Opus Anglicanum is the Latin term for English work and is applied to the fine needlework of Medieval England created both for ecclesiastical and secular use on clothing, hangings or other textiles, often using gold and silver threads on rich velvet or linen grounds. Many regard this period, from the late 12th to mid 14th centuries, as the highlight of English goldwork embroidery because it was in such great demand right across Europe. It was unquestionably regarded as a luxury product, and was often used for diplomatic gifts.

Most of the surviving examples of Opus Anglicanum were originally designed for the clergy for liturgical use. These exquisite and expensive goldwork embroidery pieces were often made as vestments, like copes, chasubles and orphreys, or else as antependia, shrine covers or other church furnishings. Sadly few examples of these fine metal work embroidery pieces remain, as the majority was destroyed during the dissolution of the monasteries during Henry VIII’s reign. Secular examples are also rare now and we tend to only know about them from contemporary inventories: they included various types of garments, horse-trappings, book covers and decorative hangings.

Opus Anglicanum was usually embroidered on linen, then later on velvet, in split-stitch and couching with silk and gold or silver-gilt thread. Gold-wound thread, pearls and jewels are all mentioned at some stage in the inventories that still exist. Although there are references to these pieces being created in nunneries, the majority was produced in lay workshops, predominantly in London. Several of the more notable male embroiderers of the period are mentioned in the Westminster royal accounts.

English needlework had become famous rightly across Europe during the Anglo-Saxon period because of its extraordinary quality. It retained this popularity right through the Gothic era. A Vatican inventory of 1295 lists over 113 pieces from England, more than from any other country:  Pope Martin IV, who had envied the gold-embroidered copes and mitres of English priests, requested that Cistercian religious houses send more according to the Benedictine chronicler Matthew Paris of St Albans: "This command of my Lord Pope did not displease the London merchants who traded in these embroideries and sold them at their own price."

The high water mark or pinnacle of style and refinement is generally considered to have been reached in the goldwork of the 13th and early 14th centuries. An influential exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum from September-November 1963 displayed several examples of Opus Anglicanum from this period alongside contemporary works of wood and stone sculpture, metalwork and ivories.