Everything about Anna Of East Anglia totally explained
Anna was a mid-
7th century King of East Anglia. He was the nephew of
Raedwald of East Anglia, and probably the second of the sons of
Eni, Raedwald's brother, to hold the kingdom, ruling (
c.
636–
653/
654).
Family
Anna is always referred to by this name, though it may be an abbreviated or familiar form of a diathematic name. He married before becoming king, some time before 630. His wife, whose name may have been Saewara, brought to the marriage a daughter from a previous union named Saethryth. The S-alliteration of these names suggests a link with the East Saxon dynasty, a connection which had probably been established earlier through the association of
Sigeberht of East Anglia with the
Wuffinga family. Anna had four known daughters, all canonised as saints, a process in which the family took an active part:
Seaxburh of Ely (the eldest),
Aethelthryth (also called Etheldreda or Audrey), Aethelburga and Wihtburga, and a son whose name is preserved as Jurmin, possibly a modification of
Eormen. Jurmin was of warrior age in 653. Anna himself and all of his daughters became renowned for their saintly Christian virtues.
Earlier life and faith
Etheldreda's birth, in
631, is located at
Exning,
Suffolk, by tradition preserved at
Ely (
Liber Eliensis). Exning was an important place strategically, as it stood just on the East Anglian side of the
Devil's Dyke, a major earthwork stretching between the
Fen edge and the headwaters of the river
Stour, built at an earlier date to defend the East Anglian region from attack from the direction of
Cambridge or via the
Icknield Way. An Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Exning reveals that it had distinguished occupants during the sixth century. Anna may therefore have been resident there in 631 in a defensive capacity, watching the border in case of assault from
Mercia which was hostile to the newly-Christian rule of Sigeberht.
Anna was an extremely devout Christian.
Liber Eliensis attributes the establishment of a church at Cratendune, Ely, to Saint
Augustine of Canterbury (before
604). In
631 Saint
Felix was just beginning his work in
East Anglia, and he's associated with a foundation at
Soham (
Cambridgeshire), then a Fen Isle lying between Exning and Ely. Anna may therefore have experienced direct Christian teaching in this locality.
M.R. James also mentions an oral legend that Etheldreda was baptised at Exning in a pool known as St
Mindred's Well.
Emergence of Anna's rule
In 632-3
Edwin of Northumbria and his centre of Christian power in Northumbria was overthrown. Edwin was slain and Northumbria ravaged by
Cadwallon ap Cadfan supported by the Mercian armies, and Edwin's family and bishop narrowly escaped to
Kent. However King
Oswald of Northumbria emerged to restore Northumbrian authority, and Saint
Aidan was sent to
Lindisfarne to bring the Irish mission to his court. This gave him independence both from the heathen cause of Mercia and the Roman ecclesiastical authority of
Canterbury in Kent. At about the same time
Saint Fursey came to East Anglia from
Ireland.
The Mercians, led by
Penda, then turned on East Anglia and slew Sigeberht and Ecgric, and routed the East Anglian army. Anna recovered East Anglian rule and must have relied upon the support of Oswald to sustain it. Felix remained his bishop at
Dommoc until his death in c
647. Anna arranged a very important diplomatic marriage between his daughter Seaxburh and King
Eorcenberht of Kent (r.
640-
664), cementing an alliance between the kingdoms. During the 640s Anna's daughter Aethelburga and stepdaughter Saethryth were sent to
Faremoutiers Abbey in
Gaul to live religious lives under abbess
Fara. Probably in consequence of this a holy man named Botolph (
Saint Botolph), reputedly a chaplain at Faremoutiers, was granted lands in c 647 for monastic use in East Anglia, but his work was delayed by conflicts in the kingdom.
Patronage of Cenwalh of Wessex
In
641 Oswald was slain by Penda in battle (probably at
Oswestry,
Shropshire), and Oswine of Northumbria succeeded him as king. Soon afterwards King
Cenwalh of Wessex, whose sister was Oswald's widow, but was himself married to the sister of Penda, renounced his wife. In c
644 Penda drove Cenwalh out of Wessex, and he took refuge with King Anna for three years. During that time he was converted to Christianity. This was probably through the teaching of Saint Felix, who according to William of Malmesbury baptised him, presumably with King Anna as his sponsor. Then with Anna's help he returned to rule Wessex as a Christian king in
647.
