Queen Mathilda of Saxony and the Founding of Quedlinburg: Women, Memory, and Power

Queen Mathilda of Saxony and the Founding of Quedlinburg:

Women, Memory, and Power

Helene Scheck

Associate Professor of English at the State University of New York at Albany

Abstract • This essay examines the memorial practices at the tenth-century Saxon community of canonesses at St. Servatius, Quedlinburg, to consider what is gained—and what lost—in the remembrance of key fi gures of the Ottonian dynasty. A memorial foun-dation established by Queen Mathilda of Saxony in honor of her husband, King Henry I, this community provides a particularly eff ective way to explore the relationship between memory, gender, and power in Ottonian culture, since the architecture, ritual practices, institutional rules, daily and intellectual life of the inmates, and literary works possibly produced by them function together as a complex memorializing. Reading this community’s contributions to the constitution of dynastic memory through Michel Foucault’s notion of power, the essay considers the eff ects of memorializing practices on women in Saxony at the time, who, I argue, never come to be fully present and therefore leave their successors, women writers to come, a legacy of loss.

Keywords • Early Middle Ages, memory, power, Quedlinburg, Mathilda of Saxony, St. Servatius, Tenth-Century Saxony, women

The trick of memory is that it conjures a truth perhaps more relevant to the present and the future than to the past it seeks to realize. It is a

reinvention, or a recreation forged out of and in the service of current needs, values, and desires, with palpable effects on the future. As Jacques Derrida so eloquently put it, “memory stays with traces, in order to ‘preserve’ them, but traces of a past that has never been present, traces which themselves never occupy the form of presence and always remain, as it were, to come—come from the future, from the to come.”1 When reproduced for public consumption, memory becomes a powerful force of cultural production, shaping cultural norms, attitudes, and values—prescriptions for experiencing the present and the future—through its reconstruction of the past. The traces of the past, while they mark the present, arise out of the present, and shape a present, nevertheless do not constitute the present: they rather mark the difference

Historical Refl ections Volume 35, Issue 3, Winter 2009 © Berghahn Journalsdoi: 10.3167/hrrh2009.350302 ISSN 0315-7997 (Print), ISSN 1939-2419 (Online)

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between the present lived experience and the idea of presence constructed through the memorializing event.

Memorial narrative and ritual practices and their reception are selective tracings, therefore, that work as much through forgetting as remembering.2 They function, moreover, through human bodies in conjunction with non-human artifi ces and institutional structures as identity machines, to bor-row Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s terminology.3 These processes and structures, in other words, integrate with the human impulse toward and capacity for remembrance to form ontological possibilities. This essay will trace the cir-cuitry of one such memorial machine operating in tenth-century Saxony to consider what is gained—and what lost—in the remembrance of key fi gures of the Ottonian dynasty. The machine in question is the community of can-onesses at St. Servatius, Quedlinburg. This community provides a particu-larly effective way to explore the relationship between memory, gender, and power in Ottonian culture, since the architecture, ritual practices, institu-tional rules, daily and intellectual life of the inmates, and literary works pro-duced by them function together as a complex memorializing machine with important effects on women’s being. Michel Foucault’s notion of power—that systems of power necessarily convince their subjects to maintain and enact their own subjection—also proves to be a useful lens through which to read this community’s contributions to, and place in, the constitution of dynastic memory.4 From that perspective, I argue that the intellectual work of these Saxon women comes to be erased through these memorializing practices, leaving a legacy of loss for women writers of the future.

Memorial Foundation

The women’s monastic community of St. Servatius, Quedlinburg, was founded by Queen Mathilda in 936 to commemorate the life and death of her hus-band, King Henry, at the site of his own fortifi cation.5 The community was immediately granted royal protection and ecclesiastical immunity by Hen-ry’s successor and fi rstborn son, Otto, who would become the fi rst Saxon emperor. Although the other royal women’s foundations of the Ottonian as well as Carolingian and Merovingian periods engaged in memorializing activities, Quedlinburg’s primary responsibility was to preserve the memory of its patrons, to advocate for their souls in the spiritual realm, and to fur-ther royal interests in the material world by cultivating the image of royal or imperial piety.

Much has been written on women’s prominent role in memorial prac-tices from the Merovingian through Ottonian periods.6 According to Patrick Geary,

In the [Ottonian] empire, imperial memory was entrusted to women, women who were both part of the family and who led their lives in institu-

22 Historical Refl ections • Winter 2009

Helene Scheck • Queen Mathilda of Saxony and the Founding of Quedlinburg 23

tions closely connected with the imperial house. This model was diffused through society, with aristocratic families establishing and maintaining sim-ilar institutions for their own memoria.7

It makes sense that they would be so entrusted, Geary argues, since women are the ones who give life and are also most likely to survive their spouses; Ottonian women were therefore in a position “to preserve and transmit the past to the future.”8

Queen Mathilda founded the monastery, the Quedlinburg Annals relate, in obedience to her husband; the remembrance of its posthumous patron was the community’s raison d’etre. And in order to do justice to the status of its patron, the inmates would be only highborn women of good repute:

