| Æthelberht II | |
|---|---|
| King of East Anglia | |
Æthelberht, depicted in a mediaeval brass in Hereford Cathedral |
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| Died | May 20 794 |
| Place of death | Sutton Walls, Herefordshire |
| Sainthood | ||
|---|---|---|
| Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church, Anglican Communion | |
| Major shrine | previously at Hereford Cathedral | |
| Commemorated | 20 May | |
| Saints Portal | ||
Æthelberht (Old English: Æðelbrihte), also called Saint Ethelbert the King, (died 20 May 794 at Sutton Walls, Herefordshire) was an eight century saint and a king of East Anglia, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom which today includes the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. Little is known of his reign, which may have begun in 779, according to later sources. It is known from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that he was killed on the orders of Offa of Mercia in 794.
He was subsequently canonised and became the focus of cults in East Anglia and at Hereford, where the shrine of the saintly king once existed. In the absence of historical facts, mediaeval chroniclers provided their own details for Æthelberht's ancestry, life as king and death at the hands of Offa. His feast day is May 20. Several Norfolk, Suffolk and West Country parish churches are dedicated to the saint.
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Little is known of Æthelberht's life or reign, as very few East Anglian records have survived from this period. Mediaeval chroniclers have provided dubious accounts of his life, in the absence of any real details. According to Richard of Cirencester, writing in the fifteenth century, Æthelberht's parents were Æthelred I of East Anglia and Leofrana of Mercia. Richard narrates in detail a story of Æthelberht's piety, election as king and wise rule. Urged to marry against his will, he apparently agreed to wed Eadburh, the daughter of Offa of Mercia, and set out to visit her, despite his mother's forebodings and his experiences of terrifying events (an earthquake, a solar eclipse and a vision).[1]
His reign may have begun in 779, the date provided for the beginning of his reign on the uncertain authority of a much later saint's life. The absence of any East Anglian charters prevents it from being known whether Æthelberht ruled as a king or a sub-king under the power of the ruler of another kingdom. He was stopped by Offa of Mercia from minting his own coins,[2] of which only three examples have ever been found. In 793 the vulnerability of the English east coat was exposed when the monastery at Lindisfarne was looted by Vikings and a year later Jarrow was also attacked, events which Steven Plunkett reasons would ensure that the East Anglians were governed firmly. Æthelberht's claim to be a king descended from the Wuffing dynasty (suggested by the use of a Roman she-wolf and the title REX on his coins) could be because of the need from strong kingship as a result of the Viking attacks.[3]
Æthelberht was put to death by Offa of Mercia under unclear circumstances, the site of his murder was apparently the royal vill at Sutton Walls.[4] According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, he was beheaded.[5][6] Mediaeval sources tell how he was taken captive whilst visiting his future Mercian bride Ælfthyth and was then murdered and buried. In Richard of Cirencester's account of the murder, which cannot be substantiated, Offa's evil queen Cynethryth poisoned her husband's mind until he agreed to have his guest killed. Æthelberht was then bound and beheaded by a certain Grimbert and his body was unceremoniously disposed of. The mediaeval historian John Brompton's Chronicon describes how the king's detached head fell off a cart into a ditch where it was found, before it restored a blind man's sight. According to the Chronicon, Eadburh subsequently became a recluse at Crowland and her remorseful father founded monasteries, gave land to the Church and travelled on a pilgrimage to Rome.[1]
The execution of an Anglo-Saxon king on the orders of another ruler was very rare, although public hanging and beheading did occur at this time, as has been discovered at the Sutton Hoo site.[7] Æthelberht's death at the hands of the Mercians made the possibility of any peaceful union between the Anglian peoples (including Mercia) less likely than before.[8] It led to Mercia's domination of East Anglia, whose kings ruled over the kingdom for over three decades after Æthelberht's death.
After his death, Æthelberht was canonised by the Church. He became the subject of a series of vitae that date from the eleventh century and was venerated in religious cults in both East Anglia and at Hereford. The Anglo-Saxon church of the episcopal estate at Hoxne was one of several dedicated to Æthelberht in Suffolk,[9] a possible indication of the existence of a religious cult devoted to the saintly king.[10] Only three dedications for Æthelberht are near where he died - Marden, Hereford Cathedral and Littledean - the other eleven being in Norfolk or Suffolk. Lawrence Butler has argued that this unusual pattern may be explained by the existence of a royal cult in East Anglia, which represented a "revival of Christianity after the Danish settlement by commemorating a politically 'safe' and corporeally distant local ruler".[11]
The Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Ethelbert are joint patrons of the cathedral at Hereford, where the music for the Office of St Ethelbert survives in the thirteenth-century Hereford Breviary.
In East Anglia, St. Ethelbert's Gate is one of the two main entrances to the precinct of Norwich Cathedral. The chapel at Albrightestone, at a location near an important excavated Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Boss Hall in Ipswich, was dedicated to St. Ethelbert. The Norfolk parish churches at Alby, East Wretham, Larling, Thurton, Mundham and Burnham Sutton (where there are remains of the ruined church) and the Suffolk churches at Falkenham, Hessett, Herringswell and Tannington are dedicated to the saint.
| Preceded by Æthelred I |
King of East Anglia | Succeeded by Offa of Mercia |
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