page_title: Mathilde, Abbess of Essen
section_title: Mathilde's building programme
hierarchical_section_title: Mathilde, Abbess of Essen / Abbess / Mathilde's building programme
caption_attribution_description: Essen, Münster.
context_page_description: Mathilde was Abbess of Essen Abbey from 973 to her death. As granddaughter of Holy Roman Emperor Otto the Great she was a member of the Liudolfing dynasty and became one of the most important abbesses in the history of Essen. She was responsible for the abbey, for its buildings, its precious relics, liturgical vessels and manuscripts, its political contacts, and for commissioning translations and overseeing education. In the unreliable list of Essen Abbesses from 1672, she is listed as the second Abbess Mathilde and as a result, she is sometimes called "Mathilde II" to distinguish her from the earlier abbess of the same name, who is meant to have governed Essen Abbey from 907 to 910 but whose existence is disputed.
context_section_description: Georg Humann, the first art historian who concerned himself with the buildings and artefacts of Essen Abbey had ascribed the westwerk of Essen Minster to Mathilde by means of stylistic comparisons. Subsequent research has affirmed this understanding; Mathilde is seen as the initiator of the westwerk, which since the excavation of a predecessor building in 1955 by Zimmerman had been considered mostly the work of Abbess Theophanu who reigned 1039-1058. Mathilde is therefore also responsible for the earliest plumbing yet found at Essen, a lead pipe which ran transversly under the Weswerk and throughout the Abbey buildings. Such water pipes were uncommon in the Early Middle Ages and only found in opulent buildings; they therefore indicate the prestige of the builder.
  The question of whether this was Mathilde or Theophanu was uncontentious, but a change in building style did occur in this time. Had the Essen westwork—a masterpiece of Ottonian construction—first been built under Theophanu, it would have been built later than one of the masterpieces of the succeeding Romanesque style, St Maria im Kapitol in Cologne (which was built by Theophanu's sister Ida). On the other hand, Theophanu is praised for rebuilding the Essen cloister in the Brauweiler family chronicle of the Ezzonid family (of which Theophanu was a member). The work carried out by Zimmerman supported the latter position, which also held that the predecessor building was completed in 965. In this case, Mathilde would have actually had a new building constructed, only for it to be replaced by the modern Minster.
  Lange drew attention to symbolism of the building programme which he recognised in the plan of the westwerk. The Octagon is clearly influenced by Aachen Cathedral and Otto III's policy of Imperial restoration. In the time of Theophanu, this system no longer made sense. This view interprets the part of the Brauweiler Chronicle which says that Theophanu had the Abbey buildings renewed, as just a reference to a spiritual restoration of the community by Theophanu. A secure date for the construction of the westwerk of the earlier building does not exist. The proponents of an early dating of the current building therefore also date the preceding building earlier, pointing to the fact that westwerks were usually created immediately after the achievement of immunity, which Essen probably achieved before 920. In that case the earlier Westwerk would have no longer been a new building when construction began under Mathilde.
  It is also possible that both abbesses did building work on Essen Minster since there are signs of a long term building project. In this case the reference in the Brauweiler Chronicle would be interpreted to indicate that Theophanu completed a construction project begun by Mathilde.
caption: Reconstructed view of the westwerk of Essen Abbey
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