Mathilde van Saksen (c. 892 - Quedlinburg, 14 maart 968), heilige, was de tweede vrouw van de Duitse koning Hendrik I de Vogelaar en was een afstammelinge van Widukind, de Saksische leider die c. 777 een opstand leidde tegen Karel de Grote.
Haar ouders waren de West-Saksische graaf Diederik en zijn vrouw Reinhilde die van Friese en Deense afkomst was. Ze werd opgevoed door haar grootmoeder Mathilde, de abdis van het klooster van Herford en trouwde in 909 met Hendrik I te Wallhausen, dat haar gepresenteerd werd als bruidsschat.
Mathilde werd de moeder van:
Otto I de Grote, koning en keizer van het Heilige Roomse Rijk,
Bruno de Grote, aartsbisschop van Keulen,
Hendrik I van Beieren
Gerberga van Saksen, die huwde met Lodewijk IV van Frankrijk en
Hedwig, moeder van Hugo Capet.
Hendrik I overleed in 936 en liet haar al zijn bezittingen na in Quedlinburg, Pöhlde, Nordhausen, Grone, en Duderstadt. Na zijn dood probeerde ze haar lievelingszoon Hendrik opvolger van haar man te laten worden, maar zonder succes. Het conflict werd opgelost toen Hendrik hertog van Beieren werd door haar ingrijpen. In 939 steunde ze Hendriks opstand tegen Otto, maar bemiddelde ook de verzoening in 941. Niet veel later werd Mathilde door Otto naar een klooster verbannen omdat ze de koninklijke schatkist zonder toestemming zou hebben gebruikt voor kloosterstichtingen en goede werken. Op voorspraak van haar schoondochter Edith mocht ze weer terugkeren aan het hof. Ze bleef actief in liefdadigheidswerk en stichtte meerdere kloosters en abdijen, zoals de abdij van Quedlinburg (936) en het klooster van Nordhausen. Ook was ze lekenabdis van de abdij van Nijvel.
Ze overleed in het paleis van Quedlinburg in 968. Net als haar man is ze begraven in de abdij van Quedlinburg.
Zij is patroonheilige van ouders en grote gezinnen en haar feestdag is op 14 maart.
Saint Mathilda (or Matilda, c.?895 14 March 968) was the wife of King Henry I of Germany, the first ruler of the Saxon Ottonian (or Liudolfing) dynasty, thereby Duchess consort of Saxony from 912 and German Queen from 919 until 936. Their eldest son Otto succeeded his father as German King and was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 962. Matilda's surname refers to Ringelheim, where her comital Immedinger relatives established a convent about 940.
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Biography
The details of Saint Matilda's life come largely from brief mentions in the Res gestae saxonicae of the monastic historian Widukind of Corvey (c. 925 973), and from two sacred biographies (the vita antiquior and vita posterior) written, respectively, circa 974 and circa 1003.
St. Mathilda was the daughter of the Westphalian count Dietrich and his wife Reinhild, and her biographers traced her ancestry back to the legendary Saxon leader Widukind (c. 730 807). One of her sisters married Count Wichmann the Elder, a member of the House of Billung.
As a young girl, she was sent to the convent of Herford, where her grandmother Matilda was abbess and where her reputation for beauty and virtue (probably also her Westphalian dowry) is said to have attracted the attention of Duke Otto I of Saxony, who betrothed her to his recently divorced son and heir, Henry the Fowler. They were married at Wallhausen in 909. As the eldest surviving son, Henry succeeded his father as Saxon duke in 912 and upon the death of King Conrad I of Germany was elected King of Germany (East Francia) in 919. He and Matilda had three sons and two daughters.
After her husband had died in 936, Matilda and her son Otto established Quedlinburg Abbey in his memory, a convent of noble canonesses, where in 966 her granddaughter Matilda became the first abbess. At first she remained at the court of her son Otto, however in the quarrels between the young king and his rivaling brother Henry a cabal of royal advisors is reported to have accused her of weakening the royal treasury in order to pay for her charitable activities. After a brief exile at her Westphalian manors at Enger, where she established a college of canons in 947, Matilda was brought back to court at the urging of King Otto's first wife, the Anglo-Saxon princess Edith of Wessex.
Matilda died at Quedlinburg, outliving her husband by 32 years. Her and Henry's mortal remains are buried at the crypt of the St. Servatius' abbey church.
Veneration
Saint Matilda was celebrated for her devotion to prayer and almsgiving; her first biographer depicted her (in a passage indebted[citation needed] to the sixth-century vita of the Frankish queen Radegund by Venantius Fortunatus) leaving her husband's side in the middle of the night and sneaking off to church to pray. St. Mathilda founded many religious institutions, including the canonry of Quedlinburg, which became a center of ecclesiastical and secular life in Germany under the rule of the Ottonian dynasty, as well as the convents of St. Wigbert in Quedlinburg, in Pöhlde, Enger and Nordhausen in Thuringia, likely the source of at least one of her vitae.
She was later canonized, with her cult largely confined to Saxony and Bavaria. St. Mathilda's feast day according to the German calendar of saints is on March 14.
Zij is getrouwd met Hendrik I "de Vogelaar" van Saksen-Ludolf.
Zij zijn getrouwd op 19 september 909 te Wallhausen, zij was toen 17 jaar oud.Bron 1
Kind(eren):