Made with Love: Medieval Women and the Devotional Nature of Donated Textiles
by Flavie Chantälle Deveaux
Weaving and embroidery are tactile forms of art in which the artist’s hands and mind move in harmony, thereby creating an ideal meditative state for prayer. This effect was amplified by medieval women who sang psalms and prayed aloud while crafting textiles.1 Between the 11th and 15th centuries, women of all social classes were encouraged to engage in embroidery and weaving. For lower class women, weaving was a livelihood, but for the upper class, it demonstrated the virtue and obedience of wives and daughters.2 While the Roman Catholic Church relied on many different classes of women to produce textiles, it was typically wealthy, noble, or cloistered ecclesiastical women who were praised for their donations.3 For example, Christina of Marykate, an 11th-century nun, was praised for an embroidered miter and sandals that she gifted to Pope Adrian IV.4 These donations were in fact the only gifts accepted by the pope because Adrian valued gifts made with love and devotion to God rather than costly items purchased by donors. While embroidered and woven textiles made by secular workshops were seen as vain donations, Christina’s gifts were made through her devotion to God without intention of financial gain.5 Donated liturgical vestments thus became devotional pledges that bound women to God through their clear indications of piety and spiritual love. These textile practices also became prominent features of the ornate clerical style of the 11th to 15th centuries, meaning women played a vital role in the Catholic Church’s aesthetic development.6 The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 also confirmed Christ’s Real Presence during the Mass, transforming the Eucharist into a moment where Christ enters the body of the cleric.7 Therefore, women not only created vestments for members of the Catholic Church but they also strengthened their bond with God: their garments made with love came into contact with Christ, which was present in the body of the cleric.8
By the 12th century, the rise of the cult of the Virgin initiated theological shifts that cemented a stronger bond between the Virgin and God through her position in weaving Christ’s human form in her womb.9 Artworks such as the Master of Erfurt’s Mary at the Spinning Wheel (c. 1410) highlight this theological shift (fig. 1). With a spindle dangling from her right hand as she grabs yarn with her left, the Virgin uses the yarn to form the body of Christ in her womb. These medieval Marian artworks provide insight into how women, especially elite women, fostered relationships with God, in which their association with the Virgin mirrored their own pious and regal nature as female members of society. As Christiane Elster and Stephanie Luther point out, women’s textile donations differed from those of men because contemporary women, particularly queens, were encouraged to create the textiles themselves.10 The connections forged between medieval women and the Virgin are exemplified by Ingebord of Denmark, Queen of France in the 13th century, who sent a chasuble to the dean of Amiens with the specific request that it be worn for solemn masses on the feast of the Virgin.11 Ingebord’s request speaks to her contemplation of the Virgin while crafting this garment.
Key differences exist in the performance of the medieval Mass versus its modern counterpart which help to explain women’s involvement in religious aesthetic development. Most importantly, the medieval Mass required the bishop or priest to face away from the congregation and towards the east for the duration of the ceremony.12 Therefore, the embroidered backsides of chasubles became a focal point for viewers observing the Mass, allowing female makers of liturgical vestments to exert a direct influence over the devotional imagery used by the congregation. Many of these donated orphreys or chasubles include imagery of the Virgin Mary, suggesting that the increased popularity of the cult of the Virgin by the 12th century can be partially credited to the increased imagery of the Virgin in the 11th century that was primarily produced by women. The Chichester-Constable Chasuble (c. 1330-1350), completely covered in richly embroidered scenes from the Life of the Virgin, is an example of this increased focus on Marian imagery (fig. 2). Through the intricate stitchwork used to depict the Virgin, this chasuble’s iconography also evokes the devout woman who embroidered this textile. Moreover, a later 15th-century Spanish cope (c. 1438) illustrates the extensive surface area that these Marian scenes could inhabit (fig. 3). A depiction of the Virgin holding Christ’s body after his crucifixion surmounts this dark blue velvet cope, again emphasizing the importance of Christ’s mother. At roughly 14 inches (36 cm) wide and embroidered with bright blue, red, and lime-green threads, the Virgin becomes the focal point of this eye-catching narrative.
