Herstory: Exploring the Material Life of Gundrada de Warenne

Abstract

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.

Tending the ‘Contested’ Castle Garden: Sowing Seeds of Feminist Thought

“…This often results in showing how women held powerful positions, as noted above. The challenge is to explore medieval women's gendered roles and their lived experience without falling prey to the trap of inserting women into the traditional narratives of male power (Dempsey 2021b). How do we move beyond the current tension that exists between the need to represent the fragmentary archaeological evidence faithfully and the desire to understand lived experiences more fully?…”