St. Matilda of Saxony

St. Matilda of Saxony was born about 895, of a noble Saxon family, and was raised in the piety of a convent by her grandmother, an abbess. She married Henry, Duke of Saxony, who in 919 became King Henry the Fowler, the first of the Ottonian kings of Germany, and she bore him several children, among them the future Emperor Otto the Great and St. Bruno of Cologne. As queen she was renowned for her humility, gentleness, and untiring charity to the poor, the sick, and prisoners.

Widowed in 936, she suffered greatly in her later years from the rivalry of her sons over the wealth she poured out in almsgiving and on religious foundations, and she bore their reproaches and even a period of dispossession with patient meekness. Devoting herself wholly to prayer and good works, she founded and endowed numerous monasteries, churches, and convents, notably the great abbey of Quedlinburg. She died at Quedlinburg on 14 March 968 and is venerated as a saint, a model of a holy queen, her memory kept on 14 March.