Lecture: Heraldic Research Reworked – Perspectives from Digital and Gender History

Abstract: With an estimated one million objects preserved, coats of arms were among the most ubiquitous visual phenomena of medieval and early modern Europe — yet their systematic analysis has remained a persistent methodological challenge. The project HERALDIC Identity in Context addresses this through a collaborative digital research platform and newly developed ontologies that enable large-scale, transparent analysis of heraldic devices across contexts and media.

An individual research interest brings this infrastructure to bear on questions of gender history. Heraldry’s long-standing association with masculinity, chivalry and agnatic genealogy has obscured a broad spectrum of inquiry: How male were coats of arms, really? What did women’s heraldry look like? What might a gender-historical lens reveal about the structuring force of gender in later medieval society?

This lecture examines the innovative potential of digital and gender-historical approaches to heraldic research. Together, they offer not only new tools and new questions, but new impetus for reconsidering what heraldry was, what it conveyed, and who practised it.

Register here.

The lecture will be held online and in English language.

Royal Heraldry Society of Canada | PO Box 8128, Terminal T | Ottawa, ON K1G 3H9 CA