She rides out of the forest alone. Seventeen years old, in the cold March drizzle, Marie who comes from France.
The novel tells the story (fictionalized to a large degree, of course) of a real-life historical figure, Marie de France. The biographical content must be fictionalized because there simply isn’t that much about her life that is actually known. What makes Marie a historical figure of important is not her life in total, but rather what she did with it. And what she with her life that makes her of such interest was write. Not just one work, but several works, including original poetry, translations of Aesop’s fables, and—probably—a biography of St. Audrey. The singular aspect of her writings which is of most interest is they were not written in Latin which was the standard for the time, but the progenitor of what would become the French language.
The other gift is small, wrapped in a scrap of blue silk. When Marie opens it, she finds a personal seal matrix of herself, a giant with a head in halo, a book in one hand and a broom flower in the other, nuns gathered around standing the height of her waist. Scribe mihi, the queen has embroidered on the silk. An order, not a suggestion. To seal a letter with the abbey’s matrix requires either the prioress or subprioress to read and agree; what the queen is giving Marie with her own personal seal is a delicious and forbidden privacy.
Obviously, the title of this novel does not reference a definition that is synonymous with the famous series of science fiction films. This is not about “the” matrix or really even about “a” matrix, but rather matrices. In this quote, the word specifically refers to a definition related to the process of printing. A matrix in regard to printing references casting molds for creating letters or the plate upon which the casting is used. That definition is being referenced here in the description of the seal, but notice there is an additional connotation to this definition: the specificity of that matrix is interpreted to be a directive rather than a recommendation. Elsewhere, the term matrix will be used in other ways, suggesting that the title of this book would appropriately be the plural form of the word “Matrices” rather the singular “Matrix.”
And without the womb of Eve, which is the House of Death, there could be no womb of Mary, which is the House of Life. Without the first matrix, there could be no salvatrix, the greatest matrix of all.
Well, there it is, then. Matrix and salvatrix together, pointing toward something quite distinct and definite related to the meaning of the word. What is being asserted here? The matrix refers to Eve without whose existence—creation, if you prefer—there could never have been the Virgin Mary. Mary may have been married to Joseph, but Christian doctrine assigns fatherhood not to a man, but God. Matrix derives from the Latin word for “mother” and the suggestion here is that mankind owes its Christian path toward redemption through Christ not to any strain of human masculinity, but only through God and femininity. Thus Matrix is a message—an assertion—of the primacy of the motherhood of mankind, despite the semantic irony.
