Queen of the Conqueror: The Life of Matilda, Wife of William I (9 page)

No official record of the council’s decision was given, and it has been
suggested that the reason William had sent a large contingent of Norman bishops to Rheims was not just to influence the outcome but to avoid word of it spreading if that outcome was negative.
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The fact that the Norman chroniclers afford it scant attention suggests that it caused William some embarrassment in his duchy. According to chroniclers from Le Bec, an interdict was enforced during this period, which may have been intended to prevent further discussion of the matter.
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But it was too late: news of the ban spread like wildfire, and William’s enemies were quick to seize upon it as a means of undermining his power. This fusing of political and religious opposition was extremely threatening to the young duke, and when one of his foremost churchmen became embroiled in the controversy, William was swift to act. Lanfranc, the influential prior of Le Bec, was a staunch reformist who believed that the laws governing marriage should be strictly upheld. He spoke out against William and Matilda’s union after the papal ban had been declared, condemning it as uncanonical. He was subsequently banished from the duchy, and his abbey was sacked by the duke’s men. But legend has it that on his point of departure he met William by accident and the two men came to terms. The duke must have been either forceful or persuasive, because Lanfranc not only abandoned his former opposition but agreed to negotiate with the Pope on William’s behalf.

The narrative of this extraordinary encounter does not make it clear upon what grounds Lanfranc had objected to the marriage in the first place, but it is likely to have been that the couple were related. In his revision of the
Gesta Normannorum Ducum
chronicle, Orderic Vitalis claims that the papacy banned William and Matilda’s marriage “after frequent accusations of several religious people that he had married a kinswoman.”
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The controversy that followed the council of Rheims eclipsed a core question. Just why was it assumed that consanguinity was the reason for the papal ban? It is possible that Matilda’s mother, Adela of France, had been married or precontracted to William’s uncle, Richard III, the duke of Normandy, before her marriage to Baldwin of Flanders.
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It is true that Richard did marry a woman named Adela, but it is by no means certain that this was Matilda’s mother. Adela of France had been a young girl when she had been brought to the Flemish court for her betrothal to
Baldwin V. She had been kept there until she was old enough for the marriage to be consummated, which probably took place around 1031. Richard III was duke of Normandy from 1026 to 1027, so even if Adela had been betrothed to him before marrying Baldwin, she would have been much too young for any union to be consummated, rendering questions of consanguinity null.

More convincing is the fact that the two families were related through Matilda’s grandfather, Baldwin IV. After the death of Matilda’s grandmother, Ogiva, Baldwin had married Eleanor, a daughter of Duke Richard II of Normandy. Another possibility is that Matilda, like William, was descended from Rollo, the first duke of Normandy, which made them fifth cousins.
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However, this descent is questionable to say the least, and even if it did exist, it would still have made the couple so distantly related that it would hardly have been sufficient cause for the papal ban.

There remains a rather more scandalous explanation for Pope Leo’s decision, which was put forward in the nineteenth century and has been the subject of intense speculation among historians ever since. According to this theory, Matilda was already married at the time of her betrothal to William.
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Her supposed husband was Gerbod, the advocate of St.-Bertin Abbey near St.-Omer, by whom she had a daughter, Gundreda,
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and possibly also two sons, Gerbod and Frederic.
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This bizarre claim rests upon the evidence of a collection of charters from Lewes Priory, which was founded by Gundreda’s husband, William de Warenne, the first earl of Surrey. Principal among them is the foundation charter itself, in which Warenne refers to
Matildis reginae matris uxoris meae
(Queen Matilda mother of my wife).
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However, the fact that neither charter states who Gundreda’s father was suggests that it was not Duke William, because otherwise he would surely have been named.

