessor, the English King, had married Edith, the daughter of the powerful Earl Godwin, in 1045, but by 1051 the marriage was still childless. Having spent much of his life in Normandy, the King’s loyalties to the duchy were strong, and he began to build up a faction of Norman retainers at the English court, possibly as a check on Godwin’s influence. Nevertheless, in September 1051, Godwin was confident enough to openly defy Edward and events came to a head. The Godwin family was outlawed, Godwin himself fled to Flanders, continuing the tradition of the province as a refuge for disaffected English ambition, and Edward repudiated his wife, leaving the English throne without even the possibility of a successor.
Some historians accept that William of Normandy visited England at this juncture, and while there is very little reason to believe that such a visit took place, it is agreed that Edward offered William the English crown. Robert, the former abbot of Jumièges in Normandy and subsequently, as part of Edward’s pro-Norman policy, archbishop of Canterbury, passed through Normandy on his way to Rome, bringing the promise of the succession and hostages to confirm it. (These hostages were Wulfnoth, Earl Godwin’s son, and Haakon, his grandson, and they were to remain in Normandy for thirteen years.) Later stories included the presentation of a ring and ceremonial sword. There were, however, other strong contenders for the throne. The children of Edward’s sister Godgifu, Countess of the Vexin, had an interest, as did the descendants of Edmund Ironside, whose son Edward ‘The Exile’ returned to the English court in 1057 but died shortly afterwards, leaving a son, Edgar Aetheling, as the claimant for the house of Wessex. And it was still possible that Edward might have children of his own.
In 1052, everything changed again. Godwin was begrudgingly restored to favour and Queen Edith was fetched out of the convent. Godwin died the following year, and his son Harold became Earl of Wessex, assuming his father’s role as the second man in the realm. It was too early for William to risk a confrontation, and for him the decade was one of consolidation. He waited patiently for his chance and, in 1064, the winds of opportunity finally blew.
They blew Earl Harold and his party to the coast of Ponthieu, a neighbouring county of Normandy, where they were immediately imprisoned by the local lord, Count Guy. The purpose of Harold’s journey is unknown, despite the claim of later Norman sources that he had been sent as an envoy to reaffirm Edward’s promise to William and retrieve the hostages. When storms deposited Harold at Ponthieu, William was conveniently able to deliver him from captivity, and the two men spent the summer together. Though Harold was effectively a prisoner, everyone politely maintained that this was a friendly visit. Whatever might have been in the two men’s hearts, there was no outward manifestation of rivalry, indeed ‘there is every likelihood that a good time was had by all’.20 William was anxious to impress his guest with his status as a great prince and his jewels, silks, furs and plate were much on display. He also took the opportunity to introduce Harold to Norman military tactics in a short campaign against Brittany, in which Harold acquitted himself admirably. But beneath the displays of amity, William was intent on furthering the purpose he had been harbouring for over a decade. At some point before his return to England, Harold swore an oath to uphold William’s claim to the English crown, an oath which also included the promise of marriage to one of William and Matilda’s daughters. The scene is depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry, with Harold placed between two altars holding sacred relics, which he touches with his hand as William, seated on a throne and holding a sword (the sword supposedly sent by King Edward?) looks on.
Harold’s estimation of the value of his oath was demonstrated when King Edward died on 5 January 1066. The next day, the newly consecrated royal abbey at Westminster saw the funeral of one king and the coronation of another: Harold. He took Ealdgyth, sister of Morcar, the Earl of Northumbria, as his wife. It was a smooth succession, suggesting it had been arranged in advance, but Harold was immediately beset by challenges. At stake was not only the future of the English crown, but the orientation of the country towards either Scandinavia or Latin Europe, and the consequent balance of both ecclesiastical and political power in western Europe as a whole. The crucial figures involved were Harold himself, his brother Tostig, Harald Hardrada, King of Norway, and Duke William of Normandy.
