of 1077, giving unconditionally to the pope all her fiefs and holdings. While the validity of this donation was seriously questioned, and while it was claimed that she had really intended to convey her personal property only, so ambiguous was the wording of the document that the pope's claims were in the main allowed, and many of her lands were given over to his temporal sway.

After the death of Henry IV. (1106), she continued to rule without opposition in Italy, though recognizing the suzerainty of his successor, Henry V. In 1110, this emperor came to visit her at Bibbianello, where he was filled with admiration for her attainments, her great wisdom, and her many virtues. During this visit, Henry treated her with the greatest respect, addressing her as mother; before his departure, he made her regent of Italy. She was then old and feeble, physically, but her mind and will were still vigorous. A few years later, during the Lenten season in 1115, she caught cold while attempting to follow out the exacting requirements of Holy Week, and it soon became apparent that her end was near. Realizing this fact herself she directed that her serfs should be freed, confirmed her general donation to the pope, made a few small bequests to the neighboring churches, and then died as she had lived, calmly and bravely. Her death occurred at Bendano, and her body was interred at Saint Benoît de Ponderone. Five centuries later, under the pontificate of Urban VIII., it was taken to Rome and buried with great ceremony in the Vatican.

As to Matilda's character, some few historians have cast reflections upon the nature of her relations with Pope Gregory, their stay together at Canossa, at the time of Henry's humiliation, being particularly mentioned as an instance of their too great intimacy. Such aspersions have still to be proved, and there is nothing in all contemporary writings to show that there was anything reprehensible in all the course of this firm friendship. Gregory was twice the age of the great countess, and was more her father than her lover. During her whole lifetime, she had been of a mystic temperament, and it is too much to ask us to believe that her great and holy ardor for the Church was tainted by anything like vice or sensuality. By reason of her great sagacity and worldly wisdom she was the most powerful and most able personage in Italy at the time of her death. If her broad domains could have been kept together by some able successor, Italian unity might not have been deferred for so many centuries; but there was no one to take up her work and Italy was soon divided again, and this time the real partition was made rather by the growing republics than by the feudal lords.

A consideration of the life of the Countess Matilda points to the fact that there was but this one woman in all Italy at this time who knew enough to take advantage of her opportunities and play a great rôle upon the active stage of life. Many years were to pass before it could enter the popular conception that all women were to be given their chance at a fuller life, and even yet in sunny Italy, there is much to do for womankind. Then, as now, the skies were blue, and the sun was bright and warm; then, as now, did the peasants dance and sing all the way from water-ribbed Venice to fair and squalid Naples, but with a difference. Now, there is a measure of freedom to each and all--then, justice was not only blind but went on crutches, and women were made to suffer because they were women and because they could not defend, by force, their own. Still, there is comfort in the fact that from this dead level of mediocrity and impotence, one woman, the great Countess of Tuscany, was able to rise up and show herself possessed of a great heart, a great mind, and a great soul; and in her fullness of achievement, there was rich promise for the future.

CHAPTER II

THE NEAPOLITAN COURT IN THE TIME OF QUEEN JOANNA

If you drive along the beautiful shore of the Mergellina to-day, beneath the high promontory of Pausilipo, to the southwest of Naples, you will see there in ruins the tumbling rocks and stones of an unfinished palace, with the blue sea breaking over its foundations; and that is still called the palace of Queen Joanna. In the church of Saint Chiara at Naples, this Queen Joanna was buried, and there her tomb may be seen to-day. Still is she held in memory dear, and still is her name familiar to the lips of the people. On every hand are to be seen the monuments of her munificence, and if you ask a Neapolitan in the street who built this palace or that church, the answer is almost always the same--"Our Queen Joanna."

Who was this well-beloved queen, when did she live, and why is she still held in this affectionate regard by the present residents of sunny Naples? To answer all these questions it will be necessary to go back to a much earlier day in the history of this southern part of the Italian peninsula--a day when Naples was the centre of a royal government of no little importance in the eyes of the mediæval world.

Some three hundred years before Joanna's birth, in the early part of the eleventh century, a band of knightly pilgrims was on its way to the Holy Land to battle for the Cross. They had ridden through the fair provinces of France, in brave array upon their mighty chargers, all the way from Normandy to Marseilles, and there they had taken ship for the East. The ships were small, the accommodations and supplies were not of the best, and it was not possible to make the journey with any great speed. Stopping, as it happened, for fresh stores in the south of Italy, they were at once invited by the Prince of Salerno to aid him in his fight against the Mohammedans, who were every day encroaching more upon the Greek possessions there. Being men of warlike nature, already somewhat wearied by the sea voyage to which they were not accustomed, and considering this fighting with the Saracens of Italy as a good preparation for later conflicts with the heathens and the infidels who were swarming about the gates of Jerusalem, they were not slow to accept the invitation. While victory perched upon the banners of the Normans, it was evident at once that for the future safety of the country a strong and stable guard would be necessary, and so the Normans were now asked to stay permanently. This the majority did with immense satisfaction, for the soft and gentle climate of the country had filled their souls with a sweet contentment, and the charms and graces of the southern women had more than conquered the proud conquerors. Just as Charles VIII. and his army, some hundreds of years later, were ensnared by the soft glances of soft eyes when they went to Italy to conquer, so the Normans were held in silken chains in this earlier time. But there was this difference--the Normans did not forget their own interests. Willing victims to the wondrous beauty of the belles of Naples, they were strong enough to think of their own position at the same time; and as the French colony grew to fair size and much importance, they took advantage of certain controversies which arose, and boldly seized Apulia, which they divided among twelve of their counts. This all happened in the year 1042.

It may well be imagined that Naples at this time presented a most picturesque appearance, for there was a Babel of tongues and a mixture of nationalities which was quite unusual. After the native Neapolitans, dark-eyed and swarthy, there were countless Greeks and Saracens of somewhat fairer hue, and over them all were the fierce Normans, strangers from a northern clime, who were lording it in most masterful fashion. The effect of this overlordship, which they held from the pope as their feudal head, was to give to this portion of Italy certain characteristics which are almost entirely lacking in the other parts of Italy. Here there was no free city, here there was no republic, but, instead, a feudal court which followed the best models of the continent and in its time