alt Hacker NewsI do think it’s fair to point out that both of these postage Matilda by a few hundred years. I’m actually struggling to think of many Christian European kingdoms that would have at this point.
France only had kings at that point (in fact, Matilda’s son Henry II’s marriage to Eleanor of Acquitaine comes about because she didn’t give the king of France a son!)
Germany (HRE) selected their emperor so didn’t have succession problems in that sense.
Italy was a collection of city states, Naples was yet to form a kingdom.
Maybe Poland had an earlier queen? But then I don’t know if English nobles paid much attention to Poland, to be honest!
No idea, but from this handy page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_monarchs
it seems like the rest of the world (India, China, Thailand, Egypt, ...) had female monarchs of various sorts ('queen regnant' seems like a relevant terminology here, I'm not sure).
The closest ones to Europe (discounting ancient Egypt?) might be:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%85sa_Haraldsdottir_of_Agde... (semi-legendary)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinar_of_Hereti (11th C. Georgian)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudica (of course, also other less-well known Britons)
Actually, there are a fair few Greek and Spanish examples. One other possible might be:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petronilla_of_Aragon (12th C.)