Matilda of Ringelheim

Female 877 - 968  (91 years)


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  • Name Matilda of Ringelheim  [1
    Born 877  [1
    Gender Female 
    Died 14 Mar 967/68  Quedlinburg Find all individuals with events at this location  [1
    Buried St. Servatius' Abbey church  [1
    Notes 
    • Saint Mathilda (or Matilda) (877 - 14 March 968) was the wife of King Henry I of Germany, the first ruler of the Saxon Ottonian (or Liudolfing) dynasty, thereby Duchess consort of Saxony from 912 and German Queen from 919 until 936. Their eldest son Otto succeeded his father as German King and was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 962. Matilda's surname refers to Ringelheim, where her comital Immedinger relatives established a convent about 940.

      Biography

      The details of Saint Matilda's life come largely from brief mentions in the Res gestae saxonicae of the monastic historian Widukind of Corvey (c. 925 - 973), and from two sacred biographies (the vita antiquior and vita posterior) written, respectively, circa 974 and circa 1003.

      St. Mathilda was the daughter of the Westphalian count Dietrich and his wife Reinhild, and her biographers traced her ancestry back to the legendary Saxon leader Widukind (c. 730 - 807). One of her sisters married Count Wichmann the Elder, a member of the House of Billung.

      As a young girl, she was sent to the convent of Herford, where her grandmother Matilda was abbess and where her reputation for beauty and virtue (probably also her Westphalian dowry) is said to have attracted the attention of Duke Otto I of Saxony, who betrothed her to his recently divorced son and heir, Henry the Fowler. They were married at Wallhausen in 909. As the eldest surviving son, Henry succeeded his father as Saxon duke in 912 and upon the death of King Conrad I of Germany was elected King of Germany (East Francia) in 919. He and Matilda had three sons and two daughters:

      Hedwig (910 - 965), wife of the West Frankish duke Hugh the Great, mother of King Hugh Capet of France
      Otto (912 - 973), Duke of Saxony, King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor
      Gerberga (913 - 984), wife of (1) Duke Giselbert of Lorraine and (2) King Louis IV of France
      Henry (919/921 - 955) was Duke of Bavaria
      Bruno (925 - 965), Archbishop of Cologne and Duke of Lorraine

      After her husband had died in 936, Matilda and her son Otto established Quedlinburg Abbey in his memory, a convent of noble canonesses, where in 966 her granddaughter Matilda became the first abbess. At first she remained at the court of her son Otto, however in the quarrels between the young king and his rivaling brother Henry a cabal of royal advisors is reported to have accused her of weakening the royal treasury in order to pay for her charitable activities. After a brief exile at her Westphalian manors at Enger, where she established a college of canons in 947, Matilda was brought back to court at the urging of King Otto's first wife, the Anglo-Saxon princess Edith of Wessex.

      Matilda died at Quedlinburg, she outlived her husband by 32 years. Her and Henry's mortal remains are buried at the crypt of the St. Servatius' abbey church.

      Veneration

      Saint Matilda was celebrated for her devotion to prayer and almsgiving; her first biographer depicted her (in a passage indebted to the sixth-century vita of the Frankish queen (Radegund by Venantius Fortunatus) leaving her husband's side in the middle of the night and sneaking off to church to pray. St. Mathilda founded many religious institutions, including the canonry of Quedlinburg, which became a center of ecclesiastical and secular life in Germany under the rule of the Ottonian dynasty, as well as the convents of St. Wigbert in Quedlinburg, in Pöhlde, Enger and Nordhausen in Thuringia, likely the source of at least one of her vitae.

      She was later canonized, with her cult largely confined to Saxony and Bavaria. St. Mathilda's feast day according to the German calendar of saints is on March 14.
    Person ID I5410  Bosdet Genealogy
    Last Modified 16 May 2013 

    Father Dietrich, Graf von Ringelheim 
    Relationship Natural 
    Mother Reinhild 
    Relationship Natural 
    Family ID F247  Group Sheet

    Family Henry, I the Fowler,   b. 876, Memleben, Saxony, Germany Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 02 Jul 936, Memleben, Saxony, Germany Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 60 years) 
    Married 909  Wallhausen, Germany Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 2, 3
    Children 
     1. Gerberga of Saxony,   b. Abt 913,   d. 05 May 984, Rheims, Marne, Champagne-Ardenne, France Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age ~ 71 years)
     2. Bruno Herzog von Lothringen
     3. Hedwig of Saxony,   b. Abt 910,   d. 10 May 965  (Age ~ 55 years)
     4. Heinrich Herzog von Bayern, I,   d. 955
     5. Otto von Sachsen, Holy Roman Emperor I,   b. 23 Nov 912,   d. 07 May 973, Memleben, Saxony, Germany Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 60 years)
    Family ID F2154  Group Sheet

  • Sources 
    1. [S174] Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_of_Ringelheim.

    2. [S178] thePeerage.com, Darryl Lundy, (Location: Ngaio, Wellington, New Zealand;).

    3. [S174] Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_the_Fowler.