Matilda of Tuscany

Matilda, countess of Tuscany (1046 – July 24, 1115), was the principal Italian supporter of Pope Gregory VII during the investiture controversy, and is one of the few medieval women to be remembered for her military accomplishments. She is sometimes called Matilda of Canossa, after the ancestral family castle of Canossa.

References

• The Very Model of a Medieval General
• The land of Mathilde
• Valerie Eads, "The Geography of Power: Matilda of Tuscany and the Strategy of Active Defense." In Crusaders, Condottieri and Cannon: Medieval Warfare in Societies around the Mediterranean, edited by L. J. Andrew Villalon and Donald Kagay. Leiden: Brill, 2002.
• Antonia Fraser, The Warrior Queens, ISBN 0679728163