User:Mike Christie/Raedwald draft

Rædwald
King of East Anglia
Rædwald's name in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Reign	c. 599 – c. 624
Predecessor	Tytila
Successor	Eorpwald
Father	Tytila

Rædwald (also Raedwald or Redwald) (died c. 624) was King of the East Angles. He probably became king in c. 599, and was initially under the overlordship of Æthelberht of Kent, one of the dominant kings of his age. Some time before 605 he was converted to Christianity at Æthelberht's court, though he continued to maintain a pagan temple.

After Æthelberht's death in 616 Rædwald became the most powerful of the English rulers south of the River Humber, and was included in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the list of bretwaldas, or "Britain-rulers". Details of his reign are scarce, primarily because the Viking invasions of the ninth century destroyed the monasteries in East Anglia where many documents would have been kept. However, it is known that in 616 he installed Edwin as king of the Northumbrians, after fighting the battle of the River Idle on Edwin's behalf: Æthelfrith, king of Northumbria was killed in the battle, along with Rædwald's son, Rægenhere.

Rædwald is the most favoured identification for the famous Sutton Hoo ship-burial, though other theories have been advanced. He died at some point in the mid-620s, perhaps in 624.

Historical context

The state of Anglo-Saxon England at the start of the seventh century.

By the beginning of the seventh century, southern England was almost entirely under the control of the Anglo-Saxons. These peoples, who are known to have included Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians, began to arrive in Britain in the fifth century, and by 600 kingdoms had begun to form in the conquered territories.

During Raedwald’s youth, the ruling houses of other kingdoms were becoming strongly established. Æthelberht of Kent (ruled c 590-616) was married to Bertha, the Christian daughter of the powerful Frankish ruler Charibert of Paris; he had eclipsed Ceawlin of Wessex, who had been the dominant southern king before him, some time around the beginning of his reign.

North of the River Humber the two kingdoms of Deira (approximately where modern Yorkshire is now) and the more northerly Bernicia (approximately equivalent to modern Northumberland) had rival dynasties. Ælle of Deira ruled until his death in 588, leaving a daughter Acha and son Edwin and another sibling. The Bernician dynasty (allied by kinship to Wessex) was gaining ascendancy, and Edwin grew up in exile in the court of Cadfan ap Iago of Gwynedd. In various wars the Bernician Aethelfrith consolidated the Northumbrian state, and in c. 604 brought Deira under his own dominion.

Sources

There are few surviving written sources for the period for any of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, but East Anglia has less documentary evidence than most. There is no reason to believe that East Anglian monks and scribes produced less work than elsewhere. Instead, the paucity of sources is almost certainly caused by the great Viking invasions of the ninth century, which devastated East Anglia, and probably destroyed any books or charters that may have been kept there.

The earliest and most substantial source for Rædwald’s life is the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731 by Bede, a Northumbrian monk. Later chroniclers, such as Roger of Wendover give information about East Anglian events, but it has been suggested that the annalistic format forced these writers to make guesses at dates for key events. These later sources are therefore treated with caution. However, it is also thought possible that these dates are derived from an older series of annals, though some contradictory dates indicate there may be some confusion of sources. The Anglian Collection, which dates from the late eighth century, contains an East Anglian genealogical tally; however, it does not include Rædwald. There is however a passage in the anonymous Whitby life of Gregory the Great which refers to Rædwald.

Ancestry, accession, and chronology

The Historia Brittonum tells us that the first king to rule in East Anglia was Wehha. It was Wehha’s son, Wuffa, who gave his name to the dynasty, though: they were known to Bede as the Wuffingas. According to Bede, Rædwald’s father, Tytila, was the son of Wuffa. Neither source gives a date for these early reigns, but a later chronicler, Roger of Wendover, states that Wuffa was reigning in 571 and that Tytila’s reign began in 578. There is no accession date given for Rædwald, but his date of death is given as both 599 and 624. It seems probable that the the first date should be that of Tytila’s death, and thus of Rædwald’s accession.

The Anglian collection does not list Rædwald, instead placing Eni on the list after Tytila. The most likely explanation is that Eni was Rædwald's younger brother, and never reigned as king; later kings were descended from Eni because Rædwald's line was extinguished.

