Matilda of Canossa

A female figure of great importance in the history of the European Middle Ages, Matilde di Canossa at the age of six was already heir of a territory that went from today’s Lazio to Lake Garda, strategic because it was a mandatory passageway for both the popes who had to settle in Rome, and the emperors that were to be crowned there. Second cousin of Emperor Henry IV, but a faithful follower of the Reformation of the Church carried out by Pope Gregory VII, she found herself at the centre of an epochal clash for the investiture struggle between the Papacy and the Empire.

For political reasons she married Goffredo the Hunchback and will have to leave her lands to settle in her husband’s homeland, Lorraine. The marriage ended after a few years and Matilda will be able to return to her mother Beatrice in the Italian territory. Thus, she was an example of the worsening of differences between Pope Gregory VII and Emperor Henry IV, the first one determined to impose the supremacy of the Papacy over every earthly power, the second one ready for war to assert his rights as absolute sovereign.

After the excommunication of Henry IV, Matilda will act as mediator between the rebel sovereign and the Pope at the Canossa castle, showing her ambivalence due to loyalty to her cousin Emperor and the desire to be a good Christian. The humiliation of Henry IV is only a strategic move of convenience and the fight will resume shortly.

Because of her role as intermediary Matilda was stripped of the title of Countess and deprived of her lands,  so she was a lonely woman. Some vassals rebelled against her and, to defend her fiefdom under attack by the imperial troops, she contracted a second marriage, also unhappy and disastrous. Only in the last years of her existence Matilda will be able to devote herself to prayer and religion, which she neglected in her youth because of her political role. She will die near the monastery of Saint Benedict in Polirone, and since 1632 she has rested in Rome, in the Saint Peter church.

The forgiveness

Emperor Henry IV arrived in Canossa January 25, 1077 and was granted audience, then forgiveness, on January 28. Some historians have disputed claims that the Emperor had to wait three days at the entrance to the Canossa Castle in a state of severe physical discomfort, but the recorded date in which the Emperor was led to meet the Pope and appeared before him is actually January 28. The iconic image, passed down through the centuries, of the German Monarch kneeling in the snow during that harsh winter at the gates of theCanossa Castle, Matilda’s residence in the Reggio Emilia Apennines, remains the symbol of that event.

The lands of Matilda

The lands of Matilda included the foggy mists of the low Po river valley, the cities of the plains and the ridges of the Apennines, and were characterized by an imposing system of fortifications featuring countless castles, churches and tower houses. That landscape, the symbol of a political, social and religious system, has left us an invaluable heritage from that time which needs to be preserved so as to be handed down to posterity.

The Canossa Castle, which hosts a national museum and is part of Italy’s national heritage, is therefore the centre of a territory sculpted by the history that led to the transition between medieval and modern Europe. During that time, the charisma of Countess Matilda shaped the landscape of the Reggio Emilia Apennines almost after her own image and characteristics, and that landscape still bears proudly the thousands of marks left by her passage. This territory, which was at the heart of European medieval history and provided the stage for such leading players as Pope Gregory VII, Emperors Henry IV and Henry V and Saint Francis, offers a blend of nature and drama, history and culture, economics and environment, and to this day enjoys a strong cultural tradition deeply engrained in the memory and the very identity of the local communities. The Canossa Castle itself was the main stronghold in a defensive theatre - certainly unique in Europe during the period between the X and XII centuries -designed to secure control over communication routes across the Po river plain and the Apennines. Throughout the period of the wars of investiture, this system provided crucial military support to the Papacy, with Countess Matilda of Tuscany, in its continual struggles against Emperor Henry IV.

Historical studies

Castles
Brochure | The Canossa Castle

Giorgio Galeotti, Badlands - Canossa, 2014, CC BY-NC 2.0