obliged to fulfil certain roles to ensure the continued royal patronage of the Wilton community. Goscelin based his Vita on the oral testimony of the Wilton nuns and their abbess, as well as on existing written sources. The work was dedicated to Lanfranc, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

When she was 15 years old, Edith's father offered her the position of abbess of three convents, but she declined. In 978, after the murder