Lesson video

Hello and welcome to today's history lesson.

My name is Mr. Merrett.

And I'll be guiding you through today's lesson.

So let's get started.

Today's lesson is looking at Matilda's early life when she became empress of Germany.

And by the end of this lesson, we'll be able to describe Matilda's early life and her role in the Holy Roman Empire.

In order to do that, we need to use some key terms.

And our key terms for today are empress and empire.

An empress is the wife of an emperor, the ruler of an empire.

And an empire is a group of countries or provinces ruled from the center by one person or a group of people.

Today's lesson will comprise of three learning cycles.

And our first learning cycle is looking at the royal child Matilda.

Let's get going.

So Empress Matilda was one of the most important women of the medieval period for several reasons.

Named heir to the throne of England and Normandy, the subsequent denial of her crown led to a 20 year civil war, a period in English history known as The Anarchy.

And it was also an important reason why no other woman was named heir to the throne of England for the next 400 years.

We can all trace it back to the situation involving Empress Matilda.

Matilda was born in 1102 to King Henry I, who was the youngest son of William the Conqueror.

Her mother was Edith Matilda, who was the daughter of King Malcolm III of Scotland and also Margaret of Wessex, who was a descendant of King Alfred the Great.

So through her father's line, she has that connection to the Duchy of Normandy, and also obviously being the current king of England.

And through her mother's line, she has that link to both Scotland and also to the Anglo Saxon rulers of England as well, so a very famous royal line from from both sides.

So Matilda was the eldest of Henry's two legitimate children, although he had an estimated 24 children in total.

So Henry had a number of children with a number of different women but only two with Edith Matilda, who's actual queen.

Very little is known about Matilda's early years.

It's likely that she lived with her mother.

We don't know for certain, but that's in all likelihood probably what happened.

And it's also likely that as her mother was well educated, that she in turn also received a good education as well.

It is entirely like that Edith Matilda would've educated her daughter herself and potentially had some help in doing so.

Historians, we don't even know what Matilda looked like certainly at this point in time as no one actually painted her portrait when she was a child.

The image we have on the screen is best guess at this point in time.

Chroniclers described her as being very beautiful.

But it's entirely possible, bordering unlikely, that this is just a polite way of describing any high-born woman from the medieval period.

We get this description of high-born women quite frequently without going into any real detail about what her appearance actually is.

So as a result, we just don't know what she looked like.

Okay, let's have a quick check for understanding now then.

So Matilda was the youngest of Henry I's two children.

Is that a true or a false statement?

Make your choice now.

Okay, if you chose false, then congratulations, that is correct.

But why is it a false statement?

Let's justify it now.

Is it false because Matilda was the oldest of Henry I's two legitimate children or is it false because Matilda was the youngest of Henry I's 24 children?

Make your choice now.

Okay, if you chose a, then congratulations, that is the correct answer.

So in 1110, at the age of eight years old, Matilda was betrothed to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V, who was 24.

Betrothed means promised to marry.

So at the age of eight, Matilda's father made a promise to marry her to the 24-year-old Holy Roman Emperor, Henry V.

Now, throughout history, royal children were regularly betrothed at a young age in order to secure alliances between nations.

A really good way of making peace between two countries is to marry off two of the royal families from those two countries.

And any children they have will be equal parts both of those countries.

So the whole idea is that in the future there won't be any more war between these two countries because the ruling family are from both of those countries.

So in February of 1110, Matilda left England for Germany.

Remember, she's eight years old at this point in time.

She's leaving her country, well, entirely likely that she would never see her parents again.

She was crowned queen on the 25th of July, 1110 in a spectacular ceremony at Mainz Cathedral.

And being too young to be officially married, she wasn't actually married at eight years old, she was just betrothed, Matilda was left in the care of the Archbishop of Trier, where she was taught German and the customs of her new people.

In January of 1114, so four years later, at the age of 12, Matilda was officially married to the 28-year-old Henry V.

And again, we would view this as very young, too young, to get married.

Throughout history though, this is something which we see happen again and again, women in particular marrying at a very young age, although it was boys that were marrying as well at a very, very young age.

