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birthday in February 1110 when she said goodbye to her parents, her brother and her home, and set sail for Boulogne, accompanied by a distinguished retinue of aristocrats and clergymen. They rode beside her carriage – its embroidered cushions doing little to ease the jolting of the wooden chassis on the wheel-axles – two hundred miles eastward, over the flat plain of Flanders and across the western borders of her future husband’s empire into the duchy of Lower Lorraine. There, in Liège, a great city ruled by a powerful prince-bishop, Matilda for the first time met the man to whom she was promised in marriage.
Heinrich was twenty-four years old. It was four years since he had become king of Germany in succession to his father, Heinrich IV, whose reign had been blighted by bloody conflict over the extent of his royal authority, both with the nobility of Saxony and with the pope. He had been excommunicated in the course of this struggle, and as a result his corpse still lay unburied in an unconsecrated side-chapel of the imperial cathedral at Speyer, awaiting reconciliation in death with the papacy against which he had fought so bitterly in life.
But the start of his son’s rule was not marred by such battles. The new young king had allied himself with his father’s enemies two years before the old king’s death, and, with their support, his accession brought a temporary peace to the Empire. The task that Heinrich now faced was to rebuild the power of his crown. In theory, his authority reached from Hamburg in the north to Rome in the south, from Lyons in the west to Vienna in the east. In practice, however, he needed to ride to Rome at the head of an ostentatiously imposing entourage – a retinue which might, as circumstances dictated, take on the form of an army – to stamp his rule on his Italian territories and to secure his coronation as emperor at the hands of the pope. For that, he needed money; and so his little bride, who would bring him such a great dowry, was graciously and warmly received.
For the next few months Matilda accompanied her future husband on imperial progress, first of all to the graceful city of Utrecht in the Netherlands, more than a hundred miles north of Liège. There, at Easter, the royal couple were formally betrothed once again, in person this time, and Heinrich endowed his wife-to-be with rich gifts and lands reflecting her status as his consort. The court then moved along the valley of the Rhine to Cologne, Speyer and Worms, before arriving at Mainz, the foremost archiepiscopal see of all Germany, where preparations were under way for Matilda’s coronation. At eight, she was too young to become a wife, but not to be recognised as a queen: a solemn betrothal was as binding in the sight of the Church as the marriage vows towhich she had committed herself for the future, so that contemporaries saw no incongruity in the fact that Matilda would receive her crown some years before her wedding ring.
Mainz, like Speyer and Worms, was home to one of the three great Kaiserdome , imperial churches built in monumental red sandstone on an awe-inspiring scale. The Romanesque cathedral at Mainz had an inauspicious history: fire had gutted the building on the day of its inauguration almost exactly a century earlier, and in 1081 another devastating blaze had undone the painstaking repairs. But, thanks to Heinrich IV, a new octagonal tower now soared over the nave as his small daughter-in-law arrived in ceremonial procession on 25 July – the feast day of St James the Apostle, whose mummified hand was preserved among the priceless relics in the royal chapel – to be crowned Germany’s queen. A new archbishop had not yet been appointed to the see of Mainz after the death of the last incumbent in 1109, so that it was the archbishop of Trier who carried Matilda delicately in his arms while the archbishop of Cologne anointed her with holy chrism and placed a crown (which was almost certainly too
Heinrich was twenty-four years old. It was four years since he had become king of Germany in succession to his father, Heinrich IV, whose reign had been blighted by bloody conflict over the extent of his royal authority, both with the nobility of Saxony and with the pope. He had been excommunicated in the course of this struggle, and as a result his corpse still lay unburied in an unconsecrated side-chapel of the imperial cathedral at Speyer, awaiting reconciliation in death with the papacy against which he had fought so bitterly in life.
But the start of his son’s rule was not marred by such battles. The new young king had allied himself with his father’s enemies two years before the old king’s death, and, with their support, his accession brought a temporary peace to the Empire. The task that Heinrich now faced was to rebuild the power of his crown. In theory, his authority reached from Hamburg in the north to Rome in the south, from Lyons in the west to Vienna in the east. In practice, however, he needed to ride to Rome at the head of an ostentatiously imposing entourage – a retinue which might, as circumstances dictated, take on the form of an army – to stamp his rule on his Italian territories and to secure his coronation as emperor at the hands of the pope. For that, he needed money; and so his little bride, who would bring him such a great dowry, was graciously and warmly received.
For the next few months Matilda accompanied her future husband on imperial progress, first of all to the graceful city of Utrecht in the Netherlands, more than a hundred miles north of Liège. There, at Easter, the royal couple were formally betrothed once again, in person this time, and Heinrich endowed his wife-to-be with rich gifts and lands reflecting her status as his consort. The court then moved along the valley of the Rhine to Cologne, Speyer and Worms, before arriving at Mainz, the foremost archiepiscopal see of all Germany, where preparations were under way for Matilda’s coronation. At eight, she was too young to become a wife, but not to be recognised as a queen: a solemn betrothal was as binding in the sight of the Church as the marriage vows towhich she had committed herself for the future, so that contemporaries saw no incongruity in the fact that Matilda would receive her crown some years before her wedding ring.
Mainz, like Speyer and Worms, was home to one of the three great Kaiserdome , imperial churches built in monumental red sandstone on an awe-inspiring scale. The Romanesque cathedral at Mainz had an inauspicious history: fire had gutted the building on the day of its inauguration almost exactly a century earlier, and in 1081 another devastating blaze had undone the painstaking repairs. But, thanks to Heinrich IV, a new octagonal tower now soared over the nave as his small daughter-in-law arrived in ceremonial procession on 25 July – the feast day of St James the Apostle, whose mummified hand was preserved among the priceless relics in the royal chapel – to be crowned Germany’s queen. A new archbishop had not yet been appointed to the see of Mainz after the death of the last incumbent in 1109, so that it was the archbishop of Trier who carried Matilda delicately in his arms while the archbishop of Cologne anointed her with holy chrism and placed a crown (which was almost certainly too
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