The Reckoning of King Rædwald

with Dr Sam Newton

at Tranmer House, Sutton Hoo (map)
on Saturday 10th May, 2008

The history of the great king thought to have lain in state aboard the Sutton Hoo ship-burial.

Who was the great king who lay in state aboard the treasure-laden longship berthed beneath Mound One at Sutton Hoo? The East Anglian king Rædwald is thought by many to have been the most likely and we shall spend the day exploring what can be ascertained about Rædwald in the context of the history of the early seventh century. Of great interest are his apparent military and political achievements, for he can be seen to have been the first English overlord of all Britain. We shall also assess the part he plays in the coming of Christianity to England and the possibility that he may have been a more central figure than has been previously acknowledged.

Sam Newton was awarded his Ph.D at the University of East Anglia in 1991 and published his first book, The Origins of Beowulf and the pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia, in 1993, which has been reprinted three times since. He has lectured widely around the country as a free-lance scholar and has also contributed to many television and radio programmes. His latest book, The Reckoning of King Rædwald, was published in 2003. He is currently a Director of Wuffing Education, NADFAS lecturer, and Time Team historian.

Bruce-Mitford, R., Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology (Gollancz 1974)
Chadwick, H.M., “The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial: Who Was He?”, Antiquity, 14 (1940), pp.76-87
Evans, A.C., The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial (British Museum 1986)
Higham, N., An English Empire: Bede and the Early Anglo-Saxon Kings (Manchester 1995)
Higham, N., The Convert Kings: Power and Religious Affiliation in Early Anglo-Saxon England (Manchester 1997)
Keynes, S., “Rædwald the Bretwalda”, in Voyage to the Other World: The Legacy of Sutton Hoo, ed. C.Kendall & P.Wells (Minneapolis 1992), pp.103-123
Kirby, D.P., The Earliest English Kings (London 1991)
McClure, J. & R.Collins, (eds.), Bede: the Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford 1999).
Newton, S., The Origins of Beowulf and the pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia (Brewer 1993, 1994, 1999, 2004)
Newton, S., The Reckoning of King Rædwald (Redbird Press 2003)
Plunkett, S.J., Suffolk in Anglo-Saxon Times (Tempus 2005)
Scarfe, N., The Suffolk Landscape (Hodder & Stoughton 1972, Alastair 1986)
Scarfe, N., Suffolk in the Middle Ages (Boydell 1986)
Warner, P., The Origins of Suffolk (Manchester 1996)

Bookings

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