his is the first account in English of the entire, forty year military career of one of the most powerful women of the Middle Ages. Challenging the boundaries between military and gender history, it explains how one famous noblewoman rose to the defense of the reforming papacy, defeated the Holy Roman Emperor and turned the tide of the first great war between Church and State. Despite the neglect of Matilda in the English-speaking world, sources for her life are both abundant and diverse. She issued over 130 surviving diplomas, patronized an influential circle of scholars, corresponded...