Dr Alexandra Lester-Makin’s doctoral thesis on Anglo-Saxon embroidery lists these oldest goldwork embroideries in great detail (Lester-Makin, 2019). The oldest surviving pieces are the so-called Maaseik embroideries dating to the late 8^th– early 9th century. Although they have been traditionally associated with the local saints Harlindis and Relindis, they are, in fact, too late in date. Now kept at the treasury of Saint Catherine Church in Maaseik, Belgium, the pieces were originally embroidered in England. The fragments can be organised into three groups. One group is formed by two strips on which rows of arches filled with foliage and animals are embroidered. Another group consists of two identical strips embroidered with roundels encircling animals. The third group consists of four probable monograms. The precise relationship between the fragments is unclear. The near-pure gold threads are couched onto silk fabric, and the design was once embellished with pearls.

Another famous group of Anglo-Saxon goldwork embroideries are the so-called Cuthbert embroideries found in the tomb of St Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral in 1827. They date to c. AD 909-916 and consist of a stole, a maniple and two ribbons sewn together. Whilst the ribbons are embroidered with foliage, both the stole and the maniple depict saints[1]. Again, near-pure goldthreads (c. 0.2mm & 0.23 mm thick) were used for the couching onto a silken fabric. The gold threads seem to have been flattened by hammering or burnishing, as seen on the Imperial Vestments from Bamberg (see lesson 1 (Christie, 1938)). Embroidered inscriptions on the stole and the maniple state that Queen Ælfflæd (early 10th century) commissioned the pieces to be made for Bishop Frithestan of Winchester (V AD 932/933). Her stepson, King Æthelstan (c. AD 894-939), likely gifted the embroideries to the religious community at Durham in c. AD 934, when he was on his way North to fight the Picts.

From the shrine of St Ambrose in Milan comes a silken strip with goldwork embroidery, probably dating to the 10th century. Its design of foliage with a duck and an insect is also worked in near-pure goldthread wrapped around a red silken core. From a cremation burial in Mount 11 in Heath Wood near Ingleby, Derbyshire, a carbonised fragment with metal thread embroidery was discovered. This is a rare instance of metal thread embroidery being found outside of a church context.

Although only a few examples of these very early goldwork embroideries made in England have survived until the present day, they do share three characteristics. They are worked on silk with near-pure goldthreads in normal surface couching. Three main groups of design elements are already present: foliage (with animals), saints and lettering. These embroideries survived either by chance (carbonised during cremation) or while kept in a tomb or shrine of a saint.

[1] You can watch an interesting talk given by Dr Alexandra Makin-Lester on YouTube.