text: Matilda
  (Mathilde) of Flanders
  
  Wife of William the Conqueror.
  
  Matilda, the daughter of count Baldwin V of Flanders, was
  married between 1049 and 1053 to duke William (II) of Normandy,
  better known as William "the Conqueror", who became
  king of England by conquest in 1066. On Whitsunday (i.e.,
  Pentecost, 11 May in that year) 1068, Matilda was consecrated as
  queen at Westminster by archbishop Ealdred ["On þisan
  Eastron com se kyng to Wincestre, & þa wæron Eastra on .x.
  kalendas Aprilis, & sona æfter þam com Mathild seo hlæfdie
  hider to land, & Ealdred arcebiscop hig gehalgode to cwene on
  Westmynstre on Hwitan Sunnandæg." ASC[D], s.a. 1067 [1068],
  83; Douglas (1964), 213].
  
  Date of Birth: Unknown.Place of
  Birth: Unknown.
  
  Date of Death: 2 November 1083.
  Version E of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that Matilda died
  the day after All Saint's Day ["... & on þæs ilcan
  geares forðferde Mahtild Willelmes cynges cwen on þone dæg
  æfter ealra halgena mæssedæg." ASC[E], s.a. 1083, 93].Place of Death: Unknown.
  
  The parentage of Gundreda, wife of William de
  Warenne, earl of Surrey, and in particular, the claim that she
  was a daughter of Matilda of Flanders, was controversial during
  much of the nineteenth century. Prior to 1846, the common belief
  was that Gundreda was a daughter of William the Conqueror and
  Matilda of Flanders. In that year, a variant of the theory
  appeared when Stapleton published an article [not seen by me]
  claiming that Gundreda was a not a daughter of William, but of
  Matilda by an earlier marriage to Gerbod, advocate of
  Saint-Bertin, by whom she also had two sons, Gerbod, earl of
  Chester, and Frederick. This version of the theory got a big
  boost when it was accepted by Freeman in his history of the
  Norman Conquest [Freeman (1870-9)]. However, in 1878, Waters
  published the letter of Anselm (see below), a key piece of
  evidence which clinches the negative case. [Note: I have not seen
  the publications of Waters on the subject, and I am relying on
  their description in Freeman (1888) and EYC.] Following the work
  of Waters, Freeman reversed his earlier opinion in an article for
  the English Historical Review in 1888 [Freeman (1888)].
  
  The early evidence which would appear to
  directly link Gundreda with either William the Conqueror or
  Matilda all comes from three charters (or alleged charters) from
  Lewes Priory in Sussex. The one direct link between Gundreda and
  William appears only as a late addition to a charter of William
  the conqueror, in which the words "filie mee"
  have been added in a later hand over an erasure after Gundreda's
  name [Monast. Angl. 5: 13 (#4), not noting the interlineation, or
  the later hand; EYC 8: 56 (#4)]. The other two relevant charters
  appear to suggest that Gundreda was a daughter of Matilda. In a
  false charter of William de Warenne, he appears to make Matilda
  the mother of his wife [".. pro salute domine mee
  Matildis regine, matris uxoris mee, ..." Monast. Angl.
  8: 12 (#2); Cart. Cluny 4: 691 (#3561); for the falseness of the
  charter, see EYC 8: 59-62], and another charter (to be mentioned
  further below) has the following phrase: "Karletuna quam
  dedit Matilda regina mater Henrici et Gundredæ comitissæ; et
  ipsa Gundreda dedit nobis: locata fuit pro x. libris."
  [Monast. Angl. 5: 14 (#6, Norfolk)] Gundreda's tomb, of which the
  first words are "Stirps Gundreda ducum", has
  also been used as evidence supporting a connection to William the
  Conqueror.
  
  The evidence that Gundreda was a sister of
  Gerbod the Fleming is clear. The relationship is attested by both
  Orderic Vitalis ["... et Guillelmo de Guarenna qui
  Gundredam sororem Gherbodi coniugem habebat ..." OV
  Book iv (2: 264)] and by the chronicle of Hyde abbey ["Quo
  tempore comes Cistrensis decessit Gerbodo, frater Gundradæ
  comitissæ, Flandriamque veniens, inimicorum præventus insidiis
  miserabiliter periit." [Chron. Monast. Hyde, 296].
  Thus, since the words "filie mee" mentioned
  above, being in a later hand, have no force, it is not surprising
  that this evidence was combined to suggest that Matilda had an
  earlier husband by whom she was mother of Gerbod and Gundreda.
  For the elder Gerbod (the suggested father of the younger Gerbod)
  and Frederick (possibly another brother), see the discussion by
  Clay [EYC 8: 44-6].
  
  However, in the original foundation charter for
  Lewes priory, William the Conqueror mentions William de Warenne
  and his wife Gundreda without any indication that Gundreda was
  related to William or Matilda ["In nomine Domini nostri
  Ihesu Christi ego Guillelmus Dei gratia rex Anglorum inspiratione
  diuina compunctus, pro incolomitate regni mei et salute anime
  mee, rogantibus etiam et obnixe postulantibus Willelmo de Warenna
  et uxore ejus Gundreda ..." EYC 8: 54-5 (#2); Cart.
  Cluny 4: 688 (#3559)]. This, along with the weakness of the
  positive evidence, would be enough to cast doubt on the
  relationship, for the late addition of "filie mee",
  the false charter of William de Warenne, and the statement on
  Gundreda's tomb have little strength. In addition, Waters pointed
  out that the other piece of evidence, apparently making Gundreda
  a daughter of Matilda and sister of Henry I, should probably be
  read without the et between Henrici and Gundredæ,
  leaving Gundredæ comitissæ to be in the dative case
  rather than the genitive, and thus acting as the indirect object
  of dedit [i.e., "Karletuna quam dedit Matilda
  regina mater Henrici Gundredæ comitissæ; et ipsa Gundreda dedit
  nobis: locata fuit pro x. libris." (Carlton, which
  queen Matilda, mother of Henry, gave to countess Gundreda, and
  which Gundreda gave to us, is "locata" for £10)].
  
  The decisive negative evidence, as pointed out
  by Waters, is a letter from Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, to
  king Henry I, in which Anselm forbade the marriage of Gundreda's
  son William de Warenne the younger to a daughter of the king,
  because they were related in the fourth generation on one side
  and the sixth generation on the other ["Quærit
  consilium celsitudo vestra quid sibi faciendum sit de hoc quia
  pacta est filiam suam dare Guillelmo de Vuarenne; cum ipse et
  filia vestra ex una parte sint cognati in quarta generatione, et
  ex altera in sexta." Anselm, Epistolæ, iv,
  84, PL 159: 245]. If Gundreda were a daughter of Matilda, then
  she would be a sister (or half-sister) of Henry, making the
  prospective bride and groom first-cousins, in which case Anslem
  would have certainly objected on that point, rather than bringing
  up a distant relationship. It is now regarded as settled that
  Gundreda was a daughter of neither William nor Matilda, although
  the error reappears frequently in amateur genealogical databases,
  and has even been made recently by one "standard"
  source [ES 2: 81]. [Freeman (1888) and EYC 8: 50-6 are good
  sources discussing the evidence and the history of the
  controversy. See also the notes on Gundreda at Chris Phillips's "Some Notes on Medieval English Genealogy" website.]