Rewriting the Origins of Quedlinburg

Abstract The foundation of Quedlinburg by Queen Mathilda in 936 seems obvious; numerous sources from the later tenth and eleventh century describe the queen as the individual responsible for setting up a convent on the site of her husband’s tomb. However, there is a striking lack of contemporary evidence for Mathilda as the founder of Quedlinburg from the early history of the monastery. This chapter reassesses our assumptions about Quedlinburg as a foundation of Queen Mathilda by considering how her reputation as Quedlinburg’s founder slowly accreted over the course of the tenth century. When the women of Quedlinburg themselves created a new history of the world––and of their monastery––in the early eleventh century, they were able to deploy this memory of Queen Mathilda to emphasize their institution’s memorial power to a new Ottonian king.