The name of Raedwald’s wife has not survived, though it is known from Bede that she was pagan. By her Raedwald had two children, Rægenhere and Eorpwald. A third and older son, Sigeberht, may have been their child, but William of Malmesbury reports that Sigeberht was Rædwald’s stepson. It is possible that Sigeberht’s father was a member of the East Saxon dynasty, as it resembles the names of that royal family. Sigeberht was later driven into exile in Gaul by Rædwald; the reason is unknown, but it may have been to protect the accession of Rædwald’s own bloodline.

Relationship with Æthelberht and Kent

The entry for 827 in the [C] ms. (one of the Abingdon manuscripts) of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, listing the eight bretwaldas. Rædwald's name can be seen as the fourth word on the sixth line.

At Rædwald’s accession, the dominant king in southern England was Æthelberht of Kent, who is recorded by Bede as the third king to have held overlordship over the other southern kingdoms. In the entry for the year 827, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle names the same kings as Bede does, with one addition, and refers to them as bretwaldas. There has been much scholarly discussion about the meaning of this term: it has been described as a term of "encomiastic poetry", but there is also evidence that it implied a definite role of military leadership.

A king who was the overlord of other kings may have been a military leader, and a protector, but would also have been in a position to demand tribute from lesser kings. Æthelberht’s relationship with Rædwald is uncertain: the usual interpretation of a rather unclear passage in Bede is that Rædwald retained military leadership of his own people even while Æthelwald was bretwalda. This would imply that Rædwald retained some independence from Æthelberht even at the height of Kentish strength. However, an alternative interpretation of the same passage of Bede is that Æthelberht was Rædwald’s overlord even to the extent of taking military leadership of the East Anglians: this would imply the reverse, that Rædwald was very much under Æthelberht’s overlordship.

In 597, Augustine arrived in Kent; he had been sent by Pope Gregory the Great on a mission to convert the Anglo-Saxons. Æthelberht was converted by 601 at the latest, and Bede reports that Rædwald was also persuaded to become Christian, apparently while he was at Æthelberht’s court. The date is not known, but Augustine is reported to have founded a church near Ely in 605, so Rædwald’s conversion is likely to have been before that date. Bede reports that his wife and "certain perverse advisers" intervened, with the result that Rædwald maintained both a Christian altar and a pagan altar in the same temple. It may be that he did not wish to be converted at the urging of Æthelberht, as this would have been tantamount to an acknowledgement of Æthelberht’s overlordship. Æthelberht himself may have delayed his own conversion until Augustine arrived for the same reasons, as converting at the request of the Frankish king, whose daughter, Bertha, he had married, would have similarly acknowledged his subordinate position.

Edwin and the battle of the River Idle

Æthelberht died in 616 (or possibly 618), and then or at some time thereafter Rædwald became the dominant king of southern England. Also in 616, according to a dramatic story related by Bede, Rædwald became involved with Northumbrian affairs. Æthelfrith, the king of Northumbria, was of the Bernician line, and in attempting to extinguish the Deiran claim to the throne had persecuted Edwin, who was the Deiran heir. Edwin went into exile "in many lands and kingdoms", and finally took refuge with Rædwald but Æthelfrith repeatedly sent messengers to East Anglia, offering ever larger rewards for Edwin’s death. Finally Rædwald agreed to either kill Edwin or give him up to Æthelfrith, but a friend of Edwin’s discovered this and went secretly to Edwin to tell him of his danger. The friend tried to persuade Edwin to escape, but Edwin refused, saying that he would not betray his agreement with Rædwald, and that in any case there was nowhere left where he could take refuge.

The next morning, after a vision that was later influential in converting him to Christianity, Edwin learned that Rædwald had been persuaded by his queen not to give up Edwin to Æthelfrith. Instead, Rædwald raised an army and marched north, meeting Æthelfrith’s forces at the battle of the River Idle. A medieval chronicler, Henry of Huntingdon, records that Æthelfrith scorned the forces arrayed before him, and attacked recklessly, killing Rædwald’s son, Rægenhere; but Rædwald prevailed and Æthelfrith was defeated and killed. In placing Edwin on the throne, Rædwald no doubt had Edwin in his debt, and just as Rædwald himself was reluctant to convert to Christianity at Æthelberht’s bidding, it may be that Edwin’s conversion was delayed until after Rædwald’s death to avoid acknowledging Rædwald’s overlordship.