Other historians dismissed the idea that Matilda had been married before, asserting instead that Gundreda was her daughter by Duke William. Much was made of the duke’s confirmation of the Lewes charter in around 1083. This mentions Gundreda, but there is an erasure after her name and the words
filia mea
(my daughter) have been added. The twelfth-century inscription on Gundreda’s tomb adds weight to this theory, because it refers to her as being of ducal descent. The fact that William
later assented to—or perhaps even arranged—her marriage to one of the foremost earls of the kingdom has also been viewed as significant.

The monks of Lewes were understandably supportive of the idea that their founder, Gundreda, was of such distinguished pedigree, so they perpetuated the theory that she was William’s daughter, and the priory records were still repeating it four centuries later.
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However, upon closer examination, the evidence soon begins to crumble. All of the documentary sources were compiled many years after Gundreda’s death, and the foundation charter for Lewes—which dates from the fifteenth century—may even be a fake. Equally revealing is the fact that none of the contemporary chroniclers even hint that Gundreda was in any way related to Matilda (or, for that matter, to William). If this had been the reason behind the papal ban, then they would have cited it as such, whereas they agree that it was due to consanguinity. Besides, there is compelling evidence to suggest that Gerbod was married to a lady named Ada at the time of Matilda’s betrothal to William, and in all of the contemporary accounts, Matilda is consistently referred to as a maid—that is, a virgin.
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The idea that Gundreda was in some way a bar to Matilda’s union with the duke is therefore highly implausible.

In fact, it is more likely that the Pope was motivated by political rather than doctrinal concerns. Like the other potentates of Europe, he was uneasy about the power that this upstart Norman duke was acquiring and had no wish to see him strengthen his dominions still further by forging an alliance with Flanders. There was nothing subtle about William’s aggrandizement: he was determined to flaunt it for all to see, as Orderic Vitalis attests: “William duke of Normandy was growing in power and influence, and surpassing all his neighbours in the magnificence and display of his new way of life.”
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The prospect of a coalition between William and the king of France through the proposed marriage to the latter’s niece was an alarming possibility.

Leo IX may also have been influenced by the German emperor, Henry III, to whom he owed his position. Henry was at war with Count Baldwin V, who had been systematically distancing his small but strategically important principality from the German-controlled Holy Roman Empire and forging stronger links with France. Not only had he himself
married a French princess, Adela, but in 1051 he had allied his eldest son, Baldwin, to Richildis, widow of the Count of Hainault.
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This had sparked a conflict with Henry III over Richildis’s inheritance, and there had been constant skirmishing along the Flemish-German border ever since. The emperor had no wish to see powerful Norman troops joining these clashes on his enemy’s behalf. He might therefore have called upon Leo to return the favor that he had shown him and oppose the marriage between William and Matilda.

The Pope’s ban threw the couple’s betrothal into uncertainty. Although the duke might well have been inclined to sweep it aside with the same disregard that he showed to his enemies on the battlefield, it was much more complicated than that. As a pious leader, William always surrounded himself with ecclesiastical advisers, who in effect acted as his conscience when he was planning strategies and campaigns. He took seriously the need to do penance for the bloodshed that he caused, and made many generous benefactions to the church. The fact that the most senior pontiff in the Christian world had forbidden his proposed match was therefore not something that he could dismiss lightly. Moreover, if William chose to flout the Pope’s sanction, it could provide his recalcitrant nobles with a religious justification for rebelling against him.

Little wonder that his first recourse was to try to persuade Leo to change his mind. He sent a contingent of Norman bishops, including his closest adviser, Lanfranc, to the Pope in order to obtain his sanction. But it was in vain. The latter was evidently just as determined to retain the stranglehold that he had over one of the most dangerous potentates in western Europe. There followed at least two years of frustrated negotiations, all of which came to nothing.

Pious he may have been, but William was also every bit as strong-willed as his prospective bride. He had set his sights on Matilda and was determined to have her at any cost. Count Baldwin was no less determined, and between them they agreed that the marriage should go ahead, regardless of the papal ban.

