Gendered interpretations are rare both within castle-studies and heritage discourses on medieval castles. Yet, castles hold potential to inform multi-vocal accounts of the medieval past and to inspire meaningful heritage interpretations to achieve greater societal impact. This article explores the role that gender currently plays in interpretations of medieval castles in Britain, supported by three case-studies written by heritage professionals. The enduring narrative of militarism at medieval castles sites is discussed, together with issues of authenticity in relation to the historical record, which is in itself biased and inherently gendered. Outcomes from a collaborative workshop highlight the need to address interpretative issues where gender is considered to equate to 'making women visible'. Finally, we pose the question: What makes a 'good gendered interpretation' at a public heritage site?
Scholarlyw ork on castles draws on multiple sources from history, archaeology, art and architectural history to literary and religious studies. This places it in auniqueposition to be able to bring different threads together to tell full stories of women'slives. But achallenge exists to explore medieval women'sgendered roles and their lived experience without falling prey to the trap of insertingwomen into traditional narratives of male power. As afirst step in response to my own call for fuller archaeological accountsofw omen'slived experiences, this article focuses on one elite woman -GundradaO osterzele-Scheldewindeke, later de Wa renne (d. 1085). It endeavours to capture her world through an examination of the material connections and relationships of her life. Whilepeople and places are important in this,the emphasis here is placed on our knowledgeofthe things that shaped Gundrada'slife and death.These range from castle architecture,her much-discussed Tournai stone tombslab, an assemblage of hairpins and adevotional text, the CrowlandPsalter, as well as an archaeological object with possible amuletic properties. Drawing these different strands of evidence together showshow we can foreground women, not by marking them as exceptional but to highlightt hatt hey were part of and participativew ithin the networked material world.
This issue of 'Das Mittelalter' explores the voice of small things. 1 We approach artefacts that are no bigger than one's hand not as silent witnesses to people's lives, but as agents that actively engage with human beings through the senses, shape their social identities and evoke emotions. 2 For close to forty years or more, archaeologists have argued that medieval people understood objects to have particular social meaning as indicated by the curation of heirlooms, the re-use of prehistoric axes as grave gifts, or the special relationship to devotional objects such as pilgrim badges. 3 A similar situation exists across other cognate disciplines from discussions of seals in art history or the particular meanings of things in plays as discussed by literary scholars. 4 When the miniature scale is addressed, it
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