The clash between Rædwald and Æthelfrith was more than a human drama centred on Edwin. It also foreshadowed the struggle for supremacy between the Anglian territories north of the Thames. It is likely that the vast territory covered by the Anglian peoples, from the Thames to the border of Scotland, took a great deal of time to settle into well-defined kingdoms, and the formation of those kingdoms led inevitably to the struggle for primacy amongst their rulers.

Relations with other kingdoms

Rædwald’s assistance to Edwin gave him a degree of influence in Northumbria which had not previously been achieved by any southern king. Relations with other kingdoms are less well known, but in Kent, Rædwald was influential enough to be able to limit the effectiveness of Laurentius, the Archbishop of Canterbury. However, there is also evidence of some degree of continued Kentish independence from East Anglia under Eadbald.

Rædwald almost certainly was in command of the territory of the Middle Angles, to the west of East Anglia, by the time he fought Æthelfrith in 616. His relationship with Mercia is less clear, though it is fairly certain that Mercia was not dominated by Northumbria in 616, since Edwin had married the son of King Cearl of Mercia by the time he arrived at Rædwald’s court. Edwin's marriage may even have been enabled by Rædwald's protection.

Bede styles Rædwald "Rex Anglorum", or "King of the Angles", but this is capable of more than one interpretation. This may have referred to the entire Anglian territories, including both Northumbria and the Middle Angles as well as East Anglia, but it is also a possible error on Bede's part. It should also be noted that later kings of East Anglia, into the ninth century, used the title "Rex Anglorum" on their coins, without implying that their authority extended beyond their own territory.

Though Rædwald was clearly a dominant king, and East Anglia in his time was a powerful state, it seems most plausible that as with the previous bretwaldas his hegemony did not extend over all of southern England. Instead it should be seen as a broadly regional dominance, overstated in subsequent accounts.

Sutton Hoo

Parade helmet of spangenhelm type found at Sutton Hoo, similar to those of Vendel Age Sweden. Sutton Hoo may mark Raedwald's burial place.

In 1939, a mound in Sutton Hoo was discovered to contain an Anglo-Saxon burial of unparalleled richness. The mound enclosed a ship, twenty-seven metres long, which had seen use on the seas, and had been repaired. In the centre of the ship was a chamber which contained a remarkable assemblage of jewelry and other rich grave goods, including silver bowls, drinking vessels, clothing, and weaponry. One unusual item was a large and apparently unused whetstone "sceptre": it has been suggested that this was a symbol of the office of bretwalda. The gold and garnet body-equipment was produced for a patron employing a goldsmith the equal or better than any in Europe, and was designed to project an image of imperial power. The Mediterranean silverware in the grave is a unique assemblage for its period in Europe.

It will probably never be known for certain who this was, but Rædwald is the most likely candidate. The inclusion of bowls and spoons which have been interpreted as baptismal gifts does not conflict with the story of Raedwald’s conversion. Coins found in the burial have been dated to the 620s, and the date of Rædwald’s death, though uncertain, is known to be in the mid-620s. There are alternative explanations: the grave may be that of a wealthy status-seeker, rather than a king, though Rendlesham, a known residence of the East Anglian kings, is only four miles away, and this makes it more likely that the buried man had royal blood. It must also be noted that there was another ship-burial at Sutton Hoo, in a nearby mound; this burial had been looted centuries earlier but is thought to have been of comparable richness to the surviving grave; the plundered grave appears to be earlier than the surviving one. An additional difficulty is that recent dating work on the coins makes it likely that some of them date to the period 626-629, which is later than the latest likely date for Rædwald's death.

Swedish cultural influence has been detected at Sutton Hoo: there are strong similarities in both the armour and the burial with Vendel-age Sweden. It has been suggested that the connection is close enough to imply that the East Anglian dynasty came from that area of Sweden. However, there are also significant differences, and exact parallels with the workmanship and style of the Sutton Hoo artefacts cannot be found elsewhere; as a result the connection is generally regarded as unproven.

