Beyond the martial façade: gender, heritage and medieval castles

Gendered interpretations are rare both within castle-studies and heritage discourses on medieval castles. Yet, castles hold potential to inform multi-vocal accounts of the medieval past and to inspire meaningful heritage interpretations to achieve greater societal impact. This article explores the role that gender currently plays in interpretations of medieval castles in Britain, supported by three case-studies written by heritage professionals. The enduring narrative of militarism at medieval castles sites is discussed, together with issues of authenticity in relation to the historical record, which is in itself biased and inherently gendered. Outcomes from a collaborative workshop highlight the need to address interpretative issues where gender is considered to equate to ‘making women visible’. Finally, we pose the question: What makes a ‘good gendered interpretation’ at a public heritage site

Loss of Regulator of G Protein Signaling 5 Exacerbates Obesity, Hepatic Steatosis, Inflammation and Insulin Resistance

BACKGROUND: The effect of regulator of G protein signaling 5 (RGS5) on cardiac hypertrophy, atherosclerosis and angiogenesis has been well demonstrated, but the role in the development of obesity and insulin resistance remains completely unknown. We determined the effect of RGS5 deficiency on obesity, hepatic steatosis, inflammation and insulin resistance in mice fed either a normal-chow diet (NC) or a high-fat diet (HF). METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Male, 8-week-old RGS5 knockout (KO) and littermate control mice were fed an NC or an HF for 24 weeks and were phenotyped accordingly. RGS5 KO mice exhibited increased obesity, fat mass and ectopic lipid deposition in the liver compared with littermate control mice, regardless of diet. When fed an HF, RGS5 KO mice had a markedly exacerbated metabolic dysfunction and inflammatory state in the blood serum. Meanwhile, macrophage recruitment and inflammation were increased and these increases were associated with the significant activation of JNK, IκBα and NF-κBp65 in the adipose tissue, liver and skeletal muscle of RGS5 KO mice fed an HF relative to control mice. These exacerbated metabolic dysfunction and inflammation are accompanied with decreased systemic insulin sensitivity in the adipose tissue, liver and skeletal muscle of RGS5 KO mice, reflected by weakened Akt/GSK3β phosphorylation. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our data suggest that loss of RGS5 exacerbates HF-induced obesity, hepatic steatosis, inflammation and insulin resistance

The Smiling Abbot: Rediscovering a Unique Medieval Effigial Slab

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Archaeological Journal on 06/11/2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00665983.2017.1366705The article reports on a newly re-discovered fragment of a recumbent effigial slab commemorating Abbot Hywel (‘Howel’), most likely an abbot of the Cistercian house of Valle Crucis, near Llangollen (Denbighs.). The slab was probably carved very early in the fourteenth century, and could have covered the abbot’s burial place. The stone was dislocated and fragmented at an unknown point in the abbey’s history, and most likely removed from the site during the nineteenth-century clearance of the abbey ruins. It was briefly reported on in 1895 and has been lost to scholarship subsequently. If indeed from Valle Crucis, the stone is the only known effigial slab commemorating a Cistercian abbot from Wales, and a rare example from Britain. Given that few similar Cistercian abbatial monuments have been identified from elsewhere, the ‘Smiling Abbot’, although only a fragment, is a significant addition to the known corpus of later medieval mortuary monuments. The article discusses the provenance, dating, identification and significance of the monument, including the abbot’s distinctive smile. The stone sheds new light on mortuary and commemorative practice at Valle Crucis Abbey in the early fourteenth century

The English medieval first-floor hall: part 2 – The evidence from the eleventh to early thirteenth century

The concept of the first-floor hall was introduced in 1935, but Blair’s paper of 1993 cast doubt on many of those buildings which had been identified as such. Following the recognition of Scolland’s Hall, Richmond Castle as an example of a hall at first-floor level, the evidence for buildings of this type is reviewed (excluding town houses and halls in the great towers of castles, where other issues apply). While undoubtedly a number of buildings have been mistakenly identified as halls, there is a significant group of structures which there are very strong grounds to classify as first-floor halls. The growth of masonry architecture in elite secular buildings, particularly after the Norman Conquest, allowed halls to be constructed on the first floor. The key features of these are identified and the reasons for constructing the hall at this level – prestige and security – are recognized. The study of these buildings allows two further modifications to the Blair thesis: in some houses, halls and chambers were integrated in a single block at an early date, and the basic idea of the medieval domestic plan was already present by the late eleventh century