‘SHE WAS UNIQUE among the women of her own age: she was both a woman and the crowned head of a western kingdom who ruled in her own right.’ ‘Bernard Reilly's description of Queen Urraca of Léon-Castilla, a slightly older contemporary of the Empress Matilda, brings out the limitations on the power of early medieval queens consort, such as Queen Emma, Queen Edith or the wives of William I and Henry I (both Matilda). The great exception was Eleanor of Aquitaine, queen first of France and then of England, but she was in addition heiress of Aquitaine. Among the formal and official sources for any western ruler, male or female, at that time the most plentiful belong to the years when power was exercised, either as ruler of the kingdom or duchy, or as regent. A number of queens were regents for young sons or absent husbands; but even so the number of acta issued in their name was relatively small.

The authority of the Empress Matilda varied greatly during her lifetime. Betrothed at the age of eight to the Emperor Henry V and married just before her twelfth birthday, she never had any estates of her own, apart from her dower lands, and these have yielded only a handful of charters of donation to religious houses. As daughter of the king of England and consort of the Emperor, she sometimes appeared to witness or confirm their charters.