The fierce Matilda of Tuscany had been…
1116 CE
The fierce Matilda of Tuscany had been the principal Italian supporter of Pope Gregory VII during the earlier phase of Investiture Controversy, bequeathing large donations of jewels and land to the papacy and sometimes leading her own troops against the imperial army in Italy.
The climax of this struggle, the confrontation of the emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII in 1077, had taken place at Matilda's castle of Canossa.
In 1089, at the age of forty-three, Matilda had married the seventeen-year-old Welf V, duke of Bavaria and Carinthia, a member of the Este family.
They had separated six years later, Henry IV taking the Este side in the resulting quarrel.
Matilda had encouraged Henry's son Conrad to rebel against his father in 1093 and seize the crown of Italy.
She had finally made peace with Henry IV's son and successor, Henry V, in 1110, willing her private territorial possessions to him, although she has already donated them to the papacy, an act that would provoke a quarrel between papacy and empire over the control of Tuscany after her death on July 24, 1115.
The emperor, turning his attentions back to Italy following his defeat by the rebels at Welfesholz, crosses the Alps in 1116 and wins the support of town and noble by granting privileges to the one and giving presents to the other, but the papist Jordan, Archbishop of Milan, excommunicates Henry at San Tecla.
Henry takes possession of Matilda's lands, and …
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