Sigeberht
Death of Sigeberht in the battle with theMercians (illustration bySidney Paget,c. 1898)
King of the East Angles
Reign	c. 629 –c. 634 (abdicated after ruling jointly withEcgric)
Predecessor	Ricberht
Successor	Ecgric (alone)
House	Wuffingas
Father	possiblyRædwald
Religion	Christianity

Sigeberht of East Anglia (also known asSaint Sigebert), (Old English:Sigebryht) was a saint and a king ofEast Anglia, theAnglo-Saxon kingdom which today includes the English counties ofNorfolk andSuffolk. He was the first English king to receive a Christian baptism and education before his succession and the first to abdicate in order to enter the monastic life. The principal source for Sigeberht isBede'sEcclesiastical History of the English People, which was completed in the 730s.

Sigeberht was probably either a younger son ofRædwald of East Anglia, or his step-son from Rædwald's marriage to a pagan princess from thekingdom of Essex. Nothing is known of his life before he was exiled toGaul, which was possibly done in order to ensure that Rædwald's own descendants ruled the kingdom. After his step-brotherEorpwald's assassination in about 627, Sigeberht returned to East Anglia and (perhaps in the aftermath of a military campaign) became king, ruling jointly withEcgric, who may have been either a son of Rædwald's, or his nephew.

During Sigeberht's reign theChristianisation of East Anglia was advanced greatly, even though his co-ruler Ecgric probably remained a pagan. Alliances were strengthened between the Christian kingdoms ofKent,Northumbria and East Anglia, with Sigeberht playing an important part in the establishment of the Christian faith in his kingdom.Saint Felix arrived in East Anglia to assist him in establishing hisepiscopal see atDommoc, starting a school for teachingLatin and granting the Irish monkSaint Fursey a monastery site at Cnobheresburg (possiblyBurgh Castle). Sigeberht eventually abdicated his power to Ecgric and retired tohis monastery atBeodricesworth. At an unknown date, East Anglia was attacked by a Mercian army led by its king,Penda. Ecgric and the East Anglians appealed to Sigeberht to lead them in battle, but he refused and had to be dragged from his monastery to the battlefield. He refused to bear arms during the battle, during which both East Anglian kings were slain and their army was destroyed.

Sigeberht ruled thekingdom of East Anglia (Old English:Ēast Engla Rīce), a small independentAnglo-Saxon kingdom that comprised what are now the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and perhaps the eastern part of theFens inCambridgeshire.^[2]

It is not known when Sigeberht was born and nothing is known of his life before he was exiled from East Anglia prior to becoming king, as few records have survived from this period of English history. The most reliable source for Sigeberht's background and career isBede'sEcclesiastical History of the English People (produced in 731), in which Bede stated that Sigeberht was the brother ofEorpwald,^{[note 1]} and the son ofRædwald, who ruled thekingdom of East Anglia from about 599 to 624. The 12th-century English historianWilliam of Malmesbury described him as Rædwald's stepson.^[4] The stepson theory is strengthened by the fact that the nameSigeberht is without comparison in the East AnglianWuffingas dynasty, but closely resembles the naming fashions of theEast Saxon royal house. IIt has been tentatively suggested by the historian Steven Plunkett that if this identification is correct, Rædwald's wife had previously been married to an East Saxon prince or ruler.^[5] Rædwald's own principal heir was Rægenhere (a youth of warrior age in 616, when he was slain in battle)^[6] and his second heir was Eorpwald, slain by the heathenRicberht in about 627.^[7][8]

Rædwald was baptised before 616 and a Christian altar existed in his temple, but his son Eorpwald was not himself a convert when he succeeded Rædwald in about 624.^[9] Since it is known that Rædwald's wife (who was Sigeberht's mother) did not become a Christian, Sigeberht must have received limited encouragement to convert to Christianity before being sent toGaul and remaining there as an exile for many years during the lifetime of Eorpwald, "while fleeing from the enmity of Rædwald", as Bede reports.^[10] His exile supports the stepson theory, if Rædwald was protecting Eorpwald's succession against a possible claim by a son who was not of the Wuffingas line.^[11]

Whilst living in Gaul as an exile, Sigeberht was converted and baptized and became a devout Christian and a man of learning. He was strongly impressed by the religious institutions and schools for the study of reading and writing which he found during his long exile.^[12]

