Inventories as Corrective to the ‘Male Gaze’ on Castles

Bridal Inventories and Inventories of Castle Bruck near Lienz

Abstract

The interest in castles is booming. However, research is still dominated by a ‘male gaze’, focusing on the military, political and legal importance of castles while neglecting their role as social and gendered spaces. In this essay we attempt to challenge this male gaze on castles by presenting two case studies: trousseau inventories of Italian brides and inventories related to castle Bruck in eastern Tyrol. Special focus is given to the question of how material objects can help get a broader understanding of castles as social and gendered spaces. In a first step we show how difficult it is to interpret material objects in a gendered way using the example of spurs. While they are often regarded as exclusively male objects, inventories document that many women owned spurs and used them as representative items. In the second section we then analyse an inventory of castle Bruck to reconstruct its rooms, especially the women’s living rooms, and the material culture connecting them to the last inhabitants of the fifteenth century, mainly the two last countesses of Görz.