Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It

by Janina Ramírez

Inscribed on the back of both embroideries is ‘Ælfflæd ordered this to be made for the pious bishop Frithstan’. Ælfflæd was the second wife of King Edward the Elder (Æthelflæd’s brother), and she instructed them to be made around AD 915 for the Bishop of Winchester. These Cuthbert Embroideries provide evidence of a known and named woman commissioning and possibly creating an expensive and important piece of needlework for a specific patron;