After an interregnum prompted by Eorpwald's assassination, Sigeberht returned from Gaul to become ruler of the East Angles. It is likely that he gained the kingdom by military means, because his prowess as a commander was later remembered. During his reign, part of the kingdom was governed byEcgric his 'kinsman', a relationship described by the Latin termcognatus.^[13] This may mean that Ecgric was a son of Rædwald. However, Plunkett is amongst those that consider Ecgric to be the same person as Æthelric, named in the East Anglian tally (in theAnglian collection) as a son ofEni, Rædwald's brother.^[14] Whoever the pagan Ecgric was, Sigeberht had equal or senior power while he ruled, because the influence of his religious patronage was felt throughout his kingdom.^{[citation needed]}

Sigeberht's Christian conversion may have been a decisive factor in his achieving royal power, since at that timeEdwin of Northumbria (616–632 or 633) was the senior English king and he andEadbald, who ruled Kent, were Christian. Eadbald certainly had contacts with the Frankish rulers. AfterDagobert succeededClothar II in Francia in 628, Sigeberht's emergence helped to strengthen the English conversion upon which Edwin's power rested.^[5] Sigeberht is likely to have encouraged the conversion of Ecgric, if he was not already Christian. Edwin's encouragement took shape in the marriage of his grand-nieceHereswitha, sister ofHilda of Whitby, to Æthelric, Rædwald's nephew. Hereswith and Hilda were under Edwin's protection and were baptised with him in 626.^[15]

Bede relates that the East Anglian apostleFelix of Burgundy came to England fromBurgundy as a missionary bishop and was sent byHonorius,Archbishop of Canterbury, to assist in establishing Christianity in Sigeberht's kingdom.^[16] William of Malmesbury had the later story that Felix accompanied Sigeberht to East Anglia. In either case, this dates Sigeberht's accession to around 629–630, because Felix was bishop for seventeen years, his successorThomas for five and Thomas' successorBerhtgisl Boniface for seventeen – and Berhtgisl died in around 669.^[17] Sigeberht established the bishop's seat of his kingdom for Felix at Dommoc,^[18] claimed variously forDunwich orWalton,Felixstowe (both coastal sites inSuffolk). If the seat was at Walton (as Rochester claimed during the 13th century), the site of Dommoc may have been within the precinct of aRoman fort which formerly stood there.^[19]

Sigeberht secured the future of the Church in East Anglia when he established a school in his kingdom so that boys could be taught reading and writing in Latin, on the model that he had witnessed in Gaul.^[16] Felix assisted him by obtaining teachers of the kind who taught inKent.^[20] According to theLife of Gregory the Great,Paulinus of York, who from 633 to 644 was theBishop of Rochester in northern Kent, had been connected with Rædwald's court during the exile of Edwin.^[21][22]

The allegiance of Felix toCanterbury determined the Roman basis of the East Anglian Church, influenced along continental lines,^[23] though Felix's training in Burgundy may have been coloured by the teaching of the Irish missionarySaint Columbanus inLuxeuil.^[24] In around 633, perhaps shortly beforeSaint Aidan was sent toLindisfarne fromIona, the Irish royal hermit and missionarySaint Fursey came to East Anglia from theAthlone area, along with his priests and brethren. Sigeberht granted him a monastery site in an oldRoman fort called Cnobheresburg,^[25] usually identified asBurgh Castle, nearGreat Yarmouth. Felix and Fursey both effected a large number of conversions and established many churches in Sigeberht's kingdom. Bede records that Archbishop Honorius and Bishop Felix much admired the work of Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne^[26] and it is therefore likely that they also appreciated the tasks accomplished by Saint Fursey, whose community also lived according to the ascetic principles ofIrish Christianity.^[27]

At some point during his reign, Sigeberht abdicated his power to Ecgric and retired to lead a religious life within a monastery he had built for his own use. Bede does not name the location of Sigeberht's monastery, but later sources name it as Beodricesworth, afterwards calledBury St Edmunds. If that identification is accepted, the likely site was in the original precinct of the mediaeval abbey at Bury St Edmunds, probably the 'worth' orcurtilage of Beodric after whom the place was originally named.^[28] The site occupied a strong position on the upper reaches of theLark valley, which drains north-west into the Great Fen through important early settlements atIcklingham,Culford,West Stow and others. This was a line of access towardsEly, where a foundation ofSaint Augustine may already have existed, and towardsSoham, where Saint Felix is thought to have founded a monastery.^[29]

