Matilda, abbess of Quedlinburg

Overview

Title social-status

abbess of Quedlinburg

Date of Birth

955 or 956

Date of Death

999

Biography

(See also Genealogical Table(s): 2.)
Matilda was the daughter of emperor Otto I and empress Adelaide, the sister of Otto II and the aunt of Otto III, who chose her to be his regent when he went to Italy. She became abbess at age 11 in 966, but remained in touch with her family and political matters. She was a participant in the negotiations when Henry of Bavaria was made to surrender the young Otto III to his mother and grandmother and she supported her sister-in-law Theophanu in her conflict with Matilda's mother Adelaide. She had nuns at her monastery write a history, the Annales Quedlinburgenses, which gives considerable attention to the political as well as religious roles of contemporary Ottonian women. She is also the dedicatee of Widukind's Res Gestae Saxonicae, a history of their people, written to provide models for her. The models are from her family, men and women of great accomplishment, and they are all secular figures, though devoted to religion.

Letters to Matilda, abbess of Quedlinburg

A letter from Widukind ()
A letter from Widukind ()
A letter from Widukind ()