The date of the wedding is not known for certain. There is some contemporary evidence to suggest that it had already taken place by the time the council of Rheims met in 1049, in which case the decree was condemning a marriage rather than a betrothal. More reliable sources place
it at around 1050. They include a charter to the abbey of St.-Wandrille in Normandy that Matilda witnessed that year. It was also in 1050 that her father put his signature to a charter drawn up on William’s orders to the monastery of St.-Pierre-de-Préaux, which may have been to mark the occasion of the marriage.
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The union had certainly been forged before the end of 1053, when Matilda is referred to as the duke’s consort in a charter given to Holy Trinity, Rouen.

If Matilda did marry William around 1050, she would have been nineteen or twenty years of age, while her husband would have been around twenty-three. We are told that the count and countess brought their daughter “with all honour” and “together with many gifts” to the town of Eu. As well as being a convenient location on the border between Normandy and Flanders, the town was also a symbol of Duke William’s power, as he had wrested the castle from a contingent of rebellious nobles in 1049 and it was still garrisoned by his soldiers. Matilda and her parents were met at Eu by William and a retinue of his soldiers.
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William’s mother, Herleva, and her husband, Herluin de Conteville, were also there, along with a great host of magnates and churchmen.
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Matilda and William were probably married a day or so later. The precise location of the wedding ceremony is uncertain. While some sources place it at the cathedral church of Nôtre Dame d’Eu, others claim that it was celebrated in the chapel of the castle. Another theory is that it did not take place in Eu at all, but in Rouen.
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The doubt over its location suggests that it may have taken place in some secrecy—or at least with a good deal less fanfare than might have been expected of the first ducal marriage in thirty years.

An inventory of the treasures of Bayeux Cathedral taken in 1476 by Louis de Harcourt, a member of its clergy, describes two gowns of “incomparable richness” that were believed to be the wedding clothes of William and Matilda. The pair of matching cloaks owed more to a desire to flaunt their wealth than to exhibit good taste. William’s garment was covered with small golden crosses to emphasize his piety, as well as flowers, cameos, and precious stones. On the back was a band of cloth of gold with richly embroidered images. But he did not entirely give himself over to extravagant dress for the occasion, because among the treasury of the cathedral was a helmet that he had worn during the ceremony.
It seems that even on his wedding day, he was determined to maintain his warrior reputation.
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The wedding ceremony would have contained many of the elements that we would recognize today, including the giving away of the bride, the exchange of promises, and the blessing of the ring. There was also a formal blessing of the bridal chamber, emphasizing that the primary purpose of marriage was to produce heirs, and the bride and groom would each have been led there in great state. William and Matilda would no doubt have adhered to all of the due formalities, hoping that such strict observance of the protocol might help to legitimize their marriage in the eyes of the papacy and their subjects. According to a lively but unreliable account written in the thirteenth century, Count Baldwin had not been able to resist asking his daughter during the wedding feast what had made her change her mind about the man whose advances she had at first so scornfully rejected. To this, Matilda made no reference to his illegitimacy, but replied evenly: “I did not know the duke so well then as I do now.”
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Mindful of the controversy that had surrounded it, Jumièges took care to stress the validity of the marriage, stating that William “married her legally as his wife.”
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His account, and later that of Orderic Vitalis, claims that it would be many years before the papacy finally sanctioned William and Matilda’s union. But recent research suggests that the Pope relented at a much earlier date, probably not very long after the council of Rheims. According to this theory, the whole controversy was exaggerated by Lanfranc’s biographer in order to enhance that prelate’s role in resolving the matter. The sources that support the latter’s account are dismissed as “late and untrustworthy,” and the foundation charters for the two abbeys that William and Matilda later built in recompense for their defiance of the papal ban do not mention anything about it. This recent argument attempts to further bolster itself by claiming that relations between William and the papacy were otherwise consistently good during the 1050s, as evidenced by the visit to Rome of two prominent Norman churchmen, Lanfranc and Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances, in 1050.
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