Ælfwald
'Alfƿald Aldƿulfing', as recorded (at the top of this list) in theAnglian collection
King of the East Angles
Reign	713–749
Predecessor	Ealdwulf
Successor	Beonna andAlberht and possibly Hun
Died	749
Dynasty	Wuffingas
Father	Ealdwulf
Religion	Christian

Ælfwald (Old English:Alfƿold, "elf-ruler," reigned from 713 to 749) was an 8th-century king ofEast Anglia, anAnglo-Saxon kingdom that today includes the English counties ofNorfolk andSuffolk. The last king of theWuffingas dynasty, Ælfwald succeeded his fatherEaldwulf, who had ruled for 49 years. Ælfwald himself ruled for 36 years. Their combined reigns, with barely any record of external military action or internal dynastic strife, represent a long period of peaceful stability for the East Angles. In Ælfwald's time, this was probably owing to a number of factors, including the settled nature of East Anglian ecclesiastical affairs and the prosperity brought throughRhineland commerce with the East Anglian port of Gipeswic (modernIpswich). The coinage of Anglo-Saxonsceattas expanded in Ælfwald's time: evidence of East Anglian mints, markets, and industry are suggested where concentrations of such coins have been discovered.

After returning from exile,Æthelbald of Mercia succeededCoelred and afterwards endowed the church atCrowland. Ælfwald's friendly stance towards Æthelbald helped to maintain peaceful relations with his more powerful neighbour. TheLife of Guthlac, which includes information about Æthelbald during his period of exile at Crowland, is dedicated to Ælfwald. Later versions of theLife reveal the high quality of written Old English produced in East Anglia during Ælfwald's reign. He was a literate and devoutly Christian king: his letter written toBoniface in around 747 reveals his diplomatic skills and gives a rare glimpse into the life of a ruler who is otherwise shrouded in obscurity.

The East Anglian pedigree in theAnglian collection brings the descent down to Ælfwald, indicating that it was compiled during his reign, possibly by around 726. Showing Ælfwald as son of Ealdwulf, the pedigree continues back through Ethelric,Eni,Tytla,Wuffa,Wehha, Wilhelm, Hryp, Hrothmund, Trygil, Tyttman and Caser (Caesar) toWoden.^[1] TheHistoria Brittonum, which was probably compiled in the early 9th century, also has a version (thede ortu regum Estanglorum) in descending order, showing: "Wodengenuit ('begat') Casser, who begat Titinon, who begat Trigil, who begat Rodmunt, who begat Rippan, who begat Guillem Guechan. He first ruled in Britain over the race of East Angles. Guecha begat Guffa, who begat Tydil, who begat Ecni, who begat Edric, who begat Aldul, who begat Elric".^[2] It is not certain whether the last name, Elric, is a mistake for Ælfwald or is referring to a different individual.^[3]

At Ælfwald's accession in 713,^[4] Ceolred ofMercia had dominion over bothLindsey andEssex.^[5] Ælfwald's sister Ecgburgh was, possibly, the same as abbessEgburg atRepton inDerbyshire^[6][7][8] and Ælfwald's upbringing was undoubtedly Christian in nature.

The following family tree shows the descendants of Eni, who was the paternal grandfather of Ælfwald. The kings of East Anglia, Kent and Mercia are coloured green, blue and red respectively:

Ceolred of Mercia's appropriation of monastic assets during his reign created disaffection amongst the Mercians.^[9] He persecuted a distant cousin, Æthelbald, the grandson ofPenda's brotherEowa. Æthelbald was driven to take refuge deep inthe Fens at Crowland, whereGuthlac, another descendant of the Mercian royal house, was living as a hermit.^[10] When Guthlac died in 714, Ælfwald's sister Ecgburgh provided a lead coffin for his burial.^[11] Ceolred died in 716, blaspheming and insane, according to his chroniclers.^[10] Penda's line became extinct (or disempowered) and Æthelbald emerged as king of Mercia.

