Re-reading Empress Matilda as a Female King

Abstract

Given the observation of Martin B. Shichtman and Laurie A. Finke that “the historian’s knowledge of the past is always inextricably bound up with his or her investments in and anxieties about the present,” Geoffrey of Monmouth’s present—the historical moment at which King Henry I’s daughter and heir Empress Matilda was planning her military campaign to become king of England—is an appropriate starting point for gaining an understanding of the Historia regum Britanniae.1 However, examining this book’s historical context is no more ‘neutral’ or ‘scientific’ a process than examining the book itself. In fact, as Lee Patterson has reminded his colleagues in both history and literary studies, no act of historicism “can or should be a disinterested project.”2 From the perspective of feminist scholars, “the history of the history books” is a product of traditional scholarship that consists of narratives from which women are absent or in which women appear as mere footnotes to the deeds of men; consequently, in 1985, Beatrice Gottlieb asserted that “all history has to be rewritten.”3 Although the scholarship of the last quarter-century has substantially rewritten history to include women in meaningful ways, many female figures remain neglected.KeywordsModern HistorianEnglish HistoryMilitary VictoryMale HeirTactical ErrorThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.