Queen Mathilda, obeying her husband, . . . undertook the construction of a monastery on the mount of Quedlin, as he had previously commanded. She wished this sovereignty [regnum] to be for the family, and to keep it from all men. In this place, because a well-born woman will have become tainted only rarely and with great diffi culty, she gathered not lowborn persons, but the highest born, novices deserving to serve religious canons properly.9

According to the annals, Mathilda was also the generative and nurturing entity of the community.10 With her children grown and themselves regnal and imperial agents, her maternal fl are (materno more) could be expanded and sublimated to spiritual (albeit still political) aims through her nurturing (enutrire). Although she did not assume the role of abbess, she was the com-munity’s main connection to imperial power and therefore its main source of political power by virtue of her link to Henry and their fi rstborn son, Otto. Her granddaughter Mathilda also joined the community and surely attended to the daily needs of administration as a sort of prioress, though she was not appointed abbess until the death of her namesake, presumably because Queen Mathilda retained prominence.

In remembering its royal patron, King Henry I, scion of the Ottonian dynasty, the community also looked toward and helped to build the future of his house. The women’s community was founded in what had been a fortress and it became a favorite destination for the court, particularly for the celebration of Easter.11 It is worth noting that the foundation was erected on top of a hill on the frontier of Saxony, on the edge of disputed territory between Saxons and Slavic peoples. Henry surely selected it as a strategic location suitable for both defense and oversight: it was, fi rst and foremost, a command post. Though the need for military defense waned in the course of the ninth century as the border moved eastward, the new building, de-spite serving spiritual rather than worldly needs, retained its function and political importance as command post. Indeed, this particular foundation dominated the region throughout much of the Middle Ages as the town of Quedlinburg grew up around and in service to it. The men’s community of St. Wiperti was soon founded in the valley below, as were two other wom-


en’s communities in Quedlinburg and another at nearby Gernrode, all, one author of Mathilda’s vita tells us, with her support if not directly by her.12 Like the other major royal foundations of this era, Essen and Gandersheim, Quedlinburg enjoyed wealth, power, and fame, full ecclesiastical immunity, and royal protection and privilege. In its physical structure and in the ongo-ing program of prayer that took place inside its walls, it was a fi tting tribute to Henry I, both reiterating and resuscitating the memory of a heroic king and the dynasty he sired in its most ideal form. In this way, the canonesses of St. Servatius maintained the memorial stores and cultivated from them a base for imperial power as they supported the ideological framework that conferred their own royal privilege.

Textual Community

Remembrance was not only effected through monument, mourning, and prayer, however; it was institutionalized in writing as well—in the form of necrology, chronicle, and vitae. The community of St. Servatius developed an impressive library and scriptorium and produced, quite possibly, at least three memorial texts: the early and later lives of Mathilda, and the Quedlin-burg Annals. The later version of Mathilda’s vita also refers to a necrology.13 Whether or not one actually existed in her time is irrelevant, though there is no reason to believe it did not; nonetheless, the reference suggests that at the time the later life was written, the practice of inscribing names into a book for remembrance was already well in place. These memorial texts were also likely to have been used by at least one other related writer in his narrative tribute to Ottonian power: Thietmar of Merseburg, who was educated at Quedlinburg. Before taking up the texts written at Quedlinburg, however, it is necessary to consider the larger context of books and learning at the monastery.

Memorial practices at Quedlinburg, as elsewhere, were supported by and rooted in the book. The books likely authored by educated women at Quedlinburg tell only part of the story, since they necessarily exist in a con-text and were produced in relation to other books. Books used in the mon-astery school and kept in the library formed the foundation of cultural mem-ory—the memory of the community upon which all else is built, through which all other images and texts are organized and shaped.14 It makes sense, therefore, to begin with a survey of the texts known or thought to be avail-able to the inmates of the community. The following discussion is based on manuscript survivals and evidence from the three texts mentioned above written at or having a strong association with Quedlinburg: The Annals of Quedlinburg, The Older Life of Queen Mathilda, and The Later Life of Queen Mathilda.15 Even if these texts were written at one of the sister houses, such as Nordhausen, the author would certainly have had access to the library at Quedlinburg and would have drawn upon that resource; the range of allu-


sions and echoes argues for use of texts that probably were unavailable at a smaller foundation.

Scriptural and liturgical books are obviously the cornerstone of any self-respecting monastery, and St. Servatius was no exception, boasting some of the most valuable books in the realm. These books, of course, were not necessarily intended for reading, but more likely served as ceremonial ob-jects and symbols of royal power and prestige. One example is the famous Quedlinburg Itala, a late antique ornamental manuscript of the four books of Kings. Though the subject matter certainly resonates with a royal monas-tery of such proportions, the text surely must have been only symbolically signifi cant, as the gold-covered rarity was no doubt kept in the treasury, seldom to be seen. Perhaps it was brought out during the famous imperial Easter celebrations or other important visits. How the Itala came to Quedlin-burg remains a mystery, though we can surmise that it was acquired by Otto the Great during one of his expeditions to Italy and was subsequently gifted to his mother, Mathilda, then in retirement at Quedlinburg. The royal stu-dents at Quedlinburg very likely read and studied the books of Kings, as at other royal monasteries, such as Essen, for example. But at Quedlinburg this particular manuscript must have served primarily as a sign of its power and wealth, a testament to the rising dynasty launched by Henry I and perfected in the fi gure of Otto the Great.

