Rædwald (, ; 'power in counsel'), also written as Raedwald or Redwald (), (died c. 624) was a king of East Anglia, an Anglo-Saxon kingdom which included the present-day English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. He was the son of Tytila of East Anglia and a member of the Wuffingas dynasty (named after his grandfather, Wuffa), who were the first kings of the East Angles. Details about Rædwald's reign are scarce, primarily because the Viking invasions of the 9th century destroyed the monasteries in East Anglia where many documents would have been kept. Rædwald reigned from about 599 until his death around 624, initially under the overlordship of Æthelberht of Kent. In 616, as a result of fighting the Battle of the River Idle and defeating Æthelfrith of Northumbria, he was able to install Edwin, who was acquiescent to his authority, as the new king of Northumbria. During the battle, both Æthelfrith and Rædwald's son, Rægenhere, were killed.
From around 616 Rædwald was the most powerful of the English kings south of the Humber estuary. According to Bede, he was the fourth ruler to hold imperium over other southern Anglo-Saxon kingdoms: he was referred to in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, written centuries after his death, as a bretwalda (an Old English term meaning 'Britain-ruler' or 'wide-ruler'). He was the first king of the East Angles to become a Christian, converting at Æthelberht's court some time before 605, while also maintaining a pagan temple. He helped Christianity to survive in East Anglia during the apostasy of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Essex and Kent. Historians consider him the most likely occupant of the Sutton Hoo ship-burial, although other theories have been advanced. A smaller ship-burial was also discovered in 1998 close to the original Sutton Hoo site, which is thought to have contained the body of his son Rægenhere, who died in battle in 616.
Sources The kingdom of East Anglia () was a small independent Anglo-Saxon kingdom that comprised what are now the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and perhaps the eastern part of the Cambridgeshire Fens. Much less documentary evidence survives from East Anglia than from other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The historian Barbara Yorke argues that East Anglia almost certainly produced a similar range of written materials, but they were destroyed during the Viking conquest in the 9th century.Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England, p. 58
Rædwald is the first king of the East Angles of whom more than a name is known, though no details of his life before his accession are known.Hoggett, The Archaeology of the East Anglian Conversion, pp. 28–30 The earliest and most substantial source for Rædwald is the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People), completed in 731 by Bede, a Northumbrian monk. Bede placed Rædwald's reign between the advent of the Gregorian mission to Kent in 597 and the marriage and conversion of Edwin of Northumbria during 625–626.
Later medieval chroniclers, such as Roger of Wendover, gave some information about East Anglian events, but Yorke suggests that the annalistic format used forced these writers to guess the dates of the key events they recorded. Such later sources are therefore treated with caution. The Anglian collection, which dates from the late 8th century, contains an East Anglian genealogical tally, but Rædwald is not included.Plunkett, Suffolk in Anglo-Saxon Times, p. 70 'Regnal lists' , by David E. Thornton, in Rædwald is however referred to in the 8th century Vita of St Gregory the Great, written by a member of the religious community at Whitby.Lapidge, The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England, p. 385 The Battle of the River Idle, in which Rædwald and his forces defeated the Northumbrians, is described in the 12th century Historia Anglorum, written by Henry of Huntingdon.The chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon, comprising the history of England, from the invasion of Julius Cæsar to the accession of Henry II. Also, The acts of Stephen, king of England and duke of Normandy, translated by Thomas Forrester, is available to read online
The context of Rædwald's kingdom
The Anglo-Saxons, who are known to have included Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians, began to arrive in Britain in the 5th century. By 600, a number of kingdoms had begun to form in the conquered territories.Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England, p. 1 By the beginning of the 7th century, the southern part of what became England was almost entirely under their control.Hunter Blair, Roman Britain and Early England: 55 B.C. – A.D. 871, p. 204. Peter Hunter Blair gives the twenty-five years from 550 to 575 as the dates of the final conquest.
During Rædwald's youth, the establishment of other ruling houses was accomplished. Sometime before 588, Æthelberht of Kent married Bercta, the Christian daughter of the Frankish ruler Charibert I. As early as 568, Ceawlin of Wessex, the most powerful ruler south of the Humber estuary, repulsed Æthelberht.Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, p. 105 According to later sources, Mercia was founded by Creoda in 585, although a paucity of sources makes it difficult to know how the Mercian royal line became established.Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England, p. 102
North of the Humber, the kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia possessed rival royal dynasties. Ælla ruled Deira until his death in 588, leaving his daughter Acha, his son Edwin, and another unknown sibling.Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 74–77Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, iii, pp. 152–153 The Bernician dynasty, allied by kinship to the kingdom of Wessex, gained ascendancy over Deira, forcing Edwin to live in exile in the court of Cadfan ap Iago of Gwynedd. In various wars, Æthelfrith of Bernicia consolidated the Northumbrian state, and in around 604 he was able to bring Deira under his dominion.