Saint Hilda's visit to Anna's kingdom
Also in
647 Hild (
Saint Hilda), a grand-niece of King Edwin's who was baptised with him in
626 and had been encouraged by Saint Aidan, came to the East Anglian court intending to join her sister Hereswith. Hereswith had married AEthilric, brother of Anna (possibly Ecgric of East Anglia), but now a widow she'd already left for a religious life in Gaul. Hild remained in East Anglia for a year, until recalled by Aidan to Northumbria to run the monastery at
Hartlepool.
Dynastic incorporation of Ely into East Anglia
Anna's hold on the western limits of his kingdom would have been strengthened by the marriage of his daughter
Æthelthryth to Tondberht, a prince of the South
Gyrwas, in 651, or perhaps slightly later. Ely has since been considered part of East Anglia. At Ely, Æthelthryth had a minister named Owini, who later accompanied her to Northumbria during her second marriage. Thomas, another fenman, became Anna's second bishop at
Dommoc, between
647 and
652. His religious education, like Anna's, may have been rooted in early foundations of
Augustine or
Felix in the Ely area.
Mercian assault on Cnobheresburg
Anna endowed Fursey's monastery at Cnobheresburg (possibly
Burgh Castle) with rich buildings and objects. In time St Fursey, growing weary of attacks on the kingdom, followed one of his brothers into a hermitage, leaving the monastery at Cnobheresburg to his brother
Foillan, and a year later went into Gaul. In 651 Penda struck again, attacking Foillan's monastery. Anna arrived on the scene with his force in time to hold them off while the monks escaped to
Nivelles in Gaul by ship, but was himself defeated and driven into exile.
King Anna's exile
Anna possibly took refuge in the area of western Shropshire, the kingdom of
Merewalh of the Magonsaetan. His friendship with Merewalh's family may account for the attachment of land-revenues from sites in Shropshire to the foundation of
Iken, which commenced in 654. It may also explain the early conversion of Merewalh to Christianity, at or before the time of the Northumbrian mission to Mercia. Anna returned to East Anglia in c
653. By then Bishop Thomas had died, and Berhtgisl Boniface came from Kent as his successor. Anna's daughter Wihtburga was probably born in his last years.
Battle of Bulcamp, c.653
In about 653, Penda had set his son
Peada as ruler of the
Middle Angles, located between north
Oxfordshire, the
river Trent, and
the Fens. Peada became Christian through his marriage to Alhflaed, daughter of
Oswiu of Northumbria, and a mission was sent from Northumbria to the Middle Angles. Peada's father Penda didn't convert, but permitted the teaching of Christianity. Soon afterwards the assault of 651 was repeated: Penda with his armies met Anna at Bulcamp, near
Blythburgh in
Suffolk, and in a set battle defeated the East Anglian army and slew many of them, including Anna and his son Jurmin.
Burial place
Blythburgh a mile from Bulcamp was afterwards believed to be the place of that name where the tomb of Anna and Jurmin was pointed out and venerated. The identification is likely, because Blythburgh occupies a defensible position near the fordable headwaters of the
Blyth estuary flowing towards the sea at
Southwold, comparable to
Rendlesham as a typical site for a royal dwelling of that period. Part of an 8th century whalebone
diptych used for liturgical purposes has been found near the site.
Botolph began to build his monastery at Icanho (Iken, Suffolk) in the year that Anna was killed.
Sources
- Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
- Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, Ed. B. Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford 1969), iii.7,8,18,19; iv, 19.
- E.O. Blake (ed.), 1962, Liber Eliensis (Camden 3s, 92).
- M.R. James, Suffolk and Norfolk (London 1930).
- S. Plunkett, Suffolk in Anglo-Saxon Times (Tempus 2005).
- L. Webster and J. Backhouse, The Making of England. Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600-900 (London 1991)
- S.E. West, N.Scarfe and R.J. Cramp, 1984, 'Iken, St Botolph, and the Coming of East Anglian Christianity', Proc. Suffolk Inst of Archaeol 16.
- D. Whitelock, 1972, 'The Pre-Viking Age Church in East Anglia,'Anglo-Saxon England I.
- B. Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (London 1990).
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