Sigebert of East Anglia

The principal — almost the only — source for Sigebert is Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People (completed 731), II.15 and III.18–19, consulted here directly in Sellar's public-domain translation; what follows is Bede's account, with the few later accretions marked as such.

Sigebert was a kinsman of the royal house of the Wuffings: Bede calls him the brother of Eorpwald, the son and successor of King Rædwald, and elsewhere says he lived in banishment in Gaul "a fugitive from the enmity of Redwald"; William of Malmesbury in the twelfth century made him Rædwald's stepson, and the question of his exact parentage remains open. In Gaul the exile was baptized and "initiated into the mysteries of the faith," and became, in Bede's words, "a most Christian and learned man" — by the modern reckoning the first English king to come to his throne already baptized and lettered. After Eorpwald, newly converted, was slain by the pagan Ricbert, the province "was in error for three years" until Sigebert succeeded to the kingdom, about 630/631 in the conventional chronology.

As soon as he came to the throne he made it his business, Bede says, that the whole province should share the faith he had received. His exertions were nobly seconded by Felix, a bishop born and ordained in Burgundy, whom Archbishop Honorius of Canterbury sent to preach to the East Angles and whose see was fixed at Dommoc; Felix "reaped a great harvest of believers." Desiring to imitate the good institutions he had seen in Gaul, Sigebert founded a school wherein boys should be taught letters, Felix furnishing it with masters and teachers after the manner of Kent. And while he still reigned there came out of Ireland the holy man Fursey, whom the king received honourably and endowed with the ground — within the old fort called Cnobheresburg (identified in the modern literature, tentatively, with Burgh Castle) — on which Fursey built his monastery.

At length, Bede relates, the king became "so great a lover of the heavenly kingdom" that he quit the affairs of his realm, committed them to his kinsman Ecgric, who already held a share of the kingdom, entered a monastery which he had built for himself, received the tonsure, and "applied himself rather to do battle for a heavenly throne." Bede does not name the monastery; a later tradition, reported in the modern literature, identifies it with Beodricesworth, afterwards Bury St Edmunds.

"A long time after," the Mercians under King Penda made war on the East Angles. Finding themselves no match for the enemy, the East Angles entreated Sigebert to go with them to battle to encourage the soldiers; he was unwilling and refused, and they drew him against his will out of the monastery and carried him to the army, hoping the men would stand firmer in the presence of one who had once been so active and distinguished a commander. But he, "still mindful of his profession," surrounded though he was by a royal army, would carry nothing in his hand but a wand (staff), and was killed together with King Ecgric, the whole army being slaughtered or dispersed. The kingdom passed to Anna, son of Eni — himself in time slain by the same pagan king. Bede attaches no year to the battle; see the disputed questions below.

Because he was cut down unarmed, keeping his monastic profession rather than his own life, at the hands of a pagan army, Sigebert has been venerated as a martyr: the York calendar styles him "King of the East Angles and Martyr," Orthodox England records that "he was killed by the pagan King Penda of Mercia and was venerated as a martyr," and the modern literature counts him East Anglia's first martyr-king. The church he had done so much to establish endured: Bede's East Anglian see continued in unbroken succession for two centuries, until the Danish invasions of the 860s.