Ælfflæd set out a plea that King Æthelræd II should protect the small collegiate foundation of Stoke-by-Nayland which stands between Sudbury and Hadleigh on the crest of the ridge overlooking the valleys of the Stour and Box rivers in south-east Suffolk. The proportions of the present-day church coincide with an Anglo-Saxon layout, and the churchyard perhaps marks the boundaries of the pre-Conquest cemetery. Ælfflæd's statement draws attention to her over-riding concern with the security of this community in preference to the great Benedictine abbeys associated with national frameworks of power, such as Ely Abbey, where her husband was buried. Such issues not only lead to questions of the relationships between gender and monasticism at the turn of the eleventh century, but also to key questions regarding the reshaping of medieval societies. One of the great changes in the social order during the tenth and eleventh centuries was encapsulated by a shift in aristocratic consciousness away from Königsnähe and national interests towards more local structures of power. Identifying the change has, though, always been easier than explaining why those who had benefited most from the former structure should have turned away from it. No evidence sets out the psychology of those involved in this change, but such issues can be explored indirectly through an analysis of the religious bequests of Ælfflæd, her sister Æthelflæd and their father Ælfgar. Such discussions lead, firstly, into an understanding of these sisters’ relationships with religious houses in East Anglia and beyond; secondly, the extent to which the social strategies of these women concurred with bilateral structures of kinship; and, thirdly, how their gifts were instrumental in forging national and local associations amongst wider circles of kinsfolk and friends.