  We prove a generalization of the well-known theorems by Borg and Hochstadt
for periodic self-adjoint Schr\"odinger operators without a spectral gap,
respectively, one gap in their spectrum, in the matrix-valued context. Our
extension of the theorems of Borg and Hochstadt replaces the periodicity
condition of the potential by the more general property of being reflectionless
(the resulting potentials then automatically turn out to be periodic and we
recover Despr\'es' matrix version of Borg's result). In addition, we assume the
spectra to have uniform maximum multiplicity (a condition automatically
fulfilled in the scalar context considered by Borg and Hochstadt). Moreover,
the connection with the stationary matrix KdV hierarchy is established.
  The methods employed in this paper rely on matrix-valued Herglotz functions,
Weyl--Titchmarsh theory, pencils of matrices, and basic inverse spectral theory
for matrix-valued Schr\"odinger operators.