Family Rædwald, which in Old English means 'power in counsel',Bosworth, A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language, p. 286 was born around 560–580. The son of Tytila, whom he succeeded, he was the elder brother of Eni. According to Bede, he was descended from Wuffa, the founder of the Wuffingas dynasty: filius Tytili, cuius pater fuit UUffa ('the son of Tytil, whose father was Wuffa').Kirby, The Earliest English Kings, p. 52Newton, The Origins of Beowulf and the Pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia, p. 78
At some time during the 590s, Rædwald married a woman whose name is unknown, though it is known from Bede that she was pagan.Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, II.15 By her he fathered at least two sons, Rægenhere and Eorpwald. He also had an older son, Sigeberht, whose name is unlike other Wuffingas names but which is typical of the East Saxon dynasty. It has been suggested that Rædwald's queen had previously been married to a member of the Essex royal family and that Sigeberht was Rædwald's stepson, as was stated by William of Malmesbury in the 12th century.Plunkett, Suffolk in Anglo-Saxon Times, pp. 99–100 Sigeberht earned the enmity of his step-father, who drove him into exile in Gaul, possibly to protect the Wuffingas bloodline.Plunkett, Suffolk in Anglo-Saxon Times, p. 72
For a family tree that includes the descendants of Eni, see Wuffingas.
Early reign and baptism
In 597 in the early years of Rædwald's reign Augustine of Canterbury arrived on mission from Rome, leading to the conversion of the bretwalda Æthelberht of Kent as well as Saeberht of Essex, and the establishment of new bishoprics in their kingdoms.Lapidge, The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 52, 174
Bede states that Rædwald also converted to Christianity,When relating the conversion of Rædwald's son Eorpwald in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, mentioned that Rædwald received the Christian sacraments in Kent. Lapidge, The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England, p. 385 presumably at the invitation of Æthelberht who may have been his baptismal sponsor. The date of his conversion is unknown, but it is likely to have been around 604 or later. Since it is claimed that Augustine, who died in about 605, dedicated a church near Ely, it may have swiftly followed Saebert's conversion in 604. Rædwald's marriage to a member of the royal dynasty of Essex helped form a diplomatic alliance between the neighbouring kingdoms of East Anglia and Essex. His conversion in Kent would have affiliated him with Æthelberht, bringing him directly into the sphere of Kent.Plunkett, Suffolk in Anglo-Saxon Times, p. 79
Bede describes Rædwald's relationship with Æthelberht in an ambiguous passage which implies that Rædwald retained ducatus, or military command of his people, while Æthelberht held imperium.Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Book I, Ch. 25 & 26, from Sherley-Price's translation, p. 111. This implies that being a bretwalda usually included holding the military command of other kingdoms and also that it was more than that, since Æthelberht is bretwalda despite Rædwald's control of his own troops.Kirby, Earliest English Kings, p. 17. Rædwald did not fully abandon his pagan beliefs which together with the fact that he retained military independence, implies that Æthelberht's overlordship of East Anglia was much weaker than his influence with the East Saxons.Kirby, Earliest English Kings, p. 37.Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, p. 62. An alternative interpretation, however, is that the passage in Bede should be translated as "Rædwald, king of the East Angles, who while Æthelberht lived, even conceded to him the military leadership of his people"; if this is Bede's intent, then East Anglia firmly was under Æthelberht's overlordship."Rædwald", N. J. Higham, in Lapidge, Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England.
In East Anglia, Rædwald's conversion was not universally accepted by his household or his own queen. According to the historian Steven Plunkett, she and her pagan teachers persuaded him to default in part from his commitment to the Christian faith.Plunkett, Suffolk in Anglo-Saxon Times, pp. 74–75 As a result, he kept in the temple two altars, one dedicated to pagan gods and the other to Christ. Bede, writing decades later, described how Ealdwulf of East Anglia, a grandson of Rædwald's brother Eni, recalled seeing the temple when he was a boy. It may have been located at Rendlesham, emerging focus of the regio of the Wuffing dynasty, according to Plunkett.Plunkett, Suffolk in Anglo-Saxon Times, pp. 75–76 Barbara Yorke argues that Rædwald was not willing to fully embrace Christianity because conversion via Æthelberht would have been acknowledgment of an inferior status to the Kentish king.Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England, p. 160 Rædwald's lack of commitment towards Christianity earned him the enmity of Bede, who regarded him as a renouncer of the faith.
Rædwald and Edwin of Northumbria Edwin's exile