This book argues that the impressive range of belongings that can be connected to Duchess Matilda Plantagenet—textiles, illuminated manuscripts, coins, chronicles, charters, and literary texts—allows us to perceive elite women’s performance of power, even when they are largely absent from the official documentary record. It is especially through the visual record of material culture that we can hear female voices, allowing us to forge an alternative way toward rethinking assumptions about power for sparsely-documented elite women.

<div>Introduction: Material Culture and Performance of Power</div><div>Chapter 1: Staging the Bride and her Treasure</div> <div>Chapter 2: Small Items Making Big Impressions</div> <div>Chapter 3: Devotion and Dynasty on Parchment</div><div>Chapter 4: Trappings Vested with Power</div><div>Chapter 5, Epilogue: Materializing Power and its Afterlife</div><div>Selected Bibliography</div><div>Index</div>