Other scriptural and liturgical books that survive are precisely what one might expect: gospel books, breviaries, antiphonary, sacramentary, etc. The only Old Testament survival is the Itala. As for the Psalms, the Benedictine tradition would have insisted on memorization, recitation, and study of the complete psalter;16 since this was a community of canonesses rather than Benedictine nuns, and because no psalter survives, it is not clear how much of the psalter would have had to be committed to memory or even read. The survival of two psalm commentaries as well as the depiction of Mathilda as an avid reader and singer of psalms, however, suggests that psalms formed an important part of the community’s devotional practices and of the cur-riculum. A fragment of a glossed bible survives as Halle, Universtitäts- und Landesbibliothek (ULB), Quedlinburg Fragment 5, and contains verses from Corinthians. This manuscript, which was probably both produced and used at Quedlinburg,17 shows extensive explanatory and interpretive glosses, both marginal and interlinear, in a pre-Gothic script. Several gospel books survive, all of which are sumptuous, as befi ts a royal community, and one, the Otto-Adelheid Evangelium, was very likely produced at St. Servatius. Though surely intended for display, at least two of the gospel books were also actively used in study. Halle, ULB, Quedlinburg Codex 83 is rich in ornamentation and, although not extensively glossed, does provide formal glosses carefully accentuated to facilitate accessibility, understanding, and memory; the text also shows signs of active study, with marginal markers imprinted throughout. Another gospel book, Halle, ULB, Quedlinburg Codex 188, is clearly a study guide. The manuscript was produced at Corvey in the


tenth century and found its way to Quedlinburg early on—perhaps it was even commissioned as a teaching text for the newly founded women’s com-munity. Though the ornamentation was never completed, its wide margins are completely consumed with extensive (and carefully ruled) glosses from Augustine, Jerome, Gregory, Ambrose, Bede, and Hrabanus Maurus: all the canonical greats. Glosses are shaped, underscored in red, and rubricated; indeed, they leave little room for much else, though two students, Siriht and Caetilmod, found space in which to inscribe their marks nonetheless.18

Texts for various levels of study include commentaries on the Psalms by Cassiodorus and Ambrose, Arator on the Acts of the Apostles, and the commentary on Matthew by the obscure Hiberno-Latin scholar Fribolus (or Frigolus). Fribolus’s commentary is well marked for study with references to authorities signaled in the margins and words divided and underscored, probably to guide reading as well as to ensure understanding and stress im-portant points. The inside back cover preserves what must be a student’s notes on words and ideas from Isidore’s De differentiis verborum (On the Dif-ferences of Words), attesting to direct study of that text as well. The notes present direct quotations from Isidore along with further commentary, prob-ably dictated by the teacher. The words here include adultery and fornica-tion, followed by a list of fi elds of knowledge: grammar, rhetoric, astronomy, and so on. The homiliary naturally provides a range of exegetical texts, as does Smaragdus’s encyclopedic Expositio libri comitis (Exposition of the Com-panion Books [of the New Testament]). The library also possessed a vol-ume containing Jerome’s complete correspondence, including letters to and from Augustine as well as letters wrongfully attributed to Jerome that are now ascribed to Pelagius. It is likely, or at least possible, that the library also owned Boethius’s translation of Aristotle’s book of interpretation as well as his Consolation of Philosophy, though the latter may have been known through fl orilegia only.19 The community also owned copies of Prudentius’ Psychoma-chia, Sedulius’s letter to Macedonius, Sulpicius’s dialogues and letters, and, of course, Pope Gregory’s Dialogues. Moreover, the Annals of Quedlinburg, which were almost certainly written by a nun at Quedlinburg, demonstrate knowledge of Augustine’s City of God, Boethius’s commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge, Juvencus’s commentary on the gospels, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Stati-us’s Thebaid, and Virgil’s Aeneid. As might be expected, the author also draws on various chronicles, the range of which is noteworthy: the anonymous Merovingian book of the History of the Franks (Liber Historiae Francorum), the Bishops’ Chronicle of Halberstadt, the Annals of Corbie, and Bede’s Six Ages of the World, among others.

Classical texts either surviving or witnessed in the lives of Mathilda in-clude Statius’ Thebaid with Lactantius’s commentary, at least one of Terence’s plays, and, of course, Virgil’s Aeneid. On the basis of the textual evidence of the early and later lives of Mathilda, Bernd Schütte believes that the authors must have had manuscripts at hand for Sulpicius Severus and Venantius Fortunatus, but that the citations and echoes from Terence and Boethius