Trade & Foreign Connections

It was during Rædwald's time that Ipswich, then known as Gipeswic, became the primary point of arrival and departure for trade by sea. However, there are no documentary references to trade in anything other than luxuries earlier than the late seventh century. However, there is archaeological evidence that Rendlesham, near Sutton Hoo, was the centre of a pottery industry in the early seventh century, the products of which have been found across East Anglia and into the territory of the Middle Angles. There is also evidence of trade with the Rhineland, and to a lesser extent with Neustria.

No coins were minted in East Anglia during Rædwald’s reign, but Merovingian gold thrymsas did circulate in East Anglia before Rædwald’s death. It was these coins that were found at Sutton Hoo. There were thirty-seven of them (and three blanks), and it is noteworthy that every one of them was minted at a different Frankish mint. It is thought very likely that there was some degree of connection between Rædwald and the Merovingians, as there are other indications of a Frankish connection. Sigeberht, one of Rædwald’s sons, has a name that has no Anglian parallels but is similar to contemporary Frankish names. As noted above, it could be that Sigeberht was the child of an East Saxon, a previous husband of Rædwald's wife; but it may also be that Rædwald took a Frankish wife. This theory is supported by the fact that Sigeberht fled to Gaul when Rædwald exiled him.

Death and succession; East Anglia after Raedwald

Rædwald’s death can be located only within a few years. He must have reigned for some time after Æthelberht’s death in order for him to have been noted as a bretwalda. On the other hand, it seems probable that he died before Edwin converted to Christianity in 627, and also before Paulinus became bishop of Northumbria in 625. His death is recorded by Roger of Wendover twice, in 599 and in 624; this history dates from the thirteenth century, but appears to include earlier annals of unknown origin and reliability. The earlier date has been explained as a mistaken reference to the death of Rædwald’s father, Tytila; the latter date is commonly given as Rædwald’s date of death, though there can be no certainty.

Rædwald was succeeded by his son Eorpwald, who was a pagan at his accession, though he was later persuaded to convert by Edwin. After a possible usurpation by one Ricberht, of whom nothing further is known, Sigeberht became king; Sigeberht had been baptized while in Gaul, and brought Christianity back to East Anglia when he took the throne.

References

• Bede. Ecclesiastical History of the English People with Bede's Letter to Egbert and Cuthbert's Letter on the Death of Bede (London 1990) ISBN 0-14-0444565-X.
• R.L.S. Bruce-Mitford, Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology: Sutton Hoo and other discoveries (London 1974).
• R.L.S. Bruce-Mitford, The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial (Vol I) (London 1975).
• J. Campbell, The Anglo-Saxons (London, 1991). ISBN 0-14-014395-5
• J. Campbell, The Impact of the Sutton Hoo Discovery, in The Anglo-Saxon State (Hambledon & London, London, 2000). ISBN 1-85285-176-7
• D. Dumville, 1976, The Anglian Collection of royal genealogies and regnal lists, Anglo-Saxon England 5, 23-50.
• N.J. Higham, Raedwald, in M. Lapidge et al (eds), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England (Blackwell, London 1999). ISBN 0-631-22492-0
• P. Hunter Blair, An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge 1959).
• P. Hunter Blair, Roman Britain and Early England: 55 B.C. – A.D. 871 (New York 1966).
• D.P. Kirby, The Earliest English Kings (London 1991).
• M. Lapidge, The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford 2001).
• S. Newton, The origins of Beowulf and the Pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia (Cambridge 1993).
• S. Newton, The Reckoning of King Raedwald (Brightlingsea 2003).
• S. Plunkett, Suffolk in Anglo-Saxon Times (Tempus 2005).
• F.M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (London 1971).
• F.M. Stenton, 1959, The East Anglian Kings in the seventh century, in P. Clemoes (ed.), The Anglo-Saxons: Studies presented to Bruce Dickens (London 1959).
• M. Swanton, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (New York 1996).
• B. Yorke, Kings and kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England (London 1990).