When you think about powerful women in the Middle Ages, women who made a lasting difference, you might mention Eleanor of Aquitaine, Hildegard of Bingen, or in China, Mu Guiying, but you probably would not name Matilda of Canossa (ca. 1046–1115).
The struggle between Henry IV, the German emperor, and Hildebrand, the Italian pope known as Gregory VII, is well known, and has often been…