likely came from fl orilegia. We know, however, that Terence’s plays were read in their entirety at this time, to the dismay of the canoness-playwright Hrotsvit, whose knowledge of Terence suggests she had access to at least some of his plays at Gandersheim. In addition, a complete manuscript of Ter ence’s plays (Leipzig, Rep. I 37) was copied and owned by the canonesses at Essen. Bodarwé considers Terence’s plays to be a common school text for Ottonian women and points out that the glossing of the Leipzig manuscript demonstrates keen interest in the author.20 That the imperial monastery at Quedlinburg might have owned a complete manuscript of Terence’s plays, therefore, is not beyond question and indeed seems likely. Finally, both early and later narratives show a familiarity with the plays, narrative poems, and histories of their contemporary, Hrotsvit of Gandersheim. Schütte notes echoes throughout both texts of prefaces, historical epics, narrative poems, and plays written by Hrotsvit. Some of the echoes may derive from culturally current phrases and ideas available to both Hrotsvit and these authors; nev-ertheless, the number and degree of parallels suggest direct infl uence. Since Hrotsvit dedicated her plays to Otto I and shared them with the monks of St. Emmeram, it seems quite possible, even probable, that Quedlinburg might have had a copy of the complete plays—or at least some of the plays—de-spite rivalry between Quedlinburg and Gandersheim for imperial attention.

Clearly, the library contained a variety of scholarly texts, though none seems as well used as Jerome’s letters. The volume possessed by Quedlinburg (Halle, ULB, Qu. Cod. 74)21 contains, as mentioned above, the entire cor-pus of Jerome’s correspondence with Augustine as well as Pseudo-Jerome letters now ascribed to Pelagius. This manuscript was written at the royal Carolingian monastery of Chelles in the late eighth or early ninth century, probably during the abbacy of Charlemagne’s sister Gisla. It likely came to Quedlinburg early, perhaps as one of the foundational gifts: an appropriate acquisition by or gift for Mathilda to signal the continuity from the Caro-lingian dynasty to the Ottonian. The manuscript throughout is neat, well ordered, well ruled, and punctuated to assist less-experienced readers. Lines are also marked to facilitate reading aloud or personal study. As one might expect, letters to women, particularly those to Marcella, are especially heav-ily marked for reading. Certain folios are bookmarked with one or two col-ored threads sewn to the outer edge for easy reference (though of course there is no way to determine when those threads might have been attached; presumably, though, they mark perennial favorites); the scriptorium also made use of highlighting by washing yellow pigment over marginal signs for easy reference. Among the most heavily marked and glossed letters are those that teach women how to live and serve God properly according to Jerome’s categories of sexuality: virginity, chastity, widowhood. No surprise there. A letter to Castorina, Jerome’s maternal aunt, for example, teaches how to preserve her chastity and put her widowhood to the best use. Another letter, to the widow Ageruchia, is even more important: Jerome praises her for de-ciding not to remarry and offers advice for remaining chaste in widowhood,


producing in the process a treatise on monogamy. In the Quedlinburg codex, this letter stands out in the number of marginal pointers, some of which are highlighted, suggesting that it was used as a teaching text or at least as an important exemplum. An informal drawing of a woman’s face also graces the margins at this spot, another mechanism for adding emphasis that occurs elsewhere in the manuscript.

Not all of Jerome’s letters to women are about sexuality and chastity, however. Some of the most noted and, I think, referenced, texts discuss questions of scripture. A letter to Hedibia is one such text that attests to a more theologically oriented readership. Hebidia posed questions to Jerome: How one might achieve perfection? What does Matthew 26.29 mean? How can one make contradictory texts from the gospels accord with one another? The presentation of this letter was designed to encourage careful study. The questions themselves are written in red lead. Copious notes and marginal markings, some highlighted with an over-wash of yellow pigment, suggest that this letter was intended for active study. A letter to another woman from Gaul, Adalgisa, similarly addresses scriptural questions and is also very heavily marked and glossed. Here, too, red lead uncials demarcate tituli and capitula, which are numbered. A letter to Marcella on Hebrew names and words, another to her on names for God, and yet another on proper faith and heretical dogma all seem to have been singled out for careful study. The manuscript’s format indicates that it was created as a study text; a note entered by a woman named Hathuui dating to the end of the tenth century attests to the community’s active use of it in Mathilda’s own time. Clearly, the questions raised by these female associates of Jerome interested the women of St. Servatius as well. Moreover, as the markings in the majority of Quedlinburg’s surviving manuscripts attest, they did not let these literary and scholarly treasures gather dust on the shelves.

The Limits of Hagiography

Of course, saints’ lives were common fare for all monastics, providing exem-pla for proper living. While the community must have had several volumes containing hagiographical narratives, the survivals beyond liturgical texts can be found in the homiliary and in Sulpicius Severus’s book of St. Martin. In addition to these, hagiographical narratives possibly familiar to the author of the early life of Queen Mathilda include the life of St. Radegund as well as that of Gertrude of Nivelle.22

Hagiography enjoyed a privileged place in the Quedlinburg curriculum, as the surviving Martinellus attests.23 Copied at St. Martin’s home base of Tours under Abbot Fredegisus in the fi rst third of the ninth century, this manuscript must have been acquired as one of the foundational gifts; like the Itala, the text is appropriate subject matter for a royal community, recount-ing, as it does, the story of a warrior turned saint. The object itself, however,


carries the iconic weight of the patron saint of the Frankish kings. It could have stood on its symbolic power alone, therefore, like the Itala. In this case, though, the book shows all the signs of active study, complete with glosses and reading marks.