Æthelbald lived until 757 and carried Mercian power to a new height.^[12][13] His debt to Crowland was not forgotten: soon after his accession he richly endowed a new church on the site where Guthlac had lived as a hermit.^[14] The firstLife of Guthlac, written by the monk Felix, appeared soon after Guthlac's death. Nothing is known about Felix, althoughBertram Colgrave has observed that he was a good scholar who evidently had access to works by Bede andAldhelm, to aLife ofSaint Fursey and Latin works bySaint Jerome,Saint Athanasius andGregory the Great. Felix was either an East Anglian or was living in the kingdom when he wrote the book, which was written at the request of Ælfwald.^{[15][note 1]} In theLife, Felix portrays Æthelbald's exile at Crowland and asserts Ælfwald's right to rule in East Anglia.^[17] Two Old Englishverse versions of theLife drawn on the work of Felix were written, which show the vigour of vernacular heroic and elegiacmodes in Ælfwald's kingdom.

Sam Newton has proposed that the Old English heroic poemBeowulf has its origins in Ælfwald's East Anglia.^[18]

Æcci held the East Anglian see of Dommoc, following its division in about 673, and during Ealdwulf's reignÆscwulf succeeded Æcci.^[19] At theCouncil of Clofeshoh in 716,Heardred attended as Bishop of Dommoc, whileNothberht was present asBishop of Elmham, having succeededBaduwine.^[20]

During the 720s,Cuthwine became bishop of Dommoc. Cuthwine was known to Bede and is known to have travelled toRome, returning with a number ofilluminated manuscripts, includingLife and Labours of Saint Paul: his library also includedProsper Tiro'sEpigrammata andSedulius'Carmen Pachale.^[21] According to Bede,Ealdbeorht I was Bishop of Dommoc andHeadulacus Bishop of Elmham in 731, but by 746 or 747, Heardred (II) had replaced Aldberct.^[22]

Ipswich was the first East Anglian town to be created by the Anglo-Saxons, predating other new towns such asNorwich by a century.^[23] Excavation work at Ipswich has revealed that the town expanded out to become 50 hectares (120 acres) in size during Ælfwald's reign,^[24] when it was known as Gipeswic.^[25] It is generally considered that Gipeswic, as the trade capital of Ælfwald's kingdom, developed under the king's patronage.^[26]

A rectangular grid of streets linked the earlierquayside town northwards to an ancient trackway that ran eastwards.^[27] Thequay at Gipeswic also continued to develop in a form that was similar to the quayside atDorestad, south of the continental town ofUtrecht, which was perhaps its principal trading partner.^[28] Gipeswic's street grid, parts of which have survived, was subdivided into rectangular plots orinsulae and new houses were built directly adjacent to metalled roads.^[29] The town's pottery industry, producing what has been known since the 1950s as 'Ipswich ware',^[23] gained its full importance at around this time.

The former church dedication toSaint Mildred is one that can be dated to the 740s, when Mildred's relics were translated atMinster-in-Thanet by her successor abbessEadburh.^[30]

The coins of Ælfwald's reign are amongst the earliest that were minted in East Anglia.^[31] The coinage of silver pennies known assceattas expanded in his time and several types are attributed to East Anglian production. Most of them fall into two main groups, known as the 'Q' and 'R' series. Neither group bears a royal name or title and the authority by which they were issued cannot not established.^[32] The 'Q' series, which has someNorthumbrian affinities, is most densely distributed in western East Anglia, along the Fen edge betweenthe Wash andCambridge.^[33] The R series, with bust and standard, derived from earlier Kentish types, is more densely distributed in central and eastern East Anglia, including the Ipswich area.^[32] According to Michael Metcalf, the 'R' series was also East Anglian, being minted at Gipeswic.^[34]

A letter from Ælfwald to Boniface, the leader of the English continental mission, has survived. It was written at some time between 742 and 749 and is one of the few surviving documents from the period that relate the ecclesiastical history of East Anglia.^[36]

