 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
The
region stretching from the Brescian foothills of the Alps to Northern Lazio
was the greatest fief in Italy between the Tenth and the Eleventh centuries,
when these lands were acquired by the Counts of Canossa. The last member of
this noble family, the Countess Matilda, was perhaps the most famous and fascinating
woman in Medieval Europe...
A lonely lady singing came
Picking flowers from the flowers
That coloured all her way
(Dante, La Divina Commedia, canto XXVIII Purgatorio)
... on the death of her father Bonifacio, when she was only seventeen, Matilda
became ruler of a vast area, with a wide variety of customs, political systems
and geographical features. This was a difficult period, characterized by the
transition from feudalism to city state, economical revival and the Crusades.
Under Matilda’s rule the cities were often hotbeds of popular uprising
severely crushed by the Countess who was determined to maintain the old feudal
system and institutions.
The Pope’s first and most faithful ally, Matilda was a strong supporter
of the reform movement, originated at Cluny, that aimed at restoring spiritual
purity to the Church and emphasizing its role as a guide. She found a fierce
antagonist in Henry IV of Franconia, a relation on her mother’s side,
who claimed the right to appoint bishops, thus asserting the superiority of
the Empire over the Church, that is of temporal power over spiritual. Matilda
was, therefore, a champion of the pope in the ”War of Investitures”
that ended, at first, with the famous humiliation of the Emperor at Canossa
in 1077, by Pope Gregory VII.
Although Matilda had, at her father’s death, expressed the wish to be
a nun, she did not hesitate, throughout her career, to organize and lead military
action against the renewed forces of the Emperor and the free cities.
Her noble features inspire male spirits,
Her face shows a more masculine vigour
(Tasso, Gerusalemme Liberata, canto XVII)
Her strategy relied on a series of fortified castles from Monteveglio to Canossa, which at first brought about the defeat of Henry IV in 1091 and then the renunciation of his son, Henry V, to continue the war. These impregnable castles enabled the Countess to preserve her lands until her death in 1115 at Bondanazzo, between Reggio Emilia and Mantua, near the monastery of St.Benedetto of Polirone.
She lost in her cloister so much that I think
To tell the whole story I would run out of ink
(Benzone d’Alba, ad Heinricum Imperatorem libri VII)
Matilda married twice, first to Goffredo The Hunchback, an ugly and deformed man, then, when she was in her forties, to Guelph of Bavaria, aged only sixteen, but there were no heirs from either marriage. On her death, therefore, her lands were confiscated by the Emperor and her estates dissolved.
