page_title: Sigeberht of East Anglia
section_title: Foundation of the East Anglian bishopric
hierarchical_section_title: Sigeberht of East Anglia / King of the East Angles / Foundation of the East Anglian bishopric
context_page_description: Sigeberht of East Anglia, was a saint and a king of East Anglia, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom which today includes the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. He was the first English king to receive a Christian baptism and education before his succession and the first to abdicate in order to enter the monastic life. The principal source for Sigeberht is Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which was completed in the 730s.
  Sigeberht was probably either a younger son of Rædwald of East Anglia, or his step-son from Rædwald's marriage to a pagan princess from the kingdom of Essex. Nothing is known of his life before he was exiled to Gaul, which was possibly done in order to ensure that Rædwald's own descendants ruled the kingdom. After his step-brother Eorpwald's assassination in about 627, Sigeberht returned to East Anglia and became king, ruling jointly with Ecgric, who may have been either a son of Rædwald's, or his nephew.
  During Sigeberht's reign the cause of Christianity in East Anglia was advanced greatly, even though his co-ruler Ecgric probably remained a pagan.
context_section_description: Bede relates that the East Anglian apostle Saint Felix came to England from Burgundy as a missionary bishop and was sent by Honorius, Archbishop of Canterbury, to assist in establishing Christianity in Sigeberht's kingdom. William of Malmesbury had the later story that Felix accompanied Sigeberht to East Anglia. In either case, this dates Sigeberht's accession to around 629–630, because Felix was bishop for seventeen years, his successor Thomas for five and Thomas' successor Berhtgisl Boniface for seventeen – and Berhtgisl died in around 669. Sigeberht established the bishop's seat of his kingdom for Felix at Dommoc, claimed variously for Dunwich or Walton, Felixstowe (both coastal sites in Suffolk). If the seat was at Walton (as Rochester claimed during the 13th century), the site of Dommoc may have been within the precinct of a Roman fort which formerly stood there.
caption: The kingdom of East Anglia during the early Saxon period