Medieval women also expressed their devotion to God through Eucharistic objects adorned with their signature embellishments. For instance, medieval Germanic women were renowned for a style of pearl embroidery during the mid- to late Middle Ages,13 a signature touch that was praised in the 11th century by Goscelin of Saint-Bertin for visualizing the maker’s contemplation and worship of Christ during the creation process.14 Additionally, the nuns at the convent of Altenberg produced intricate works of white-on-white embroidery, including The Cleveland Museum of Art’s White-On-White Altar Cloth (c. 1350; fig. 4). In the center of this large altar cloth, the nuns depicted Christ on the cross inside the largest quatrefoil, highlighting his sacrifice and acknowledging their own love and appreciation of him. This textile is completely white, relying on light and shadows to highlight the embroidered figures. According to Sharon E. J. Gerstel and Michael W. Cothren, divinity and purity in the Middle Ages were communicated by symbolically indicating light and using materials that incorporated light into the viewing experience.15 For example, as light spilled through church windows to illuminate the altar during Mass, the embroidered imagery became visible to earthly worshippers and reminded viewers that God was present. While this altar cloth was used by the local church in Altenberg, it also underscores significant ties to the convent as the white-on-white technique is associated with the Altenberg nuns who were known as the “white canons.”16 Through color, these medieval women inserted themselves into the discursive exchange between the clergy and God during the performance of the Eucharist. Since medieval congregants understood the Catholic Mass as a moment when Christ was present, women’s textiles acted as their proxies, enabling them to showcase their love for God during this divine manifestation.17
Textiles donated to churches and monastic spaces could enhance worship practices beyond the Mass, evoking a divine presence during individual prayer as well. This is exemplified by reliquary bags, whose contact with relics turned women’s textile works into sacred objects themselves.18 Such objects created an intercessory relationship between medieval makers and the worshippers of relics. This concept is similarly reflected in medieval altarpieces, which often include depictions of patrons to spiritually evoke their presence with every prayer made in front of the devotional artwork.19 By weaving their own spirits and prayers into devotional textiles, medieval women embedded parts of themselves into worshiping practices. Medieval female donors of liturgical textiles also represented themselves through personal devices and saintly namesakes. In The Clare Chasuble (c. 1272-1294), vines and plant motifs decorate the fabric around four barbed quatrefoils containing depictions of the Virgin, Christ, and saints, but prior to being cut up in the 16th or 17th centuries, the coat of arms of Margaret de Clare, patron and donor of this vestment, was also included (fig. 5).20 This imagery would have directly related back to the chasuble’s female patron and acted as a donor portrait. Similarly, the female saints adorning The Grandisson Orphrey (c. 1340-1369) could have also indicated the donor of the textile, since saints were connected to patrons as namesakes, acting as intercessors during prayer (fig. 6). Medieval women became a part of the prayer process through their embroidered, saintly namesakes, forging a bond with Christ that was renewed each time the objects were used.
Many women created and donated embroidered works because these tactile objects gave them agency inside liturgical spaces. This agency afforded by textiles allowed medieval women to showcase their love for God on their own terms and to subsequently foster a devotional bond akin to that afforded to contemporary men. The spiritual connection established through the tactile process of creation began when the craftswomen threaded the needle and endured until the textile succumbed to wear and tear. In Exodus 35, when Moses cries out, “‘whosoever of you is wise, let him come, and make that which the Lord hath commanded,’” every “skilful woman also gave such things as they had spun, violet, purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats’ hair, giving all of their own accord,” as donations to God.21 For medieval women, textile donations answered this call from God and allowed contemporary makers the opportunity to create devotional artworks that represented their unwavering love for him.
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Flavie Chantälle Deveaux is currently a master’s student at Queen’s University, Kingston, researching textiles and fashion as material culture. Her journey to art history began in the world of military history and, thus, Flavie enjoys bridging the gap between the two academic fields, where even today there is much to explore.
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1. Maureen C. Miller, Clothing the Clergy: Virtue and Power in Medieval Europe, c. 800-1200 (Cornell University Press, 2014), 149.
2. Alexandra Gajewski and Stefanie Seeberg, “Having Her Hand in It? Elite Women as ‘Makers’ of Textile Art in the Middle Ages,” Journal of Medieval History 42, no. 1 (2016): 27.
3. David Herlihy, Opera Muliebria: Women and Work in Medieval Europe (McGraw-Hill, 1990), 83; Miller, Clothing the Clergy, 144.
