herefore to find in the
embroideries of that period grace and artistic feeling.

The stole and maniple of the Durham cathedral library, which bear the
inscription "Aelfled fieri precepit pio Episcopo Fridestano," are of
the most perfect style of Anglo-Saxon design; and the stitching of the
silk embroidery and of the gold grounding are of the utmost perfection
of needlework art (plates 71, 72).

The history of this embroidery is carefully elucidated by Dr. Raine in
his "Saint Cuthbert." He says that Frithestan was consecrated bishop
in 905, by command of Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great.
Aelfled was Edward the Second's queen. She ordered and gave an
embroidered stole and maniple to Frithestan. After her death, and that
of Edward, and of the Bishop of Winchester, Athelstan, then king, made
a progress to the north, and visiting the shrine of St. Cuthbert, at
Chester-le-Street, he bestowed on it many rich gifts, which are
solemnly enumerated in the MSS. Cott. Brit. Mus. Claud. D. iv. fol.
21-6. Among these are "one stole, with a maniple; one girdle, and two
bracelets of gold." That the stole and maniple are those worked for
Frithestan by the command of his mother-in-law, Aelfled, may fairly be
said to be proved. These embroideries, worked with her name and the
record of her act, were taken from the body of St. Cuthbert in
1827.[572]

[Illustration: Pl. 73.
St. Dunstan's Portrait of himself in adoration. From his Missal in
the Bodleian Library, Oxford.]

Another and earlier Aelfled was the widow of Brithnod, a famous
Northumbrian chieftain. She gave to the cathedral of Ely, where his
headless body lay buried, a large cloth, or hanging, on which she had
embroidered the heroic deeds of her husband. She was the ancestress of
a race of embroiderers, and their pedigree will be found in the
Appendix.[573] At this time a lady of the Queen of Scotland was famed
for her perfect skill in needlework, and the four daughters of Edward
the Elder were likewise celebrated embroiderers.

St. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, is said to have designed
needlework for a noble and pious lady, Aedelwyrme, to execute in gold
thread, A.D. 924.[574] He prepared and painted a drawing, and directed
her work.[575] I here give the portrait of our celebrated early
designer from the MS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, said to be
by his own hand, and which represents him kneeling at the feet of the
Saviour (plate 73).

Sh