Matrix

As a parting gift from Queen Eleanor, Marie receives a personal matrix seal. A matrix seal is a stamp for sealing an envelope, and a personal matrix seal means that no one but Marie can read her correspondence. The design of the seal is an image of “[Marie], 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” (129).

The “broom flower” in this image echoes Marie’s early vision of a broom flower surrounded by swirling roses—an image that led to her decision to construct a labyrinth passage to her abbey. The broom flower in the matrix seal could, therefore, be seen as a sly reminder from Queen Eleanor that she knows what Marie is doing. At the same time, the image of Marie as a protective holy giant is a respectful and affectionate one. The image evokes Marie and Eleanor’s complicated relationship, one that is a mixture of rivalry and respect.

Marie is delighted by the seal, which seems to promise her a rare privacy: “For an abbey is collective: privacy is against the Rule, aloneness a luxury […]” (129). Yet the word matrix—which is also the book’s title—means womb or mother in Latin, and the seal shows Marie as a mother to her nuns.