And the whole point is not for their own happiness.

The whole point is that they have a duty to bring peace to their countries and to create alliances between nations.

And that's why they are getting married at a very, very young age.

Right, let's have a quick check for understanding now.

So discussion question.

I'd like to think, what does Matilda's childhood tell us about medieval women?

So pause the video now whilst you consider that question, and I'll see you in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on fine with that question.

So some of the things you could have said were the fact that there was no portrait could mean that Matilda was possibly seen as unimportant even though she was a princess.

She was betrothed at the age of eight, so she had no say in who she would like to marry.

She was sent to be married to a foreign ruler.

So possible she was mainly seen as a useful tool to help her father as opposed to a person in her own right who has her own dreams and aspirations.

And she was sent away from family to strangers at the age of eight.

So it was possible that family ties were different to how they're often viewed today.

I imagine that many parents would feel very uncomfortable about sending their eight-year-old children off to live with complete strangers.

This was the situation during the medieval period.

It was somewhat expected certainly for high-born people like Matilda.

Now this tells us something about medieval women, but we need to consider as well on the back of our minds throughout this lesson is does Matilda's experience actually follow that of all women in medieval England at this point in time?

So just bear that in mind as we go through this lesson.

This is our first task for today then.

So I want you to think, from Henry I's perspective, what are the positives and negatives of betrothing his eight-year-old daughter to the Holy Roman Emperor?

And I'd like you to create a table.

And I've given you a couple of points, first of all.

And I'd like you just to fill in that table.

There's two more points for both the positives and the negatives.

See if we can get those two in.

If you can get more than two for each side, that'd be fantastic.

But to give you an idea, one of the positives could be that Henry I would gain a powerful ally.

The Holy Roman Empire was huge, and wealthy, and powerful as well, so a great friend to have.

One of the negatives though is that his young daughter will be living with strangers in a different country.

So see what else you can come up with.

Pause the video whilst you do this, and I'll see you in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on fine with that task.

Let's think about what you could have said then.

So in terms of the positives, you could have said that his future grandchildren could be emperors, which would just be amazing.

Imagine having an emperor in the family.

And also, you could say that there's lots of respect for Henry because his daughter will become an empress.

And again, your child is an empress.

That gives you a whole lot more respect from the people of your own nation, but also rulers from other nations as well.

In terms of the negatives, we could say, well, in reality, it's unlikely that Henry would ever see his daughter again, which I think a lot of parents would say this is a really, really big negative.

And also as well, you cannot guarantee her safety.

I mean, she's going to a very, very secure nation in the sense that the Holy Roman Empire is very strong, but you don't actually know what's gonna happen to her, and Henry is in no position to protect her from this point onwards.

If you've got others than that, that's absolutely fine, but here's just a few that you could have got down.

All right, let's go for our next learning cycle for today, which is looking at The Good Matilda.

So the people of the Holy Roman Empire were impressed with their new queen and they took to calling her The Good Matilda.

That was their nickname for her.

One of her first acts upon entering the country at eight years old was to successfully plead on behalf of a noble who had lost his lands and title.

And part of the reason why she did this is somewhat down to expectation.

The role of a queen during the medieval period was to offer advice to the king and be a voice for mercy as well.

So the whole idea is that the king, if there's anything going wrong in his empire, if anybody's acting up, the king will will come down on them very, very hard.

But the queen is there to soften that blow and potentially sometimes to offer mercy.

So the king therefore would not appear weak.

He would appear merciful.

And it's the queen's job to provide that voice of mercy.

And from what we understand, it does appear as though Matilda actually performed that duty particularly well, certainly on behalf of that first noble as well.

Now, although her husband was the Holy Roman Emperor, Matilda herself was not crowned empress until 1117 in Rome, and the reason being is that the emperor and the Pope were arguing at the time.

There was an argument ongoing about who gets to appoint bishops within the Holy Roman Empire.

Should it be the Holy Roman Emperor?

Should it be the Pope?

There's also another argument about who actually gets to appoint popes as well.

So the Holy Roman Emperor thought that he had the power to say who the next Pope was going to be.