By the summer of 1066, William was preparing for war. The English expedition brought new and important responsibilities for Matilda, who was to act as his regent in the duchy in his absence, in the name of their son Robert, who was now fourteen. Something of William’s long-term plans for the attempt on the English throne may be discerned in the fact that he had officially designated Robert as his heir in 1063, suggesting that he knew he was to risk his life and hoped to ensure a trouble-free succession. Three years later, as the troopships were under construction in the shipyards and the massive organisation of men, horses and supplies was underway, William called a great assembly where he proclaimed his son as his heir before his chief magnates and extracted an oath of fidelity. Three counsellors were appointed to guide Matilda in William’s absence, Roger of Beaumont, Roger of Montgomery and Hugh d’Auranchin. Matilda was to demonstrate her political capabilities more fully in the future, but it is significant that during the critical period of the expedition, Normandy, ‘a province notoriously susceptible to anarchy’21 suffered no major disturbances, despite being left in the nominal charge of a young woman and a boy. Matilda also contributed directly to the venture with the gift of the Mora, the large and brightly decorated ship in which William himself set sail for the English coast.
Harold was aware of the challenge to his crown being mobilised across the Channel, but he was faced with more immediate problems. Tostig had been made Earl of Northumbria in 1055 after his father’s reconciliation with King Edward. He was deeply unpopular, and ten years later the Northumbrians rebelled against him. Töstig was exiled to Flanders and replaced by Morcar, soon to become Harold’s father-in-law. Shortly after Harold’s succession, Tostig attempted to revenge himself by mounting a series of raids along the English coast, but was driven up to Scotland, where he made a treacherous alliance with one of Harold’s far more powerful rivals, the King of Norway. Harold Hardrada now proclaimed himself the rightful heir of King Cnut and set out with a huge fleet to make a bid for the throne. Tostig swor
e allegiance to him and their combined forces managed to take possession of York in September 1066. Harold moved his army northwards with spectacular speed and attacked the invaders at Stamford Bridge, to the north-east of the city. It was a magnificent victory. Tostig and Harold Hardrada were killed and only twenty-odd Viking ships were left to limp back to Norway.
Yet once more, Harold had to move fast. The Norman forces had landed at Pevensey on 28 September and were now encamped at Hastings. There was no option but to swing his exhausted men round and make for the south coast. The two armies met on 14 October.
The only contemporary account of the battle to have survived in English is the ‘D’ version of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. It is a brief and poignant description of the passing of a world:
Then Earl William came from Normandy into Pevensey, on the eve of the Feast of St Michael, and as soon as they were fit, made a castle at Hastings market town. This became known to King Harold and he gathered a great army and came against him at the grey apple tree. And William came upon him by surprise before his people were marshalled. Nevertheless the King fought very hard against him with those men who wanted to support him, and there was great slaughter on either side. There was killed King Harold and Earl Leofwine his brother, and Earl Gyrth his brother and many good men. And the French had possession of the place of slaughter.
King William I was crowned at Westminster on Christmas Day 1066. The ceremony was a crucial reinforcement of the legitimacy of his right to the throne. William needed to show that he held the crown not only by right of conquest, but as the true heir to an unbroken line of succession. The choice of the Confessor’s church at Westminster was a part of this declaration of legitimacy, and Westminster became the coronation church for almost every subsequent English monarch. The tenth-century Saxon rite was employed, with two notable modifications. The congregation was asked, by the archbishop of York in English and the bishop of Coutances in French, for its formal assent to William’s rule, a question that was incorporated into following coronations. And the Laudes Regiae, a part of the liturgy that had been used at the coronation of Charlemagne and on the highest Church holidays ever since, were sung. Pre-Conquest, William had been named in the Laudes as ‘Duke of the Normans’, after the French king. Post-Conquest, he is referred to as ‘the most serene William, the great and peacegiving King, crowned by God, life and victory’. Life and victory, vita et Victoria, is a Roman formulation, while serenissimus is the antique imperial title: William was evoking the most ancient authorities to support his new status. No mention was made in the post-1066 Laudes of the king of France, implying that he and William were now equals. As William’s consort, Matilda of Flanders was associated in this declaration of majesty, and thus the queen’s role was publicly formalised as never before.