Alfred's biographer, Asser, wrote that "Æthelgifu, devoted to God through her holy virginity, subject and consecrated to the rules of monastic life, entered the service of God'.
[1] Asser recorded that Alfred founded Shaftesbury Abbey for nuns.
Alfred appointed Æthelgifu as its first abbess and she was joined by "many other noble nuns".
Alfred granted the abbey one sixteenth of his royal revenues.
According to a tradition recorded at the abbey, she adopted a religious life due to ill health.