At a practical level, saints’ lives offer not only models, but also material useful for establishing sanctity. The early life of Mathilda draws on the lives of Radegund, the saintly Merovingian Queen with Thuringian royal ties; Gertrude of Nivelle, a Carolingian royal saint;24 and Martin, whose rejection of military life for the contemplative life resonates ironically with his status as patron saint of the Frankish kings. Here we see the construction of an Ottonian dynastic saint modeled on royal saints of previous dynasties care-fully selected for their regional, cultural, and political ties: a rewriting, if you will, of sanctity for a new era. The memorial narratives promote the venera-tion of this queen as a saint and strengthen the perception of her husband, King Henry I of Saxony, as scion of the fi rst Saxon imperial dynasty.25 More importantly, they validate the fl owering of that dynasty in the fi gure of her son, Otto the Great, and his successors.

To illuminate some of the issues and perceptions of women and learn-ing in the community at St. Servatius, I would like to turn now to these two hagiographical narratives likely produced at or in association with Quedlin-burg: the early and later lives of Queen Mathilda. The early Life of Mathilda provides interesting clues to the uses of literacy for elite women of this pe-riod. The text was most probably written at Quedlinburg, and by a woman. Although the gender of the author remains disputed, there is much to sug-gest female authorship and nothing to rule out that possibility. Arguments for female authorship include the resources available to women; the level of female learning at the time, something now generally acknowledged among scholars; the text’s attention to female as well as male royalty; and an em-phasis on Mathilda’s intellect and the heights of her learning, not just her beauty, chastity, and good works. As for location, references to Quedlinburg as the central nexus of Mathilda’s widowhood argue in favor of St. Servatius, as does the use of at least one text known to have been owned by that com-munity: Sulpicius Severus’ Martinellus.26 Another possibility for the place of origin is Quedlinburg’s sister house of Nordhausen, which is also referred to in the text. The plea for continued support of the community is a point in favor of Nordhausen authorship, as is the close relationship between Mathilda and Nordhausen’s abbess, Ricbod, detailed in the legend. Since the community is closely linked to Quedlinburg, its inmates might have had access to the same texts as the nuns at Quedlinburg.

The text’s references to Mathilda’s copious reading are not meant to offer an accurate refl ection of common reading practices among religious women; rather, they present an ideal that speaks to memory and power. According to this life, Mathilda’s favorite reading material consisted of Gregory’s Dialogues, the Psalms, and the gospels, all of which were standard texts for religious women as well as men. For this author, Mathilda is groomed for sanctity in


her early years, being educated in literary studies, which the narrator tells us are “the source of both the active and contemplative life.”27 She was sent to Herford as a child, in fact, to receive such training, and her lifelong devotion to reading and proper learning constituted part of the good works for which she almost achieved the premier distinction of virginity, even after having born fi ve children (though this text recognizes only four). Her dedication to learning was such that, “even on feast days when she was free not to read, she occupied herself either reading or listening to others read.”28 The text also seems to caution that reading can distract one from more important pri-orities, as it conjures up the image of Mathilda’s trusted companion Ricburg so absorbed in a book that she neglects a pauper seeking her help.29 This incident surely poses a useful contrast to the saintly Mathilda, who had no trouble keeping perspective and balance between contemplative and active duties.

While the later life also praises Mathilda’s love of reading, it modifi es somewhat the nature of her learning. Mathilda was sent to Herford, this author tells us, to learn the Psalms and handicrafts. The author also spends a considerable time on Mathilda’s nightly recitation of the entire Psalter to un-derscore her holiness; this is an ascetic practice, to be sure, and one not even advocated by Benedict in his rule. This later text takes Mathilda’s sanctity to a new level. The earlier Life had constructed a dynastic saint who offers the promise of imperial protection on both spiritual and secular levels, as well as the promise to care for all: not hoarding wealth, but carefully investing in spiritual growth and guardianship as well as in the common people. The later version, written for and under the reign of King Henry II, a staunch ad-vocate of reform, furthers that image of Mathilda as queen and saint of the people by making her an icon of Cluniac reform. The foundation of Quedlin-burg at the expense of Wendhausen offers just one hint of the underlying re-form agenda. In the early version, Mathilda and Henry are advised to move the nuns from Wendhausen to Quedlinburg because, the narrator explains, their kin are distressed that they must live in such poverty:

Besides their dedication to such efforts, [Henry and Mathilda] also heeded divine counsel and devoted themselves to the construction of monasteries. When they spoke with the leaders of the host about their wishes in this regard, the latter immediately suggested to the king that he could transfer to Quedlinburg nuns who were cloistered at Wendhausen, since there were daughters from leading families living there whose kinfolk were unhappy to have them remain amidst so much poverty.30

In the later version, however, the move is advised because the nuns lack the discipline of the rule. Wishing to build a monastery and calling upon the chief leaders for advice, “the leading men replied that at Wendhausen there were nuns lacking regular discipline, who could no longer remain there un-less they received royal assistance, and suggested that these nuns be trans-ferred to Quedlinburg.”31 It is interesting to note that in this text reading is


limited to gospels, Psalms, and saints’ lives proper, controlled training for royal and religious women.

