A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Matilda (of Tuscany)
MATILDA, Countess of Tuscany, Daughter of Boniface, Marquis of Mantua died 1115, aged 76.
Her mother Beatrice, sister of the emperor Henry III, after the death of Boniface, married Gazelo, duke of Lorrain, and contracted Matilda to Godfrey Gibbosus, or Crookback, duke of Spoleto and Tuscany, Gazelo's son by a former marriage. This formidable alliance, made without his consent, alarmed Henry, who marched into Italy, and made his sister prisoner; hoping that, by carrying her into Germany, he might dissolve the agreement, which gave him too powerful a rival in the government of that country. He died 1056, soon after his return; and the young Matilda's husband, in 1070. She was afterwards married to Azo V, marquis of Ferrara, from whom she was divorced by the pope, as she was also from her third husband Welpho V, duke of Bavaria, whom she married 1088. She parted from him 1095.
Dispossessed of her estates by the Emperor Henry III, she joined the popes, recovered all her own dominions, and dismembered from the empire many goodly territories, which, at her death, having had no issue, she gave for ever in fee to the see of Rome; which the emperors disputed or resigned, as suited their and their adversaries purposes.
The famous pontiff, Gregory VIIth, whom we must now consider as ambitious, insolent, and tyrannical, but who certainly seems to have acted under a mistaking sense of duty, and who undoubtedly was one of the greatest men of his age, as, bating his zeal for the aggrandizement of the popedom, he is allowed to be just and upright, was the friend of Matilda, who looked upon him as the first of mankind. When in 1077 the emperor Henry IV. was reduced to the character of a suppliant, the pope being at Canosa, in the Appenines, a fortress belonging to the countess, he remained three days in the outer court fasting and praying, before he could be admitted to make his submissions to the haughty pontiff, and then only obtained the favour at the intercession of Matilda and her companions. Her attachment to Gregory, and her hatred against the Germans (one of whom she considered as her protector, and the other as her natural enemy) was so great, that she defended him with great heroism, and on her death made over all her estates to the apostolic see; consisting of a great part of Tuscany, Mantua, Parma, Reggio, Placentia, Ferrara, Verona, and almost the whole of what was called the Patrimony of St. Peter, from Viterbo to Orvieto, together with part of Umbria, Spoleto, and the marquisate of Ancona.
Fortune, however, changing, the emperor deposed the pope, who died 1085. His last words, which showed that he was deceived in his own character, as well as his adherents, were: "I have loved justice, and hated iniquity, therefore I die in exile."
Matilda, who looked on the emperor with aggregated detestation, is said, in conjunction with pope Urban II, to have seduced his son Conrad into rebellion against his father; and, accordingly, the young prince assumed the title of king of Italy; but he soon died.