Gender and Material Culture: The Archaeology of Religious Women

Gender and Material Culture is the first complete study in the archaeology of gender, exploring the differences between the religious life of men and women. Gender in medieval monasticism influenced landscape contexts and strategies of economic management, the form and development of buildings and their symbolic and iconographic content. Women's religious experience was often poorly documented, but their archaeology indicates a shared tradition which was closely linked with, and valued by local communities. The distinctive patterns observed suggest that gender is essential to archaeological analysis.

About the Author

Roberta Gilchrist is a reader in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Reading, and consultant archaeologist to Norwich Cathedral. She has written widely on the topics of gender and church archaeolgy.