Communications and Power: Pope Gregory VII’s Correspondence with Queens and Countesses

During his tumultuous twelve-year pontificate, Pope Gregory VII wrote twenty letters to various queens and countesses across Europe. Whilst this makes up only a small number of Gregory’s extant letters, it amounts to 50% of the surviving correspondence between popes and female rulers across the entirety of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It, therefore, gives the impression that Gregory developed a distinctive relationship with queens and countesses. The most notable of these women was Matilda of Tuscany, who has long been seen as an exceptional figure in her dealings with Gregory. However, this paper will cast its net wider, undertaking a comparative consideration of Gregory’s correspondence with queens and countesses across Europe. It will explore Gregory’s models of female power and rule, considering the various factors and circumstances that shaped this correspondence. The extant evidence means we only have Gregory’s side of these communications, with no letter by a female ruler to Gregory surviving. Nevertheless, many of Gregory’s letters were responses, so it is possible to explore the agency of these female rulers in initiating this contact. Ultimately, the paper will seek to better integrate queens and countesses within our understanding of Gregory’s pontificate and the wider transformation of papal power in the eleventh century.