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Matilda, countess of the Perche (1171-1210): the expression of authority in name, style and seal

Matilda, countess of the Perche (1171-1210): the expression of authority in name, style and seal

By Kathleen Thompson

Tabularia, No. 3 (2003)

Abstract: The career of Matilda of Saxony (1171-1210), wife of Count Geoffrey III of the Perche, illustrates the role of high born women in power politics in the twelfth/thirteenth centuries. After the exile of her father, Henry the Lion, duke of Bavaria and Saxony, she spent her life in western Europe, where she was known by the name of her maternal grandmother, the Empress Matilda. Her surviving acts suggest that her husband exploited her links with the Angevin dynasty, and her seal was used with her husband’s to authenticate both his own and their joint acts, while its imagery may also have been intended to indicate her royal connections. 

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