Gendered viewing, childbirth and female authority in the residence of Alice Chaucer, duchess of Suffolk, at Ewelme, Oxfordshire

Abstract

This article examines the visual culture of the late medieval great residence from the perspective of the female gaze. In 1466, the widowed Alice Chaucer, duchess of Suffolk (c.1404-75), moved several items from her London and East Anglian houses to her principal residence at Ewelme, Oxfordshire. A unique set of inventories reveals that the move anticipated the birth and baptism of one of Alice's grandchildren at that manor house. Focusing on the tapestries displayed in the main rooms of Alice's residence, this article argues that the rituals surrounding the birth of Alice's grandchildand their occurrence within a femaleheaded householdprovided a gendered viewing context, which both informed, and was informed by, their iconography. It considers how the mutually constitutive relationship between space, iconography and ritual would have authorised an event centred on female bodies, whilst also articulating Alice's authority as household and family matriarch.

Gender and medieval archaeology: storming the castle

“…(e.g. Woolgar 1999; Gee 2002; Nolan 2009; Martin 2012; Moss 2012; Jasperse 2017; Delman 2019). Key themes addressed in these cognate disciplines are sponsorship (patronage) and religious devotion among elite women, while non-elites, such as washerwomen, maidservants, midwives and prostitutes, feature somewhat less (Rawcliffe 2009; Müller 2013).…”

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

“…Does this influence how we tell stories of women's lives at medieval castles? While there have been discussions of female agency and space in relation to power dynamics or spatial arrangements of buildings (Delman 2019; French 2020; Gilchrist 1999; Richardson 2003), the everyday life of women who lived or worked there remains under-explored. Optimistically, this absence reflects challenges surrounding archaeological evidence; worryingly, it also indicates the demands still made of gender scholars to prove the presence of women and other gendered identities.…”