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Aelred was never formally canonised but he was popularly venerated as a saint and his cult was approved by the Cistercian Order; his feast was celebrated from 1476. However, knowledge of his cult remains hazy. Following his death in 1167, Aelred was buried in the magnificent chapter-house at Rievaulx Abbey, which he himself had constructed. In the early thirteenth century, his splendid shrine was translated to the newly modelled east end of the abbey church; the exact date that this occurred is not known. It is thought that the rebuilding of Rievaulx’s presbytery was undertaken specifically to provide a fitting resting place for Aelred’s remains. The shrine was given a prominent place and was raised behind the High Altar in the second bay of the extension. Its position is known from an inventory taken c. 1539, at the time of the Suppression.(1)

Aelred’s cult was clearly popular amongst the locals in the sixteenth century: in his will of February 1525-6, John Rogerson of Rievaulx left a pair of beads to Aelred’s shrine.(2)