Matilda of Tuscany dies

July 24, 1115

The great Italian countess who had sheltered Pope Gregory VII at Canossa while Emperor Henry IV shivered in the snow outside, and who had fought imperial armies for four decades, died leaving her vast allodial lands to the Papacy. The legacy would tangle church and empire for another century, as successive emperors disputed the bequest and popes insisted on their claim to the richest estates in central Italy.