In keeping with their emphasis on good works and the proper channel-ing of royal privilege, particularly caring for the poor and supporting monas-teries, the texts also advocate appropriate uses of literacy and highlight the reading of only certain texts, even though the actual repertoire used by both authors is signifi cantly larger than that promoted by either text. Female in-tellect and learning, while praised, are always circumscribed by the natural limits of the hagiographical genre and the ideals they seek to promote. But what are we to make of the authors’ presentation of the blessed Mathilda and Henry through the lovers from Terence’s Andria? Descriptions borrowed from Virgil’s Aeneid, which pervade these saintly narratives, suggest a thor-ough command of that text, most likely from memory. References to and echoes of the Aeneid refl ect a more complete intellectual absorption of that text as part of the author’s consciousness rather than a self-conscious or awkward copying of its words, phrases, and poetic forms. Knowledge of Vir-gil’s Georgics, on the other hand, probably came from a fl orilegium, although one that likely formed part of the author’s own repertoire. Mary Carruthers explains how fl orilegium are useful catalogues of knowledge that would not have served simply as reference books, but would have helped develop a mental catalogue of knowledge as well as a schema or framework by which to organize knowledge. In both cases, therefore, the author displays not sim-ply the range of books available at her well-endowed library, but an impres-sive array of texts—classical as well as Christian—fully mastered within her own mental library.

As Erich Auerbach observed long ago, the blending of Christian prin-ciples of rhetorical propriety with classical rhetorical and poetic devices char-acterizes most texts of this period.32 Classical usages in these texts, however, go beyond mere rhetorical embellishments or stylistic character. Clearly well trained and well versed in a range of scriptural, literary, and scholarly texts, these authors worked both to craft the founding mother of their community as saint as well as to promote the dynasty of which she was also the found-ing mother. The mechanisms for these constructions included not only tra-ditional Christian exempla, but also heroes of secular classical literature that would certainly have been familiar to the monastic audience and, probably, the courtly audience as well.

Fully immersed in texts of both the spiritual and the secular worlds and displaying a practiced technique, these authors nevertheless present a far more staid vision of proper learning for women, in direct contrast to their own wide-ranging literary experience. Indeed, both authors display as much of their learning and poetic talents as is reasonable within their genre and subject matter, and even that small glimpse suggests tantalizing possibilities for intellectual productivity at St. Servatius, Quedlinburg. We can imagine students poring over Virgil and Arator, the commentaries of Cassiodorus and Fribolus, and the lives of saints who served as reminders of secular as well as


spiritual nobility; we might also imagine them enjoying, individually or as a group, the plays of Terence and Hrotsvit, perhaps even mimed or performed outright. These texts never come into view, however, in the narratives of Mathilda’s life; only programmatic texts such as the Psalms, the Dialogues of Gregory, and hagiographical narratives are mentioned in either text. In recounting the life of the founding mother of their monastery with its well-endowed library, scriptorium, and school, they have deliberately chosen not to represent those aspects of the community.

The omission of scholarly activity in these narratives demonstrates what Foucault has characterized as the violence of knowledge in maintaining sys-tems of power.33 For Foucault, effective power convinces subjected beings to assume subservient positions. Of course the women writing these lives are not simply subjected beings; they are almost certainly members of the ruling class and personally invested in promoting the interests of that class. In the ceremonial practices of this community and in the narratives associ-ated with the community, women maintained a degree of power by vir-tue of their connection to and support of the royal house. That connection was always tenuous, however, and dependent on their cooperation. In the case of both Nordhausen and Quedlinburg, Warner points out that “each had reason to view their relationship with the monarchy and the Ottonian house with a mixture of pride and anxiety”;34 the narratives associated with either or both of these communities is shaped accordingly. But if the arts of memory are self-interested, as Warner rightly maintains, we need to ponder which aspects of self the narratives preserve, address, promote. If social class and familial obligations, what might that mean for women, since women cannot claim an equal ranking in that social sphere they work to support? Placing their class interests fi rst, these authors undermine women’s power by eclipsing women’s participation in the production of knowledge; in ef-fect, they participate in their own subjugation. They do violence, too, to the image of Mathilda, the woman who selected or attracted the library’s inaugural volumes and whose own intellectual program must have been quite rigorous. Women’s intellectual activity may well have been suspect and perhaps would have challenged institutional ecclesiastical reforms pro-moted throughout the realm in the later tenth and early eleventh centuries, precisely when these narratives were written. Active reading of classical and patristic texts, as witnessed in annotations and readers’ marks, however, continues all the while, through the twelfth century at least, and in many cases quite a bit later. The complex memorializing machine that forged the iconic identities of Henry I, the saintly Queen Mathilda, and the dynastic identity of Otto I and his successors, comprised the artifi ce artfully conceived by Mathilda herself and embellished by her successor and namesake, the Abbess Mathilda; the canonesses living within its walls, who dutifully of-fered their prayers; the lay community who also participated in the liturgical offerings in memory of the royal pair; and the authors of the narratives that furthered the interests of the community and the dynasty. Sadly, those who


formed such an integral part of the machine themselves were lost within it. Even the image of Mathilda, though venerated, is circumscribed by the larger political aims of dynasty and the standing of the community in relation to it. The queen, it would seem, is memorialized and venerated not for her own sake, but for that of her husband and family. Ironically and unfortunately, moreover, the elaborate memorial project in which women seemed to play such an important role ultimately erased the intellectual achievements and ontological possibilities of those very women, including the writers them-selves (if the texts were female authored) from the map of cultural memory, obscuring the range and depth of scholarly work evidenced now only in the margins of the few manuscripts and fragments that survive. Eclipsing rather than adumbrating a vibrant intellectual tradition and forging thereby limited ontological possibilities for those women to come, the memorializing ma-chine produced, for the women of St. Servatius, a legacy of loss.

