Sicga (died 22 February 793) (also given as Siga and Sigha) was a nobleman in the

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 ...

kingdom of

Northumbria Northumbria () was an early medieval Heptarchy, kingdom in what is now Northern England and Scottish Lowlands, South Scotland. The name derives from the Old English meaning "the people or province north of the Humber", as opposed to the Sout ...

. Sicga first appears in the historical record as senior lay witness to the proceedings of a council held by

Papal Legate 300px, A woodcut showing Henry II of England greeting the Pope's legate. A papal legate or apostolic legate (from the ancient Roman title '' legatus'') is a personal representative of the Pope to foreign nations, to some other part of the Catho ...

, George, Bishop of Ostia in 786, where he is called a ''patrician'' (''Sigha patricius''), a term which may correspond with the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

term

ealdorman Ealdorman ( , )"ealdorman"
''Collins English Dictionary''. was an office in the Government ...

. The ''

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the ninth century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of ...

'' records the murder of King Ælfwald by Sigca at ''Scythlecester'' (which may be modern Chesters) on 23 September 788:

This year Elwald, king of the Northumbrians, was slain by Siga, on the eleventh day before the calends of October; and a heavenly light was often seen on the spot where he was slain. He was buried in the church of Hexham.

Sicga's death, on 22 February 793, is recorded by the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,'' and

Symeon of Durham __NOTOC__ Symeon (or Simeon) of Durham (fl. c.1090 to c. 1128 ) was an English chronicler and a monk of Durham Priory. Biography Symeon was a Benedictine monk at Durham Cathedral at the end of the eleventh century. He may have been one of 23 mo ...

adds that he died by

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Risk factors for suicide include mental disorders, physical disorders, and substance abuse. Some suicides are impulsive acts driven by stress (such as from financial or ac ...

. In spite of this, and the fact that he was a

regicide Regicide is the purposeful killing of a monarch or sovereign of a polity and is often associated with the usurpation of power. A regicide can also be the person responsible for the killing. The word comes from the Latin roots of ''regis'' ...

, Sicga was buried at the monastery of

Lindisfarne Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island, is a tidal island off the northeast coast of England, which constitutes the civil parishes in England, civil parish of Holy Island in Northumberland. Holy Island has a recorded history from the 6th centu ...

.Yorke, p. 242; Williams, p. 14.

Citations

Bibliography

*Dümmler, Ernst, et al., ''

Monumenta Germaniae Historica The (Latin for "Historical Monuments of Germany"), frequently abbreviated MGH, is a comprehensive series of carefully edited and published primary sources, both chronicle and archival, for the study of parts of Northwestern, Central and Souther ...

: Epistolae Karolini aevi (II)''. Reprinted 1995. (etext online a
Digital MGH
*Kirby, D.P., ''The Earliest English Kings.'' London: Unwin Hyman, 1991. *Williams, Ann, Smyth, Alfred P. & Kirby, D.P., ''A Biographical Dictionary of Dark-Age Britain: England, Scotland and Wales c. 500-c. 1050.'' London: Seaby, 1991. * Yorke, Barbara, ''The Conversion of Britain: Religion, Politics and Society in Britain c. 600–800.'' London: Longman, 2006. {{ISBN, 0-582-77292-3 793 deaths Year of birth unknown Anglo-Saxon ealdormen English regicides