East Anglia

East Anglia, geographical region and historical kingdom of eastern England. The region is located north-east of London and east of Peterborough, and includes the counties of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and parts of Cambridgeshire.

The area of East Anglia is low lying and almost entirely covered with glacial deposits. Much of the area formed part of a waterlogged Fenland, but today the majority of this has been drained and reclaimed, forming some of the richest farmland in England. During its early history East Anglia gained a reputation for its wool and the manufacture of woollen products. Today this has been superseded by large-scale agriculture and market gardening. Along the coast holiday resorts now intermingle with fishing ports, with light industry dominant in many of the towns.

In its historical association, East Anglia was one of the smallest of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England, founded by the Angles in about ad 525, and corresponding more or less to the area referred to by that name today. The Venerable Bede, the Northumbrian scholar, wrote of the rulers of this easterly kingdom as “Wuffingas”, from Wuffa, grandfather of King Raedwald (died c. 625). Raedwald is the first East Anglian king of whom there is any record. The Sutton Hoo ship burial mound, unearthed near Woodbridge in Suffolk in 1939, is believed to have been the tomb of one of these kings, possibly that of Raedwald himself. It contained many gold and silver objects (now housed in the British Museum, London), evidence of the great wealth possessed by the Anglo-Saxon rulers.

In about 630 a Burgundian missionary, Felix, was sent from Canterbury to convert East Anglia to Christianity. In the meantime King Oswald of Northumbria had begun to bring Celtic missionaries from St Columba's foundation on the isle of Iona to convert his people. Inevitably these missionaries of the Celtic Church infiltrated into Middle Anglia, which lay between East Anglia and the kingdom of Mercia, west of the Fens and covering parts of Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, and Northamptonshire. This resulted in a certain amount of friction with Felix and other missionaries in the Roman tradition. The differences between Celtic and Roman Church customs were only resolved, in favour of the Roman Church, at the Synod of Whitby (664). By 653 King Penda of Mercia had seized control of Middle Anglia, where he installed his son as sub-king. Penda subsequently made three attempts at invading East Anglia, killing three of the Saxon (Essex) kings. Eventually the kingdom was subjugated and under the later rules of Ethelbald and Offa became part of Mercia. During this period, learning spread to East Anglia from Northumbria; Lichfield is known to have been a centre of scholarship. In 787 Offa took advantage of the arrival in England of a papal legation to establish a bishopric at Lichfield, but this was abolished in 802, having proved unpopular within the Church.

Early in the 9th century raids by the Vikings, which up to that time had been on a small scale and scattered, gathered intensity. In the autumn of 865 a sizeable Danish army invaded and took possession of East Anglia, but was unsuccessful in reaching Wessex. In 871 and in 876-878, the Danes invaded again, and this time fierce fighting took place on Wessex soil. In 878 King Alfred of Wessex drove the Danes back to East Anglia and the north-east and forced their king to become a Christian. The area in which the invaders settled became known as the “Danelaw”. Although for the next few decades an uneasy peace existed between the Danelaw and Wessex, Alfred's son, Edward the Elder, was determined to win back East Anglia, which he did in 918. The reconquest of the Danelaw, however, was not completed until 930, when East Anglia and the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms acknowledged the supremacy of King Athelstan of Wessex and became part of a united kingdom of England.