Notes

1. Jacques Derrida, “The Art of Memoires” in Memoires for Paul de Man: The Wellek Library Lectures at the University of California, Irvine, trans. Jonathan Culler (New York, 1986), 47–88, at 58.

2. David A. Warner demonstrates the function of literati in shaping ritual and also in using ritual to shape opinion in its imaginative (mis)representations of certain ritual acts, particularly the adventus. His discussion of the early and later lives of Mathilda is particularly good on this point. David A. Warner, “Ritual and Memory in the Ottonian Reich: The Ceremony of Adventus,” Speculum 76.2 (Apr. 2001): 255–83, esp. 268–70 and 278–81.

3. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Medieval Identity Machines (Minneapolis, 2003). I fi nd Cohen’s articulation of Deleuzian machines or rhizomatic networks helpful to understanding medieval subject formations through, in this case, memorial im-pulses and practices.

4. This principle is ubiquitous in Foucault’s work on power and juridical forms. See especially, Discipline and Punish, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York, 1979); Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977, ed. Colin Gordon, trans. Colin Gordon et al. (New York, 1980); Power, ed. James D. Faubion, trans. Robert Hurley, et al., Essential Works of Foucault, 1954–1984, vol. 3 (New York, 1994).

5. On the community of St. Servatius, Quedlinburg, see Gerd Althoff, “Gander-sheim und Quedlinburg. Ottonische Frauenkloster als Herrschafts- und Uber-lieferungszentren,” in Frühmittelalterliche Studien 25 (1991): 123–44, and John W. Bernhardt, Itinerant Kingship and Royal Monasteries in Early Medieval Germany, c. 936–1075 (Cambridge, 1993), 138–49.

6. Important discussions on women’s role in preserving memory include: Patrick Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Mil-lenium (Princeton, 1996); Matthew Innes, “Keeping it in the Family: Women and Aristocratic Memory, 700–1200,” in Medieval Memories: Men, Women and the Past, 700–1300, ed. Elisabeth van Houts (Harlow, England, 2001), 17–35;


Elisabeth van Houts, Memory and Gender in Medieval Europe, 900–1200 (Toronto, 1999); Rosamund McKitterick, “Nuns’ Scriptoria in England and Francia in the Eighth Century,” in Francia 19 (1989): 1–35; Janet Nelson, “Gender and Genre in Women Historians of the Early Middle Ages,” in L’historiographie médiévale en Europe, ed. J.- P. Genet (Paris, 1991), 149–63 [Repr. Janet Nelson, The Frankish World, 750–900, Woodbridge, 1996]; and Janet Nelson, “Women and the Word in the Earlier Middle Ages,” Women and the Church, ed. Diana Woods, Studies in Church History 27 (1990): 53–78 [Repr. Janet Nelson, The Frankish World, 750–900, Woodbridge, 1996]. For a discussion of medieval memorial practices, see Otto Gerhard Oexle, “Memoria und Memorialüberlieferung im früheren Mittelalter,” in Frühmittelalterliche Studien 10 (1976): 70–95. For the importance and function of memory more generally, see Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (2nd ed., Cambridge, 2008) and The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400–1200 (Cambridge, 1998).

7. Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance, 70. 8. Ibid., 73. Moreover, the large number of women’s foundations for early medi-

eval Saxony ensured that they would have the means to provide these important memorial functions. See Karl Leyser, “The Women of the Saxon Aristocracy,” in Rule and Confl ict in an Early Medieval Society: Ottonian Saxony (London, 1979), 49–74.

9. Annales Quedlinburgensis, ed. Martina Giese (Hannover, 2004), s.a. 937; my translation.

10. “And those fallen to the extreme of their own vice, she did not hesitate, in a maternal way [materno more] (spiritual, not carnal), to nourish [enutrire] with abundance of advantages.” Annales Quedlinburgensis, s.a. 937; my translation.

11. On the founding of the monastic community at Quedlinburg and its importance, see Joachim Ehlers, “Heinrich I. in Quedlinburg,” in Herrschaftsrepräsentation im ottonischen Sachsen, ed. Gerd Althoff and Ernst Schubert (Sigmaringen, 1998), 235–66. For an important archaeological perspective, see Gerhard Leopold, “Die Stiftskirche der Königin Mathilde in Quedlinburg: Ein Vorbericht zum Gründ-ungsbau des Damenstifts,” in Frühmittelalterliche Studien 25 (1991): 145–70. Uwe Lobbedey offers a very useful analysis of the Quedlinburg crypts in the broader context of Ottonian crypt design in “Ottonische Krypten: Bemerkungen zum Forschungsstand an Hand ausgewählter Beispiele,” in Herrschaftsrepräsentation im ottonischen Sachsen, 77–102, at 93–97. Lobbedey argues that the structure, placement, and use of the burial crypt of Henry I departed signifi cantly from Carolingian crypt structures to enhance and intensify memorial and intercessory rituals concentrated on the fi gures of Henry I and Queen Mathilda.

