The roll-maker used women to prove a political point that peace, harmony and greatness could be expected from a king if he had a loving and supportive wife. Women were carefully selected by the roll-maker to exhibit this idea in a variety of differing scenarios. If women inspired their husbands to do great things, created successful lineages, had a useful heritage, or were just generally wives to successful kings, select examples were included. This suggests that the roll-maker wished to demonstrate how a Queen should both be and act in order to support the peace and harmony of the nation, and to demonstrate that a woman’s …show more content…
Marital ties in the Middle Ages were often used to create links to lineages, gain assets such as land, or to help foster alliances. A noble woman was therefore a desired match as she had the potential to expand territories and power for the husband. Through a short, separate line of women, and accompanying text, the roll-maker shows that Matilda, Queen of Henry I, was the daughter of Saint Margaret, the Queen of Scotland. Margaret was a descendent of the Anglo-Saxon line of kings through Edgar the Aetheling. Malcom, the King of Scotland, was a descendent of the Scottish line of kings. Therefore, by marrying Matilda, Henry I strategically integrated himself into two illustrious lines of kings. Through the Matilda-Henry marriage, the Anglo-Saxon line became part of the ruler’s lineage, reinstated after its break following the Norman conquest. The accompanying text states that ‘Henry the First … held the kingdom in peace, marrying Matilda daughter of Margaret Queen of Scotland granddaughter of Edward’, reaffirming the strategic nature of the marriage. Another example of a strategic marriage is that of Cenica, the wife of Maximian the Great. She features in the mythical section of the roll. The roll recounts that ‘Octonius … gave in marriage his daughter Cenica to Maximianus son of Leoninus the brother of Elena, together with the kingdom’. In other words, Maximian only became King due to the fact that he married Cenica, who gained the crown from her father. This is in keeping with medieval societies view that a woman was physically, rationally, and morally weaker than a man. As stated by Helen Jewell, ‘any daughter’s role was likely at best to be to carry the crown to her husband or son, thus restoring ‘normal’ conditions.’ Isabella of France connected the succession of English Kings to the French line of kings, through her marriage to Edward II. The daughter of Philip