The Wuffingas, Uffingas or Wiffings were the ruling dynasty of

East Anglia East Anglia is an area of the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, with parts of Essex sometimes also included. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, ...

, the long-lived

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 which today includes the English counties of

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

and

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 ...

. The Wuffingas took their name from Wuffa, an early East Anglian king. Nothing is known of the members of the dynasty before Rædwald, who ruled from about 599 to 624. The

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 of the 9th century and Dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century both led to the destruction of

documents A document is a written, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought, often the manifestation of non-fictional, as well as fictional, content. The word originates from the Latin ', which denotes a "teaching" or "lesson": ...

relating to the rule of the Wuffingas. The last of the Wuffingas kings was Ælfwald, who died in 749; he was succeeded by kings whose lineage is unknown.

Earliest kings of the East Angles

The

Kingdom of East Anglia The Kingdom of the East Angles (; ), informally known as the Kingdom of East Anglia, was a small independent Monarchy, kingdom of the Angles (tribe), Angles during the History of Anglo-Saxon England, Anglo-Saxon period comprising what are now t ...

was invaded by peoples from northern Europe during the 5th and 6th centuries. Historical sources relating to the genealogy of the East Anglian kings include 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 ...

'' and the 8th century English monk

Bede Bede (; ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, Bede of Jarrow, the Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable (), was an English monk, author and scholar. He was one of the most known writers during the Early Middle Ages, and his most f ...

's ''

Ecclesiastical History Church history or ecclesiastical history as an academic discipline studies the history of Christianity and the way the Christian Church has developed since its inception. Henry Melvill Gwatkin defined church history as "the spiritual side of the ...

'', both compiled many years after the kingdom was formed, as well as a pedigree of Ælfwald contained in the Anglian collection that dates from the 9th century. In the pedigree, Ælfwald is claimed to descend from the god Wōden. The earliest kings of East Anglia were known as the ''Wuffingas'', named after the semi-historical founder of the dynasty, Wuffa. Rædwald (died ) is the first of the country's kings known to have ruled. Bede identified Rædwald's father as Tytil and his grandfather as Wuffa; their respective accession dates of 571 and 578 were given by the 13th century English

chronicle A chronicle (, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events ...

r Roger of Wendover. The lists Wehha, father of Wuffa as the first of the Wuffingas, which perhaps sets the date for the origins of the dynasty to the middle of the 6th century. ''Wuffa'' is thought to mean "little wolf", suggesting that the dynastic name ''Wuffingas'' translates as "kin of the wolf", making it

etymologically Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...

the same as the Wulfings clan named in ''Beowulf'' and the Old English poem "

Widsith "Widsith" (, "far-traveller", lit. "wide-journey"), also known as "The Traveller's Song", is an Old English poem of 143 lines. It survives only in the '' Exeter Book'' (''pages 84v–87r''), a manuscript of Old English poetry compiled in the la ...

". The parallels between the

Sutton Hoo Sutton Hoo is the site of two Anglo-Saxon cemeteries dating from the 6th to 7th centuries near Woodbridge, Suffolk, England. Archaeology, Archaeologists have been excavating the area since 1938, when an undisturbed ship burial containing a wea ...

burials, which are thought to commemorate a Wuffingas king, and the Swedish burials at Vendel has led some historians, such as Rupert Bruce-Mitford to put forward a Scandinavian origin for the Wuffingas dynasty, although others regard this as unproven.Yorke, ''Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England'', p. 61

Dynasty

After 749, East Anglia was ruled either by the rulers of

Mercia Mercia (, was one of the principal kingdoms founded at the end of Sub-Roman Britain; the area was settled by Anglo-Saxons in an era called the Heptarchy. It was centred on the River Trent and its tributaries, in a region now known as the Midlan ...

, or by kings whose genealogy is not known.

Centres of royal power

, the site of two early medieval

cemeteries A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite, graveyard, or a green space called a memorial park or memorial garden, is a place where the remains of many dead people are buried or otherwise entombed. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek ) implies th ...

dating from the 6th to 7th centuries, lies along a bank of the tidal

estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime enviro ...

of the River Deben. It stands from the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

and below the lowest convenient fording place. It formed a path of entry into East Anglia during the period that followed the end of Roman imperial rule in the 5th century. The territory between the Orwell and the watersheds of the Alde and Deben rivers may have been an early centre of royal power for the Wuffingas kings, originally centred upon Rendlesham or Sutton Hoo, and a primary component in the formation of the East Anglian kingdom. In the early 7th century, Gipeswic (modern

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in Suffolk, England. It is the county town, and largest in Suffolk, followed by Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds, and the third-largest population centre in East Anglia, ...

) began its growth as a centre for foreign trade, Botolph's monastery at Iken was founded by royal grant in 654, and Bede identified Rendlesham as the site of Æthelwold's royal dwelling.

Cultural associations

The author Sam Newton has claimed that 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 ...

epic poem ''

Beowulf ''Beowulf'' (; ) is an Old English poetry, Old English poem, an Epic poetry, epic in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 Alliterative verse, alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and List of translat ...

'' may have been composed during the reign of Ælfwald. Before the end of his rule, East Anglia contained a group of ecclesiastical centres, all of which had strong associations with the Wuffingas dynasty. These included the sees at Dommoc and Helmham, Botwulf of Thorney's monastery at Icanho, the religious foundations at Ely and

Dereham Dereham (), also known historically as East Dereham, is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Breckland District of the England, English county of Norfolk. It is situated on the A47 road, about west of the city of Norwich ...

founded by daughters of Anna, the minster at Blythburgh and the monastery founded by Sigeberht prior to his abdication and subsequent death in battle.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * *

External links

Information about the Wuffingas dynasty
from Sam Newton * William of Malmesbury's ''Chronicle of the Kings of England from the earliest period to the reign of King Stephen'', Book 1, "Of the kings of the East Angles" i
English
and i
Latin
{{Royal houses of Britain and Ireland , state=collapsed East Anglian monarchs