12. “The ‘Older Life’ of Queen Mathilda,” in Queenship and Sanctity: The “Lives” of Mathilda and the “Epitaph” of Adelheid, trans. Sean Gilsdorf (Washington, DC, 2004), 80–81.

13. For a discussion of the Quedlinburg necrology and evidence pointing to it, see Gerd Althoff, “Adels- und Königsfamilien” in Spiegel ihrer Memorialüberliefer-ung: Studien zum Totengenken der Billunger und Ottonen, Münstersche Mittelalter Schriften, 47 (Munich, 1984), 161, 203–6.

14. Carruthers details the complex processes of individual and communal memory in relation to texts in The Book of Memory and The Craft of Thought.

15. I am indebted to Katrinette Bodarwé’s enumeration of the manuscripts asso-ciated with the community of St. Servatius, Quedlinburg in her book, Sancti-


moniales litteratae: Schriftlichkeit und Bildung in den ottonischen Frauenkommunitäten Gandersheim, Essen und Quedlinburg, Quellen und Studien 10 (Münster, 2004). I am also grateful to Dr. Marita von Cieminski and Markus Lucke in the special collections department of the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen An-halt, Halle, for generously allowing me to examine all manuscripts in their col-lection associated with that community.

16. On the use of Psalms in monasticism, see James W. McKinnon, “The Book of Psalms, Monasticism, and the Western Liturgy,” in The Place of the Psalms in the Intellectual Culture of the Middle Ages, ed. Nancy Van Deusen (Albany, NY, 1999), 43–58, and Joseph Dyer, “The Psalms in Monastic Prayer,” also in The Place of Psalms, 59–89.

17. Bodarwé, Sanctimoniales litteratae, 430.18. Ibid., 176, 291, and 429.19. For Boethius’s In librum Aristotelis de interpretation, see Bodarwé, Sanctimoniales

litteratae, table 6.3.3 (293) and discussion on page 297, where she cautiously suggests Quedlinburg ownership of the remaining fragment which has been at Goslar since the sixteenth century. Knowledge of Boethius’s Consolation of Phi-losophy is based on evidence of the lives of Mathilda, and is therefore purely speculative, since the vitae themselves cannot be surely ascribed to the Quedlin-burg community.

20. Bodarwé, Sanctimoniales litteratae, 76 and 344.21. For a description of this manuscript, see ibid., 419–20.22. Bernd Schütte, Die Lebensbeschreibungen der Königin Mathilde (Hannover, 1994).

Schütte cites the Life of Liutberga as a possible source as well, but the allusions are not strong enough to persuade fully. Thanks to Frederick Paxton for drawing my attention to the problem of claiming a debt to the Life of Liutberg.

23. Halle, ULB, Qu. Cod. 79. For description and commentary, see Bodarwé, Sancti-moniales litteratae, 422–23.

24. I follow Schütte here, though infl uence is far from certain.25. See Carolyn Edwards, “Dynastic Sanctity in Two Early Medieval Women’s Lives,”

in Medieval Family Roles, ed. Cathy Jorgensen Itnyre, Garland Medieval Case-books 15 (New York, 1996), 3–19, and Warner, “Ritual and Memory.”

26. Bodarwé, Sanctimoniales litteratae, 422–23.27. “The ‘Older Life’ of Queen Mathilda,” in Queenship and Sanctity, 73.28. Ibid., 81.29. Ibid.30. Ibid., 76–77.31. “The ‘Later Life’ of Queen Mathilda,” in Queenship and Sanctity, 97.32. Erich Auerbach, Latin Literary Language and its Public, trans. Ralph Manheim

(Princeton, 1993).33. That power and knowledge are inextricably intertwined is a fundamental prin-

ciple of Foucault’s work. On the relation between power and knowledge, he writes that “We should admit . . . that power produces knowledge . . . ; that power and knowledge directly imply one another; that there is no power rela-tion without the correlative constitution of a fi eld of knowledge, nor any knowl-edge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations.” Discipline and Punish, 27. Moreover, he explains that at the root of its functioning, power is rationalized. “Omnes et Singulatim,” in Power, 298–325, esp. 324–25. Though neither knowledge nor power is the same as force or violence, forms of


power and the use of knowledge to impose and maintain systems of power often involve some form of violation. Expanding on Nietzsche, Foucault observes that “there can be no relation of natural continuity between knowledge and the things that knowledge must know. There can only be a relation of violence, domination, power, and force, a relation of violation. Knowledge can only be a violation of the things to be known, and not a perception, a recognition, and identifi cation of or with those things.” “Truth and Juridical Form,” in Power, 1–87, esp. 9.

34. Warner, “Ritual and Memory,” 269.

Queen Mathilda of Saxony and the Founding of Quedlinburg: Women, Memory, and Power

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