The Bishop of Dunwich is an episcopal title which was first used by an

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

bishop between the seventh and ninth centuries and is currently used by the suffragan bishop of the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. The title takes its name after

Dunwich Dunwich () is a village and civil parish in Suffolk, England. It is in the Suffolk & Essex Coast & Heaths National Landscape around north-east of London, south of Southwold and north of Leiston, on the North Sea coast. In the Anglo-Saxon ...

in the English county of

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

. Previously a significant port, this town has now largely been lost to the sea. In about 630 or 631 a

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, prov ...

was established by St. Felix for the

Kingdom of the East Angles The Kingdom of the East Angles (; ), informally known as the Kingdom of East Anglia, was a small independent kingdom of the Angles during the Anglo-Saxon period comprising what are now the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and perhaps ...

, with his

episcopal seat A cathedral is a church that contains the of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominations with an episcop ...

initially, briefly established at

Soham Soham ( ) is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the district of East Cambridgeshire, in Cambridgeshire, England, just off the A142 road, A142 between Ely, Cambridgeshire, Ely and Newmarket, Suffolk, Newmarket. Its population ...

before being transferred to

on the

coast. There is a possibility the unidentified Dommoc may be Dunwich, but this is yet to be proved. In 672 the diocese was divided into the sees of Dunwich and Elmham by St. Theodore,

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the Primus inter pares, ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the bishop of the diocese of Canterbury. The first archbishop ...

. The line of bishops of Dunwich continued until it was interrupted by the Danish

Viking Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...

invasions in the late ninth and early tenth centuries. By the mid 950s the sees of Dunwich and Elmham were reunited under one bishop, with the

episcopal see An episcopal see is the area of a bishop's ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Phrases concerning actions occurring within or outside an episcopal see are indicative of the geographical significance of the term, making it synonymous with ''diocese'' ...

at Elmham.

List of bishops

Footnotes

* The current list of Anglo-Saxon bishops is primarily compiled by the 3rd edition of the ''Handbook of British Chronology''. The earlier 2nd edition mentioned two others: Alric, probably bishop of Dunwich and Husa, bishop of Dunwich or Elmham. These two are no longer considered to have been bishops and as such are not listed in the 3rd edition.

References

External links

{{Bishops of Dunwich (ancient)