The letter, which is a response to Boniface who had requested his support, reveals Ælfwald's sound understanding ofLatin.^[36] Ælfwald's letter reassures Boniface that his name was being remembered by the East Angles: it contains an offer to exchange the names of their dead, so that mutual prayers could be read for them. According to Richard Hoggett, a phrase in the letter,"in septenis monasteriorum nostorum sinaxis", has been interpreted incorrectly by historians to imply that there were at the time seven monasteries in Ælfwald's kingdom in which prayers were being read, a theory which has proved difficult for scholars to explain.^[36] Hoggett argues that the words in the phrase refer to the number of times that the monks offered praise during the monastic day and not to the number of monasteries then in existence. He points out that this interpretation was published by Haddan and Stubbs as long ago as 1869.^[37][38]

Ælfwald died in 749. It is not known whether he left an immediate heir. After his death, according to mediaeval sources, East Anglia was divided among three kings,^[39] under circumstances that are not clear.^[40]

• Colgrave, B., ed. (2007).Felix's Life of Guthlac. Cambridge University Press.ISBN 978-0-521-31386-5.
• Dumville, D. N. (1976). "The Anglian Collection of Royal Genealogies and Regnal Lists".Anglo-Saxon England.5. Cambridge Journals Online:23–50.doi:10.1017/S0263675100000764.S2CID 162877617.
• Brown, Michelle P.; Farr, Carol Ann (2001).Mercia: an Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in Europe. Leicester University Press.ISBN 0-8264-7765-8.
• Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (1986).Handbook of British Chronology (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN 0-521-56350-X.
• Hoggett, Richard (2010).The Archaeology of the East Anglian Conversion. Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press.ISBN 978-1-84383-595-0.
• Haddan, Arthur West; Stubbs, William (1869).Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland. Vol. 3. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 387–388.OCLC 1317490. Retrieved23 August 2011.
• Hunter Blair, Peter (1966).Roman Britain and Early England: 55 B.C. - A.D. 871. W.W. Norton & Company.ISBN 0-393-00361-2.
• Kirby, D. P. (2000).The Earliest English Kings. London and New York: Routledge.ISBN 0-4152-4211-8.
• Kylie, Edward (1911).English Correspondence, Being for the Most Part Letters Exchanged Between the Apostle of the Germans and his English Friends. London: Chatto & Windus.
• Metcalf, Michael (2008)."Sceattas: Twenty-One Years of Progress". In Abramson, Tony (ed.).Two Decades of Discovery. Woodbridge: Boydell Press.ISBN 978-1-84383-371-0.
• Nennius (1906) [9th century]."Historia Brittonum". InGiles, J. A. (ed.).Old English Chronicles. London: George Bell. Retrieved15 October 2011.
• Newman, John (2008)."Sceattas in East Anglia: An Archaeological Perspective". In Abramson, Tony (ed.).Two Decades of Discovery. Woodbridge: Boydell Press.ISBN 978-1-84383-371-0.
• Plunkett, Steven (2005).Suffolk in Anglo-Saxon Times. Stroud: Tempus.ISBN 0-7524-3139-0.
• Russo, Daniel G. (1998).Town Origins and Development in Early England, c.400-950 A.D. Westport, U.S.A.: Greenwood.ISBN 0-313-30079-8.
• Wade, Keith (2001). "Gipeswic: East Anglia's first economic capital, 600-1066".Ipswich from the First to the Third Millennium. Ipswich: Wolsey Press.ISBN 0-9507328-1-8.
• Yorke, Barbara (2002).Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. London and New York: Routledge.ISBN 0-415-16639-X.

• Ælfwald 6 atProsopography of Anglo-Saxon England
• A translation into both modern and Old English of Felix'sVita Sancti Guthlaci('Life of St Guthlac') by Charles Goodwin (1848), from theInternet Archive.

• East Anglian monarchs
• 8th-century English monarchs
• House of Wuffingas
• 749 deaths

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