BEATRICE OF TUSCANY

Noblewoman, identified with the gregorian reform; b. Lorraine, c. 1015; d. Pisa, April 28, 1076. Her two marriages united the princely houses of Lorraine and Tuscany. She was the daughter of Frederick II, duke of Upper Lorraine, and Matilda of Suabia, and the niece of Empress Gisela, wife of conrad ii, at whose court she was educated. About 1036 she married Boniface III of Canossa, margrave of Tuscany, by whom she had three children. After Boniface was murdered in 1052, she ruled his former marches of Tuscany and Lombardy-Emilia in her son's name. In 1054, without the knowledge of Emperor henry iii, she married her cousin, Godfrey the Bearded, then duke of Upper Lorraine, who had twice rebelled against the emperor. Henry took immediate action in Italy, imprisoning Beatrice and her only surviving child matilda, and transporting them to Germany (1055). Released by Empress Agnes after Henry's death, Beatrice yielded much of her power in Tuscany to Godfrey, devoting her energies to the education of her daughter and the service of ecclesiastical reform. After Godfrey's death in 1069, she ruled the Canossan dominions jointly with Matilda until her own death in 1076. She collaborated closely with gregory vii, whose letters bear testimony to a relationship of mutual trust. In the in vestiture struggle her action was mediatorial, but her sympathies were clearly anti-imperial and pro-papal.

Bibliography: e. duprÉel, Histoire critique de Godefroid le Barbu, duc de Lotharingie, marquis de Toscane (Ukkel 1904). a. falce, Bonifacio di Canossa padre di Matilde, 2 v. (Reggio-Emilia 1926–27). h. glaesener, "Un mariage fertile en conséquences (Godefroid le Barbu et B. de T.)," Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique 42 (1947) 379–416.

[c. e. boyd]