Person:Matilda of Flanders (1)

Mathilde van Vlaanderen
Facts and Events
Name[5] Mathilde van Vlaanderen
Alt Name Mathilde _____
Alt Name Matilda _____, Countess of Flanders
Gender Female
Birth[5] Abt 1031 Brugge, West-Vlaanderen, BelgiumHouse of Flanders
Marriage Bet 1050 and 1052 Eu, Seine-Maritime, FranceCathedral of Notre Dame
to William I "the Conqueror" _____, King of England, Duke of Normandy
Other  Refuted child?: Gundred, Countess of Surrey (1) 
with William I "the Conqueror" _____, King of England, Duke of Normandy
Title (nobility)[5] 1068 Queen of England
Death[5] 2 Nov 1083 Caen, Calvados, France
Alt Death[4] 2 Nov 1083
Burial[5] Caen, Calvados, FranceHoly Trinity Abbey, Abbaye-aux-Dames
Physical Description? 4 ft. 1 in.
Physical Description? "just over four feet tall, almost a dwarf"
Reference Number? Q391944?


the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Matilda of Flanders ( 1031 – 2 November 1083) was Queen of England and Duchess of Normandy by marriage to William the Conqueror, and regent of Normandy during his absences from the duchy. She was the mother of ten children who survived to adulthood, including two kings, William II and Henry I.

In 1031, Matilda was born into the House of Flanders, the second daughter of Count Baldwin V of Flanders and Adela of France. Flanders was of strategic importance to England and most of Europe as a "stepping stone between England and the Continent" necessary for strategic trade and for keeping the Scandinavian Intruders from England. In addition, her mother was the daughter of Robert II of France. For these reasons Matilda was of grander birth than William, who was illegitimate, and, according to some more romantic tellings of the story, she initially refused his proposal on this account. Her descent from the Anglo-Saxon royal House of Wessex was also to become a useful card. Like many royal marriages of the period, it breached the rules of consanguinity, then at their most restrictive (to seven generations or degrees of relatedness); Matilda and William were third-cousins once removed. She was about 20 when they married in 1051/2; William was some four years older, and had been Duke of Normandy since he was about eight (in 1035).

The marriage appears to have been successful, and William is not recorded to have had any bastards. Matilda was about 35, and had already borne most of her children, when William embarked on the Norman conquest of England, sailing in his flagship Mora, which Matilda had given him. She governed the Duchy of Normandy in his absence, joining him in England only after more than a year, and subsequently returning to Normandy, where she spent most of the remainder of her life, while William was mostly in his new kingdom. Matilda served as regent in Normandy during the absence of William six times: in 1066–1067, in 1067–1068, in 1069, in 1069–1072, in 1074 and, finally, in 1075–1076. She was about 52 when she died in Normandy in 1083.

Apart from governing Normandy and supporting her brother's interests in Flanders, Matilda took a close interest in the education of her children, who were unusually well educated for contemporary royalty. The boys were tutored by the Italian Lanfranc, who was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1070, while the girls learned Latin in Sainte-Trinité Abbey in Caen, founded by William and Matilda as part of the papal dispensation allowing their marriage.

This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Matilda of Flanders. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
References
  1.   Matilda of Flanders, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.
  2.   Matilda de Flandre, in Lundy, Darryl. The Peerage: A genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain as well as the royal families of Europe.
  3.   MATHILDE de Flandre ([1032]-Caen 2 Nov 1083, bur Caen, Abbey of Holy Trinity), in Cawley, Charles. Medieval Lands: A prosopography of medieval European noble and royal families.
  4. Matilda (Mathilde) of Flanders, in Baldwin, Stewart, and Todd Farmerie. The Henry Project (King Henry II ): Ancestors of King Henry II.
  5. 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Biografie op Wikipedia NL, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia
    [[1]], gevonden 2015.

    Mathilde van Vlaanderen (ca. 1031 - Caen, 2 november 1083) was een dochter van Boudewijn V van Vlaanderen en van Adelheid van Frankrijk.
    Mathilde trouwde rond 1051 met Willem de Veroveraar en werd al snel een van zijn belangrijke adviseurs. In 1059 stichtte ze de Abbaye-aux-Dames te Caen. Hun huwelijk hielp Willem niet alleen aan Vlaamse steun voor de inval in Engeland in 1066 maar ook rustte ze van eigen geld een schip uit voor de invasievloot. Met pinksteren 1068 werd ze tot koningin van Engeland gekroond in Westminster Abbey. Ze kreeg van Willem grote bezittingen in Engeland. Mathilde regeerde bij afwezigheid van Willem in zijn naam, waarbij Mathilde steeds in Engeland was als Willem in Normandië was en omgekeerd. In 1079 steunde ze haar opstandige zoon Robert Curthose tegen zijn broers en later zelfs tegen Willem, maar in 1080 wist ze een verzoening te bereiken. Ze is begraven in de Abbaye-aux-Dames. Haar dood was volgens tijdgenoten de oorzaak van Willems tirannieke bestuur in zijn laatste jaren.