Scene: The ancient Roman baths outside Pisa. Date: March 15, 1076.
Though known to the world primarily for her accomplishments in the vigorous arts of war, Matilda, the beautiful daughter of Beatrice, Marchesa di Toscana, is equally skilled in the tender art of nursing.
Almost every day, her busy schedule permitting, Matilda visits the sick poor of Tuscany, her beloved native land, and bestows upon them her kindly ministrations. And so when Beatrice, frail to begin with, falls into a decline, stricken by an illness her doctors fear may be her last, she receives the devoted and skillful attentions of her daughter and dearest companion, who has brought her to this gentle valley, outside the town of Pisa, where the Romans discovered the restorative powers of the climate and the waters. Here it is that Pope Gregory VII, devoted friend of both mother and daughter, has traveled to join them, bringing his papal blessing, which exerts its special power not so much upon the doomed carnality of the human body as upon the eternal conscience of the soul within.
After the blessing, while Beatrice is resting peacefully, no doubt from having glimpsed, through the Pope’s intercession, the holy and joyous fate that awaits her, the Pope urges Matilda to walk with him outside, so as to revive her spirit, heavy from many hours in the sick room. They stroll among the olive and chestnut trees, and Matilda unburdens herself of all the tiny, painful details of her mother’s condition, the mysterious secretions, the vertigo, the aversions first to water, then to food, then to light, the moments of confusion when Beatrice seems to think she is her own great-grandmother, or a Saracen slave, or or a horse, or an ox, or a frog, or the bed in which she lies, all of which Matilda, until now, has bravely witnessed alone, with the help, of course, of a few devoted servants, for Beatrice and Matilda are the richest women in Italy, and far be it from Matilda to skimp on household expenses at a time like this. The Pope listens with the calm patience of a great saint, which of course is what he is, for he would be canonized in 1606 if the world were not fated to come to an end, for all homidae living in the Mediterranean basin, in 1079.
Eventually, when Matilda lapses into that relaxed silence into which people lapse when they have finally said all the many things they so desperately need to say, Gregory takes the liberty of asking if he might impose on her attentions, for he desperately needs the advice and opinions of his most wise and subtle counselor, which is how he regards Matilda. Matilda feels suddenly abashed that she has dominated the conversation without even bothering to ask about the affairs of the papacy, which of course are the most important affairs in the world, but the Pope will hear none of her apologies, and Matilda forthwith leads him to a rose-covered grotto where they can sit and talk over the latest news from Rome.
The news is not good. Gregory, with deep sorrow, tells Matilda how he has been forced to excommunicate the errant King Henry, whom Matilda knows all too well, as he is her second cousin, and she was forced to spend far too many summers of her childhood in the company of that imperious brat. As difficult as it has been for Gregory to excommunicate the King, and bind him with the heavy chains of anathema, the Pope is a peace with that decision, but now he has a greater fear: war.
Now Matilda is at home in her area of expertise, for as much as she cultivates her talents as a nurse, battle is her first love, and she takes a twig and breaks it and draws upon the earth, and there in that grotto covered with wild roses she shows the occupant of the throne of peace what might happen in a war. In great detail she sketches on the ground all the strategic and military considerations of the developing situation, and he is most grateful for her advice.
Just then a messenger arrives, road-weary from a long journey, to deliver some most disturbing information: Matilda’s husband, Duke Godfrey the Hunchback, has received a foul injury at the hands of an assassin, while traveling through his lands of Lower Lotharingia, near a place called Antwerp, and now lies on his own death bed. What mixed emotions these tidings must stir in the heart of Matilda! For Godfrey the Hunchback, her lawful wedded husband, has for years disdained the company of his beautiful wife. Not only that, the Hunchback is an active partisan of the excommunicated king, and at the time of the assault upon his most private parts he was organizing the very uprising against papal authority which Matilda had just now been sketching upon the earth, for the military edification of the peace-loving Pope. What with her husband’s estrangement, his complicity in a rebellious project, and her mother’s illness, it would be easy for Matilda to abandon Godfrey at his time of need. But Matilda knows her duty. Immediately she resolves to journey to her dying husband’s side.
The Pope tries to discourage her, for the journey will be long and dangerous. Matilda holds firm in her resolution, and she offers an additional argument to the skeptical pontiff: her duties are not merely matrimonial but official, for she has, by this journey, the opportunity to keep Godfrey’s vast allodial lands under her own control (if worse comes to worst and a widow she returns), and therefore, loyal to the Pope.
Eventually Godfrey is persuaded, by both the fervor of Matilda’s devotion to wifely duty, and by the wisdom of her military and political calculations. She is indeed his most astute and valued counselor. He consents to bless her journey.
But ever bold, she asks for more: she begs him to hear her confession before she sets out.
And there, in that grotto covered by wild roses, witnessed only by the olive and chestnut trees, the Pope hears Matilda’s confession, grants her absolution for her sins, and sends the warrior princess northward with his blessing.
Next in Main Story:
Speyer: The Technik Museum
Next in Matilda’s Tale:
Matilda Hears a Nasty Rumor
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