At an unknown date, which may have been in the early 640s,^[30] East Anglia was attacked by aMercian army and Ecgric was obliged to defend it with a much smaller force, though one that was not negligible. The East Angles appealed to Sigeberht to leave his monastery and lead them in battle, hoping that his presence and the memory of his former military exploits would encourage the army and make them less likely to flee. Sigeberht refused, saying that he had renounced his worldly kingdom and now lived only for the heavenly kingdom. However, he was dragged from the monastery to the battlefield where, unwilling to bear arms, he went into battle carrying only a staff. The Mercians were victorious and Sigeberht, Ecgric and many of the East Angles were slain and their army was routed. In this way Sigeberht became a Christian martyr.^[31] He is among the names of the kings who according to an ancient saying, were avenged by the slaying of Penda in 654.^[32][33]

The Church that Sigeberht had done so much to establish in East Anglia survived for two centuries, enduring 'evil times' (such as the period when the kingdom was under attack by the armies ofPenda of Mercia). It lasted continuously under a succession of bishops until the DanishGreat Heathen Army invaded East Anglia in the 860s.^[34]

The feast day of Sigeberht is commemorated on various dates, even within the same religious tradition. For example, different Catholic calendars of saints designate 16 January 27 September, or 29 October, or note two dates as alternatives.^[35][36][37]Lives of the English Saints, written byJohn Henry Newman in 1843, is amongst the texts that gives Sigeberht's feast day as being observed on 29 October.^[38] Eastern Orthodox sources alsogive 16 January, but in addition list 25 January and 27 September as the relevant feast day.^[39][40][41]

• For more information on Ecgric's Wuffingas identity, see the family trees inEcgric of East Anglia.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "East Anglia".Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

• Bede (1999).Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Oxford University Press.ISBN 978-0-19-283866-7. (available atGoogle Books)
• Haslam, Jeremy (1992)."Dommoc and Dunwich: A Reappraisal"(PDF).Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History.5. Oxford: 41. Retrieved8 February 2011.
• Henry of Huntingdon (1996).Historia Anglorum: the history of the English people. Translated by Greenway, Diana E. Oxford University Press.ISBN 978-0-19-822224-8.
• Kirby, D.P. (2000).The Earliest English Kings. London and New York: Routledge.ISBN 978-0-415-24211-0.
• Plunkett, Steven (2005).Suffolk in Anglo-Saxon Times. Stroud: Tempus.ISBN 978-0-7524-3139-0.
• Stenton, Sir Frank (1988).Anglo-Saxon England. New York: Oxford University Press.ISBN 978-0-19-821716-9.
• Warner, Peter (1996).The origins of Suffolk. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.ISBN 978-0-7190-3817-4.
• Yorke, Barbara (2002).Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. London and New York: Routledge.ISBN 978-0-415-16639-3.

• "Celtic and Old English Saints".Celtic Saints. 2021.Saint Sigebert: Died 635; feast day 16 January, sometimes 27 September
• Thua, Laban (8 May 2019)."Saint Sigeberht of East Anglia - Feast Day - January 16".Catholic Daily Readings. Retrieved30 January 2023.
• Young, Francis (29 October 2015)."St Sigebert: East Anglia's first martyr king".Dr Francis Young − publications. Retrieved30 January 2023.
• "Orthodox Calendar: January 16, 2012 (Church Calendar)".Holy Trinity Orthodox Church.St. Sigebert, king of the East Angles, martyr (635) (Celtic & British), January 16.
• "Latin Saints of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Rome".Orthodox England.org.uk.Sigebert Jan 25
• "Saint Felix of Burgundy, Bishop of Dunwich, Enlightener of East Anglia".Orthodox Church in America. March 2022. Retrieved30 January 2023.It was he who converted Sigebert (September 27), King of East Anglia ...

• A poem written in 1879 byAubrey De Vere (1879)."King Sigebert of East Anglia, and Heida the Prophetess".Legends of the Saxon Saints. p. 67. Retrieved7 February 2011.
• A. Williams, A.P. Smyth and D.P. Kirkby (1991),A Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain (Seaby 1991).ISBN 978-1-85264-047-7.
• Gasquet, Francis Aidan / 8th-century monk at Whitby (1904)."A life of Pope St. Gregory the Great". Retrieved9 February 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

• Sigeberht 3 atProsopography of Anglo-Saxon England

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