4. A miter is a spade-shaped hat worn by high-ranking members of the Catholic Church such as bishops.
5. Margaret Wade Labarge, “Stitches in Time: Medieval Embroidery in its Social Setting,” Florilegium 16, (1999): 86.
6. Kay Staniland, Medieval Craftsmen: Embroiderers (University of Toronto Press, 1991), 19.
7. During the Mass, the Eucharist acted as a reenactment of Christ’s sacrifice; however, between the 13th and mid-16th centuries, theologians felt that only Christ could perform this sacrifice in front of humans (because it is a divine miracle of God). Therefore, the Eucharist was recognized as the moment when Christ spiritually enters the bodies of the clerics performing the Mass, so Christ remains the one to perform his sacrifice for earthly witnesses. See Cristina Borgioli, “Wearing the Sacred: Images, Space, Identity in Liturgical Vestments (13th to 16th Centuries),” Espacio Tiempo Y Forma: Serie VII, Historia Del Arte (2018): 176.
8. Eleanor Bloomfield, “Sacred Staging: Dramatic Magic in the Medieval Mass,” Platform 12, (2018): 36, 39; Miller, Clothing the Clergy, 148.
9. Anna McKay, Female Devotion and Textile Imagery in Medieval English Literature (Boydell & Brewer, 2024), 26, 91.
10. Christiane Elster and Stephanie Luther, “Towards an Unpacking of the Medieval Textile Gift,” in Textile Gifts in the Middle Ages: Objects, Actors, and Representations (Biblioteca Hertziana, 2022), 19.
11. A chasuble is a poncho-like garment worn by ecclesiastical members over the liturgical tunic called a dalmatic. In the Middle Ages the chasuble was bell-shaped while later versions removed the fabric covering the arms. See Miller, Clothing the Clergy, 145.
12. This was called versus populum, or “towards the people,” which became the default position during Mass after the Second Vatican Council in 1963, when the Roman Catholic Church encouraged reforms to make Church more accessible. See Pope Paul VI, “Sacrosanctum Concilium,” Second Vatican Council, (The Holy See, 4th December 1963), accessed online March 2026. https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html.
13. In medieval bestiaries, an oyster could only produce a pearl when light penetrated it through the water, mimicking the Virgin’s immaculate conception. Thus, pearls were associated with the Virgin throughout the high to late Middle Ages. See Debra Hassig, Medieval Bestiaries: Text, Image, Ideology (Cambridge University Press, 1995), 30.
14. Goscelin’s full praise of Edith from the Vita et Translatio Edithe (c. 1080) is as follows: “‘she embroidered with flowers the pontifical vestments of Christ with all her skill and capacity to make splendid… Precious stones were intertwined with gold; union pearls, the shells’ treasure, which only India produced in the east, and Britain, the land of the English, in the west, were set like stars in gold; the golden insignia of the cross, the golden images of the saints were outlined with a surround of pearls. [Here] her whole thought was Christ and the worship of Christ’.” Cited in Miller, Clothing the Clergy, 148-149.
15. Sharon E. J. Gerstel and Michael W. Cothren, “The Iconography of Light,” in Routledge Companion to Medieval Iconography, ed. Colum Hourihane (Routledge, 2017), 465.
16. Stefanie Seeberg, “Women as Makers of Church Decoration: Illustrated Textiles at the Monasteries of Altenberg/Lahn, Ruppertsberg, and Heiningen (13th-14th. C.),” in Women and Work in Premodern Europe: Experiences, Relationships and Cultural Representation, c. 1100-1800, ed. Merridee L. Bailey et al. (Routledge, 2018), 356-357.
17. Bloomfield, “Sacred Staging: Dramatic Magic in the Medieval Mass,” 36, 39.
18. Mariam Rosser-Owen, “Islamic Objects in Christian Contexts: Relic Translation and Modes of Transfer in Medieval Iberia,” Art In Translation 7 (2015): 53.
19. Jill Caskey, “Medieval Patronage & Its Potentialities,” in Patronage: Power & Agency in Medieval Art, ed. Colum Hourihane (Princeton University Press, 2013), 29.
20. Elizabeth Coatsworth and Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Clothing the Past: Surviving Garments from Early Medieval to Early Modern Western Europe (Brill, 2018), 135.
21. Exodus 35:10 and 35:25-26, Latin Vulgate Bible: Douay-Rheims English Translation Version (c. 1609).