Introduction

Matrix is a National Book Award-nominated novel by Lauren Groff, published by Riverhead Books in 2021. Groff has published six novels and short story collections, including the best sellers Arcadia, Fates and Furies, and The Monsters of Templeton. Her work is frequently anthologized and has appeared in several volumes of The Best American Short Stories. She has also published one dozen short stories in such publications as The New Yorker and Tin House, in addition to numerous introductions and forewords to other authors’ work. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award three times and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Matrix is a historical novel that takes place during the 12th and 13th centuries and features two real historical characters, Marie de France and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Marie de France was a 12th-century poet and noblewoman about whom little is known. Eleanor of Aquitaine was a 12th-century duchess who went on to become Queen of France and England.  

The novel takes Marie de France as its central character and reimagines her life and temperament. In the novel, she comes from a family of unconventional noblewomen and is the illegitimate daughter of a Plantagenet, Europe’s richest family at that time and the rulers of England from the 12th to the 15th centuries. Shortly after her mother’s death from cancer, she is sent to live at the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine, to whom she is related through her father. Eleanor then decides to install her as a prioress at an impoverished abbey in a remote part of England.

Plot Summary

The novel opens with Marie’s arrival at the abbey. It is a forbidding place to her at first. Its lands are poorly managed, and many of the nuns at the abbey are sickly from pneumonia and lack of food. As an outsider who has been installed as prioress, Marie is viewed with suspicion and resentment by many of the nuns. She is homesick for the court of Eleanor, which she remembers as a vibrant and romantic place, and she also misses Eleanor herself. She fell in love with the queen when she first encountered her during the crusades while they were fighting in separate women’s armies. She also misses and loves her friend and servant Cecile, whom she had to leave behind at the court. Her first intimate encounters were with Cecile.

Marie chafes at her confinement in the abbey at first and attempts to contact Eleanor, writing her a series of lais, the poetry form for which the historical figure Marie de France is known. Her hope is that Eleanor, upon reading these poems, will send for her to return to the court. When she fails to hear from Eleanor, she is at first disillusioned but gradually resolves to embrace her new role as prioress. Having managed her own household for some years after her mother died, she is accustomed to the demands of this role. The improvements that she makes to the abbey are modest and minor at first. She enlists the nuns to farm the land and uses her own money to buy better food for them in the nearby town. She also discovers that many of the peasants who live on the abbey’s land are squatting there, and she demands payment from them. She decides that it is more efficient to give the nuns jobs that suit their abilities, rather than teaching them spiritual humility by giving them difficult work, as is traditional in the church.

Marie’s ambitions for the abbey gradually expand; at the same time, she discovers a divine vocation within herself. Once the abbess Emme dies, she becomes the new abbess. This is also when she begins to have divine visions, which she writes down in a notebook. Many of these visions result in improvements and fortifications that she orders to be completed on the abbey. After seeing the Virgin Mary in the sky surrounded by swirling rose petals, for example, she decides to construct a labyrinth from the town to the abbey to make the abbey more protected from the outside world. A later vision of girls and women growing like flowers on a tree inspires her to construct another stone building for the abbey. She enlists her own nuns, as well as nearby peasants and townspeople, for these improvements,. She is frequently challenged by outsiders and is sometimes even attacked.

The church is a patriarchal institution, and Marie must contend with its officials who do not believe that a woman should be in a leadership role. She learns to manage these officials by avoiding or flattering them as needed and by cultivating her own spies and contacts within the surrounding community. In this way, she emulates Eleanor, with whom she remains in sporadic contact. Eleanor often chides Marie for overstepping her boundaries but also confides in her and depends on her as an ally. While Marie maintains a wary bond with Eleanor, she also has occasional sexual encounters with nuns at the abbey. She views these encounters as healthy and friendly, different from the demanding love that she has for Eleanor.

As Marie grows into her role as abbess, she becomes increasingly unconventional and estranged from the traditional church. She even goes so far as to assume the role of priest at the abbey, taking communion and confession. After Marie’s death from cancer, the prioress Tilde takes over as abbess. Once she has moved into the abbess’s apartments, Tilde discovers the notebooks in which Marie records her visions. She decides to burn these notebooks, viewing them as heretical. Other nuns in the abbey are divided as to whether Marie was a saint, a witch or both.