Describes domestic and professional embroidery, sources, and terminology and how professional embroidery commissions of any size were undertaken in family workshops employing both men and women. They worked and were trained according to trade guild regulations. References are made to the other European centers for medieval embroidery and their patrons and design sources. The author relies on extant embroidery and on documentary material including royal household and church accounts, craftsmens' guilds and City of London records, inventories, artists' sketchbooks, pattern books, and handbooks for embroiderers and other figurative artists. The chapter on techniques describes appliqué, outline, and filling stitches, thread counting, quilting, couching, and goldwork together with materials, their origin, and use. The epilogue concerns the loss of pieces that are now only known through accounts and inventories.