And the Pope himself said that actually, no, this should be down to people of the church.

Now the argument caused a number of regions in the Holy Roman Empire to rebel against the Holy Roman Emperor.

And as a result, Henry V, who had been in Italy with Matilda in order to get her crowned as empress, had to cross back over the Alps in order to deal with this.

But when he did so, Matilda actually stayed behind in Italy to manage the empire's lands there.

Some of the Holy Roman Empire was actually within what is modern day Italy as well.

Now she's now running effectively a significant portion of the Holy Roman Empire all by herself.

She was 16 years old at this point in time when she's entrusted with this really, really important job.

And what's even more amazing is that the people of Italy happily accepted her rule and obeyed the decisions that she made.

Probably, understand, there wasn't any major decisions that needed to be made, but there were decisions that had to be made and she successfully executed them.

She did a very, very good job.

Matilda successfully ruled Italy by herself for two years before she crossed over the Alps herself and rejoined the emperor.

Unfortunately, though, just a few years later, on the 23rd of May, 1125, Henry V died.

He had cancer, and unfortunately he died of that.

It was very sad.

From what we understand, Matilda and Henry, they were actually very fond of each other despite the fact there was such an age gap and they were only married for a political alliance.

They had grown very fond of each other indeed.

And Matilda was now a widow at the age of only 23.

Well, let's have a quick check for understanding now.

So in which country did Empress Matilda rule the lands of the Holy Roman Empire by herself on behalf of her husband?

Was it in France, was it in Germany, or was it in Italy?

Okay, if you chose c, Italy, then congratulations, that is correct.

Let's have another check for understanding now, another discussion question.

This time, also think, what does Matilda's time as empress of the Holy Roman Empire tell us about medieval women?

So pause the video whilst you have a think about that, and I'll see you in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on fine.

So some of the things that you could have said for that, you could have said that she ruled the Holy Roman Empire's lands in Italy alone, so therefore she was trusted to carry out an important job.

People respected her decisions, so she was able to wield power when doing so on behalf of her husband, the emperor.

And she successfully changed the emperor's mind regarding a disgraced noble, so she was able to add a kinder voice to his group of advisors.

And you might have had different things, which is entirely fine.

This is just some of the things you could have said.

Right, here's our second task for the day then.

So I'd like to read Sam's interpretation below, which is as follows.

Sam says that Matilda's early life shows us that women were not respected during the medieval time period.

And what I would like you to do is give one piece of evidence to support Sam's statement and a separate piece of evidence to contradict her statement.

So pause the video whilst you complete that task, and I'll see you in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hope you got on fine with that task.

So heres are some things you could have written then.

You could have said, in terms of supporting Sam's statements, one piece of evidence to support Sam's statement is that Matilda had no say in who she wanted to marry as she was betrothed to the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry V, when she was just eight years old.

And contrary to that, one piece of evidence to contradict Sam's statements is that Matilda was able to rule the empire's lands in Italy without her husband, and the people accepted her decisions and respected her rule.

So there is evidence to both support and contradict that statement from Sam.

If you've got something different, again, that's absolutely fine as long as you've actually managed to link your piece of evidence back to the statement.

Right, so we got our third and final learning cycle for today, which is the dutiful daughter Matilda.

So options for a high-born widow with no children were limited in medieval society.

And effectively, Matilda had two choices.

She could either remarry or she could become a nun.

There wasn't really many other choices available to women in her position at this point in time.

Now, several German princes did offer Matilda marriage proposals, but she turned them all down.

And instead, her father, Henry I, called for her to return to the lands of England and Normandy.

Matilda agreed.

She sold her lands in the Holy Roman Empire, which strongly suggested that she had no intention at all of returning to that country.

But she did take with her her personal fortune, which was considerable and also included two crowns and the holy relic of the mummified hand of St.

James, which, if you're a religious person, was incredibly valuable.

If you're not, then it's just a mummified hand.

But Matilda was very, very religious, so it had a lot of worth to her.

And she made the journey to Normandy to rejoin her father after that.

Now Henry I had several reasons for recalling Matilda.

