Queens as Wives, Mothers... and Virgins?

Wife and mother has been the standard career description for women for a very long time. In fact, it often seems like the only one. Historically, even when women have sought roles outside of this sphere, they have relied on their position within that sphere to justify themselves, like female abolitionists in the 1800’s whose arguments turned on their position as mothers.  In this way, women seem perpetually defined by another person.

However, there are other models available--at least since the formation of Christianity, the model of perpetual virginity has been not only available, but exalted. In fact, marriage and motherhood is almost problematic for medieval hagiographers--how could they reconcile queens who were both wives and mothers with saintly virgins?  One obvious route would be to identify them with the “mother” aspect of Mary as the Virgin Mother.  However, some hagiographers actually seem interested in trying to link these married women with the “virgin” aspect instead, which certainly seems to be going against the grain.  

The anonymous biographer of Queen Mathilda is bound and determined to try, though: ”For even when this venerable queen, “outstanding in marital power and even more so in divine religion”, ascended to the royal throne, she remained chaste in her marriage bond and thus in no way lacked a distinction second only to that of the virgin” (Gilsdorf 2004, 94).  Interestingly, Mathilda is not so much being praised for being a wife and mother but for being devout, and it is clear from this passage that being a wife and mother is actually secondary to virginity, the most honorable state of life.

Even while acknowledging that Mathilda is clearly a married woman, her biographer sees no reason not to try to metaphorically build a relationship between Mathilda and notable virgins anyway--“during the night, she secretly left the king’s side and, believing him unaware of the fact, slipped out of the royal bedchamber.  She then devoted her soul to prayer so that she might reconcile herself to God, whom she loved chastely and whom she served in total faith” (Gilsdorf 2004, 95).  Rather than marriage and motherhood being the prototype for women, judging from this account it is more important to establish Mathilda as sharing qualities associated with religious virgins.

One possible way to understand this decision to equate powerful secular women (e.g. queens) with holy virgins--an approach which occurs in more than just the life of Mathilda, notably also in the life of Radegund, an account that the life of Mathilda draws on heavily in places--is to understand virginity as a uniquely female expression of autonomy and power, where women are not defined through their relationship to a man. Though still defined by their sexual status, they could draw power from their relationship with God, a relationship that could one-up a relationship with a king, as divine power is superior even to royal power (which is often justified as being divinely ordained anyway).  This is perhaps the sort of idea that another medieval queen, Emma, had in mind when crafting her image by suggesting a parallel with the Virgin Mary, “that most unambiguous of queens, Mary Queen of Heaven” (Stafford 2002, 20).  As Pauline Stafford has pointed out, “the presentations of Mary not only stress her queenship, but give an idea of the dignity which could be attached to it in contemporary eyes” (Stafford 2002, 13).  Virginity in medieval Europe could connote not only holiness but power, and sometimes it was best to align yourself with both.