Introducing St. Matilda

Saint Matilda exists because Saint Dominic doesn't. Per Rule of Canny, Andalusada needs someone to fill his shoes, an that someone is Saint Gonzalo of Lerida - but he's an original character, which means that I have both free room and a lot of details to fill in. And back before his page took on its current form, one of my earliest notes about Gonzalo was something I wanted in his story: "a Gonzalan St. Clare."

For the longest time, this has sat unattended, because the only reason I introduced Gonzalo was because John George wasn't an Augustinian, and I honestly hadn't had any interesting thoughts about it. Last night, though, while trying to rename Catholic orders to fit into my arbitrary naming conventions, I discovered some really cool things, which brought this back to mind - and I'm gonna make the most of it.

Background to St. Matilde

In the early 1200s, when mendicancy was rising as the great mode of the religious life, the Stephanines had just passed their prime and were going to pieces. They had no clear idea what their lay brothers were supposed to be doing; the Rule of St. Stephen was honored in the breach; and its power struggles had turned into armed coups. That's all we really know; there isn't much available stuff that was written about them, because they never got really big.

Things like this are playgrounds for the alt-historian in me: it means that I can simply write in the details as I go. One of those details involves a group of Bonhommes who consciously break with the Rule of St. Stephen on a critical detail: Ch. XXIX, which bans women from entrance. This fictional faction, located on the southernmost edges of the Stephanine world, is where St. Matilde makes her first appearance.

St. Matilda of [where?]

Matilde is born somewhere in the south of France, somewhere north of the Pyrenees. That's an incredibly vague description: it could be Aquitane, Gascony, Béarn, the County of Toulouse (assuming that still exists by this point), Bigorre, Languedoc... I'm not even sure what ethnicity the lady is, although she shares a language in common with Gonzalo.

• Matilda is pious from an early age at a time when her region of birth is awash in religious turmoil. There's a difference between "loyal to the Church" and "obeying the rules," though; she does get involved with one of the southern reaches of the Stephanine soap opera, which by its own Rule bars women from entrance.
• At some point (once Gnosticism has really taken off in Aquitaine and the man himself is old enough), Gonzalo of Lerida's travels bring him into contact with Matilde; they hit it off, and it starts a relationship that lasts the rest of their lives. (I desperately need a pious story about how they met. There's no way it couldn't have at least one.)
• While Gonzalo goes on his way, Matilda (inspired by his example) starts a fairly aggressive outreach effort aimed at Gnostic women. By the time she's back in touch with Gonzalo, she's managed to win over a certain number of them herself, despite the local bishop [who?] vocally objecting to her work.

The legacy of Saint Matilda

Very much like Gonzalo (and her contemporary Clarissa, although they never met), St. Matilda is a whitewashed saint. Also like Clarissa, that whitewashing is in no small part because she was a very powerful woman.

• St. Matilda is usually not honored in the Stephanine tradition. There are, however, a certain number of "Matildine" nuns, who exist at the Gonzalan-Stephanine intersection; most of them, predictably, claim her as their exemplar and ancestor.
• St. Matilda preached. She preached with no man's sanction: more than once she clashed with bishops over it, and even Gonzalo himself didn't authorize it (although he did look the other way, and never explicitly said she couldn't.) Although I'm not sure what feminism looks like in Andalusada, St. Matilda is an interesting figure for their (re)claiming. The Missionary Mauds actually do.

This is a work in progress. Expect it to be expanded upon.