Italian Matilde known as Matilda the Great Countess
born 1046, Lucca, Tuscany
died July 24, 1115, Bondeno, Romagna
Countess of Tuscany.
A close friend of Pope Gregory VII , she backed him in his struggle against King Henry IV (see Investiture Controversy ), and it was at her castle at Canossa that the king performed his barefoot penance before Gregory (1077). After Henry's second excommunication, she was intermittently at war with him until his death (1106), sometimes donning armour to lead her own troops, and she helped finance the pope's military operations and encouraged Henry's son Conrad to rebel against his father (1093). Her unwavering support for the popes of Rome was honoured by her reburial in St. Peter's Basilica in 1634.