Detecting women's presence in castle environments through archaeological and historical sources.
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | The paper will discuss the presence of women in the castle environment, with a new progressive approach. Critically re-evaluated archaeological findings are linked with historical sources, allowing new conclusions to be drawn in the study of the role of women. The reconstruction of women's lives in the Middle Ages has so far only been investigated from historical sources, and archaeological evidence is often only interpreted in general terms without any connection to the presence of women. Women in the Middle Ages used various objects that we have recorded in written sources or period iconography. This large number of different objects, however, is not entirely preserved in the archaeological evidence. With these objects (whether complete or in the form of fragments) there is a generalized interpretation of small objects, objects made of non-ferrous metals, jewelry, unspecified, etc., without gender determination. So, the woman is theoretically recognizable in material culture, but the objects she used are made of poorly preserved materials, unisex, or are poorly or not identified at all. In a case study of known women (from historical sources) who lived at Rokštejn Castle, we will show what the possibilities of archaeology with a combination of historical sources are in detecting women in the castle environment. At Rokštejn Castle, there could be members of the noble family, their ladies-in-waiting, maids, and nurses for their children. Rokštejn Castle presents unique opportunities for exploring medieval society, and that's thanks to ongoing systematic archaeological research, which has lasted continuously since the eighties of the last century. An extensive file of data, which includes documents of material culture, and written and iconographic sources, allows, based on a review of already obtained data, the reconstruction of the quality of life of a woman in a castle environment during the High and Late Middle Ages. |
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