Matilda's only legitimate sibling, her younger brother, William Adelin, who was the heir to the thrones of England and Normandy, he had died several years previously in a horrible accident, and as a result, Henry I had no clear heir to the throne.

As well as that, he also had problems defending his territory, specifically the territory of Normandy.

And again, specifically to that is Normandy's southern border.

And it was the county of Anjou that was the real problem.

Normandy and Anjou were historic enemies.

And during Henry I's reign, he was continually facing issues with their leader, Fulk, at that point in time.

So he needed to have an heir and he needed to secure his border, specifically the border in the south part of Normandy.

Now, happily for Henry, Matilda could solve both of these problems.

In 1126, Henry arranged for the Anglo-Norman barons to swear an oath, which is a really important promise, to honor his wish that Matilda would succeed him as the next monarch of England.

And there were no objections to this.

In fact, the barons competed with each other to be the first to swear allegiance with her.

So it was, on the surface, a very popular decision.

Now with the line of succession secured, Henry now used Matilda to solve his other big problem.

In 1128, the 25-year-old Matilda was told that she'd be marrying the 13-year-old Geoffrey Plantagenet of Anjou, which was in the important region, that historic enemy to the south of Normandy.

Understandably, Matilda was not happy about marrying someone so young.

I don't imagine that Geoffrey himself was overly happy about it either.

Again, he faces a very similar problem to Matilda, who was eight years old when she was first betrothed.

So again, very similar situation here, but the role is now reversed.

But as well as that though, as well as marrying somebody so young, Matilda also rejected to marrying somebody who is so far below her in prestige, in kind of honor that is due to her.

Geoffrey's title of count was far below that of her own Empress of the Holy Roman Empire.

But Matilda dutifully agreed to the marriage, although it was not a happy marriage.

Right, let's have a quick check for understanding now.

So what two options did high-born widows without children have in medieval society?

Was it to remarry, to live a single life, to travel the world, or to become a nun?

So choose two of those options now.

Okay, if you chose a and d, then congratulations, they are correct.

Another quick check for understanding.

I'd like you to complete the sentence by adding in the name of Matilda's second husband.

So in 1128, Matilda was told that she'd be marrying Geoffrey somebody of Anjou.

So add in that missing word now.

Okay, welcome back.

If you chose Plantagenet, then congratulations, that is correct.

Now, shortly after they married, Matilda left Anjou to live apart from her young husband, and she went to Normandy when Geoffrey stayed in Anjou.

Once again, her father summoned her to his side and insisted that she return to her husband in order to secure the family bloodline.

So what that means is you need to go and have some children to make sure that Normandy and Anjou don't have that historic enmity anymore, that they can now be friends.

And before he did that though, he did make sure that once again his barons would confirm that she was the rightful heir to the throne.

So the Anglo-Norman barons confirmed several times.

They swore an oath several times that Matilda would be the next ruler of England after the death of Henry I.

On 1131, Matilda once again agreed to her father's wishes.

She returned to Anjou to rejoin Geoffrey.

And although, again, it wasn't a happy marriage, Matilda did her duty again.

She had three children with Geoffrey, the first of which a boy named Henry was born two years later in 1133.

And as you can see in the screen there, Henry actually, later on in life, went on to become king of England as well.

So he becomes King Henry II.

Right, so this is another quick check for understanding.

So in 1126, who did King Henry I say should be his heir to the throne?

Was it Geoffrey Plantagenet, Empress Matilda, Margaret of Wessex, or William Adelin.

Make your choice now.

Okay, if you chose Empress Matilda, then congratulations, that's correct.

And let's have another check for understanding, another discussion question.

I want you to think, what does Matilda's time in Normandy and England tell us about medieval women?

So pause the video whilst you think about that, and I'll see you in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Let's sort of think about what you could have said.

So you could have said that she repeatedly followed her father's orders and so therefore accepted that she would be controlled by the male head of the family.

So previously, it had been her husband, and now it's her father again.

The barons seemingly accepted her as heir to the throne, so her authority and her ability were respected by the Anglo-Norman barons.

And she was forced into a marriage against her will.

