Page:A Dictionary of Saintly Women Volume 2.djvu/85

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ST. MATILDA 73 naiiYe country. She fotmded Christ's Hospital and the Priory of St. Augustine at Aldgate, 1108. She built <'a faire stone bridge over the Lue at Stratford- upon-Bow, and gave goodly mannours and lands to the abbey of Barking in Essex for maintayning of the same." Her brother, David I., king of Scot- land, when on a visit to her, reproved her for washing and feeding the beggars and lepers and kissing their sores ; but she siod it became mortal kings and queens to kiss the feet of the King of kings in the person of His beggars and lepers. She was buried at Westminster and worked miracles. She had two children: William, who was drowned in 1120, in crossing over from Normandy; and Matilda, who married first, Henry V. Emperor, secondly Greoffrey, son of Fulk, Count of Anjou. The son of this second marriage was Henry Planta- genet, afterwards Henry II. Matilda was never canonized, but she appears in Watson's English Martyrohgy and is called Saint by several writers, among whom are Bucelinus, Paul La- croiz, in at least two of his books. Vie Miliiaire and Louis XIL ; May hew, Trophea Anglicana ; Wion, Lignum Vitse; Migne, the Manipulus given by the stndents of the English College at Eome to Christina, Queen of Sweden, in 1G55 ; Analecia. Other authorities for her history are Target's Life of her mother St. Margaret, tr. by Mr. Forbes Leith. Butler, St. Margaret." Skene, Chron. of the Scots. Matt. Paris. Eadmer. William of Malmsbury. Miss Ecken- stein. Hume. Memorial of Ancient British Piety. St Matilda (6) of Spanheim, Feb. 26 giECHTHiLD, Melchtide), O.S.B. + 1 1 o4. aughter of Eberhard, friend and vassal of Stephen, count of Spanheim. Her motheiPs name was Hiltrude. Matilda had a brother Bemhelm, a monk of St. Alban's near Maintz ; as long as he remained there^ she lived in a cell near the same monastery. When Count Stephen built a monastery at Spanheim, and appointed Bemhelm abbot of it, Matilda with permission of the bishops of both places, removed to a hermitngo close to the new monastery. Several holy maids wished to join her. She chose five of them. Ferrarius thinks she is the same as Matilda (6). Hen- schenius considers that unless this sup- position is correct, there is no ground for including her among the Saints ; she is, however, so included by Wion (Lignum Vitee), Bucelinus, and other hagiographers. St. Matilda (6) of Andechs, May 31, July G, + 1100, abbess of Diessen and Oettelstettin. Three times did the counts of Andechs found a monastery at Diessen in Bavaria. In 1132, Count Berthold and Sophia his wife gave their castle of Diessen for a double monastery, of which Hartwick was the first abbot. Their daughter Matilda was five years old when they placed her there, and she eventually became the first abbess. Only once in her life did she eat meat and drink wine; it was when her father came to pay a visit to Abbot Hartwick and the monks, and at Matilda's request, gave them an estate which was to have been her dowry. The abbot invited her and her mistress and other nuns to dine with the monks to meet her father. They went, and by command of the abbot, whom she was bound to obey, she ate meat and drank wine. Like Daniel, she looked as well and as pretty on her scanty fare as those who had the best and most varied food. She insisted as much on cleanliness as on seclusion. When she had ruled the nuns of Diessen for a few years, it happened that the ancient monastery of OettelstettiD, iu Swabia, had sunk, under gross mis- management, to a deplorable state, both as to its worldly and spiritual affairs. The princes, nobles, bishops, and nuns interested ia it held a council and sent a request that Matilda would come and take it in charge. She declined, and nothing less than a papal brief induced her to yield. The nuns were in the habit of receiving numerous visitors of both sexos, a custom quite contrary to their Eule, but Matilda reformed this and other abuses. She found that during the time of neglect that preceded her coming, some property belonging to the