The Bayeux tapestry is one of the most famous pieces of material culture produced in medieval England. The tapestry is fundamentally important for our understanding of the Norman conquest, telling us what happened and how it was remembered.

The embroidery was most probably made by a group of English women, who were famed for their needlework across Europe.

The story of the tapestry starts around 1064, with King Edward the Confessor sending Harold Godwinson, then Earl of Wessex, on a visit to Normandy, and ends with the English retreat at Hastings in 1066.

Military and political events are the key focus, yet three women are depicted in the main body of the Bayeux tapestry: a mystery woman named as Ælgyva, a woman mourning at the death of Edward the Confessor (very likely Queen Edith, his wife) and an unidentified woman fleeing from a burning building with her child. Further female figures can be identified in the borders of the tapestry.

Here’s what we know about the women depicted in the tapestry.

Read more: The Bayeux tapestry and the hidden history of the women who embroidered it

Edith of Wessex (c. 1023–75)

The weeping woman with a veil at Edward the Confessor’s death bed was probably his wife, Edith of Wessex. At this crucial moment in the tapestry she witnesses Edward’s command to Harold to take up the throne.

Edith, daughter of Gytha (d. after 1068) and Godwin, Earl of Wessex (d. 1053) was........

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