So her main use was still as a tool to help her father.

She was also ordered back to her husband in order to have children.

So another use for her was to continue the family line.

If you've got other ideas, that's absolutely fine, but there's something on the screen there that you could have gotten down.

Right, just a very, very quick recap then.

And so what can historians learn about medieval women from Matilda's life?

Well, we can learn that she was betrothed and married at a young age, so eight years old.

At least some women would've been betrothed at that sort of age and married at 12 years old.

So again, at least some women would've married very, very young, certainly by today's standards.

She lived away from her parents while she was still young.

So that understanding of what the family dynamic should be was very different in medieval period compared to today.

She was both trusted and respected.

We can certainly see that especially during her time in Italy as well.

And she was able to wield power in her husband's name.

And again, she did so in Italy and did so very successfully.

She was the voice of mercy.

And again, we see that at the age of just eight years old when she pled successfully in behalf of a disgraced noble.

She did so again throughout her reign, but I think it's really quite dramatic that an eight-year-old can enter a country for the first time and it had such an immediate impact straight away.

She was controlled by men.

She was controlled by her father and by her husband.

The men in her life had the most say in what she did.

And also, having children was seen as important.

And the reason being is it was necessary to keep the family line going.

Other things can be learned from Matilda's life about women in medieval Europe at this point in time, but these are some of the main things.

Right, there's just one other thing to consider then, which I asked you to consider right at the very start of the lesson.

Can Matilda's life tell us what life was like for all medieval women?

The short answer is no.

And the reason being is that Matilda was an aristocrat.

She was part of the ruling elites.

And as a result, her life was very different from the lives of most ordinary women.

So there were huge differences between Matilda's experience and the experience of most women in medieval Europe at this point in time.

Having said that though, there are quite a lot of similarities as well.

So the fact that men control the lives of most women is something that Matilda would've seen played out again and again in the lives of other women that she encountered as well.

The fact that all women were expected to have children.

The fact that most marriages were arranged.

Few women got to choose their husbands.

And also, most women married young, although not necessarily as young as the age at which Matilda was betrothed.

But most women did marry young in order to effectively maximize the amount of time they are able to have children.

And some women also ran businesses if their husbands died as well.

So we can kind of see that played out to an extent in Matilda's life, in the fact that she ran the Italian lands of the Holy Roman Empire.

Her husband's not dead, but he is absent at that point in time.

So the point we're trying to make here is that women were respected, and able to control, and have authority on their own to some extent in this point in time.

Right, so let's go to our next task then.

So what are the three most important things historians can learn about medieval women from Matilda's early life?

I want you to explain why you've made your choices.

So you can use the diagram in the previous slide to help you make a choice.

It's your opinion, so I'm not overly concerned about which three you choose, but I am very concerned about the reasons why you choose those three.

So make sure you fully explain why you've made your choices.

Pause the video whilst you do this, and I'll see you in just a moment.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on fine with that task.

Let's think about what you could have said then.

So you could have said that the early life of Empress Matilda can tell historians a lot about life for medieval women.

For example, Matilda was betrothed at the age of eight, which shows that an important part of life for women was to get married to create alliances between families and countries.

She also ruled the lands of the Holy Roman Empire in Italy alone, which suggests that women were able to wield power when it was done so on behalf of their husbands.

Finally, Matilda was forced to return to her second husband even though she did not like him because she needed to have children with him.

This shows that an important job for medieval women was to continue the family line.

And again, if you've got something different to me, that's absolutely fine as long as you've explained the reasons why you've chosen your three.

So let's summarize today's lesson now.

So Matilda was the daughter of Henry I, the youngest son of William the Conqueror.

At the age of eight, she was betrothed to the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry V, and sent to live in Germany.

As Empress of the Holy Roman Empire, she wielded considerable power and was a good ruler.

After Henry V died, Matilda remarried Geoffrey Plantagenet of Anjou at her father's request.

And Matilda was heir to the thrones of England and Normandy.

Thank you very much for joining me today.

Hopefully you've enjoyed yourself.

Hopefully you learned something.

And hopefully I'll see you again next time.

Bye-bye.