I had heard of The Anarchy before reading this book, and I knew the cliffnotes version of the battle between Stephen and Matilda for the English Crown. However it wasn't until I read The Empress Matilda that I got a fuller view of the conflict and the woman who was central to the conflict.

Marjorie Chibnall used impressive research to write an easy to read biography of the mother of the Plantagenet dynasty, who for a time was also the crowned Empress(-consort) of the Holy Roman Empire. Chibnall's attempted to give the reader a full view of Matilda and her actions, though soon speculation is offered due to the lack of sources surrounding a particular event Chibnall does does offer evidence based on previously presented sources.

Overall this is an good biography and I recommend it. ( )

This is the first scholarly, English language biography of the Empress Matilda, the twelfth century English princess whose famous epitaph reads "Great by Birth, Greater by Marriage, Greatest in her Offspring: Here lies Matilda, the daughter, wife, and mother of Henry". Chibnall attempts to reclaim Matilda as a worthy subject of historical investigation—most previous work had focused on her son, Henry II, or on Stephen, her rival for the throne, and largely ignored Matilda except to criticise her for not sticking to an appropriate "womanly" role.

The Empress Matilda is an accessible, well-written work, and that Chibnall wrote this at the height of a long and distinguished career (which is still ongoing—at the time I write, in late 2011, she is still an active researcher at the age of 97) is clear from the vast array of evidence which she marshals: architecture, archaeology, hagiography, numismatics, chronicles, charters, etc. Chibnall is consistently incisive and sympathetic towards Matilda, though never blind to her faults. It is quite a traditional biography, though, and while there is much to be said for a solidly empirical approach like this, I feel that recent scholarship and the development of new approaches could have helped push things further than Chibnall does here. Still, there's a lot here to admire, and I'd recommend this for anyone wishing to learn more about Matilda. ( )