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Dommoc, a place not certainly identified but probably within the modern county of Suffolk, was the original seat of the bishops of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of East Anglia. Suffolk (ˈsʌfək is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. For their language see Anglo-Saxon language. Anglo-Saxon is the term usually used to describe the invading Tribes in the south The Kingdom of the East Angles or Kingdom of East Anglia was one of the ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. It was established by King Sigeberht of East Anglia for Saint Felix of Burgundy in c. Sigeberht of East Anglia (also known as Saint Sigebert) was King of East Anglia from c 629 to c634 Saint Felix of Burgundy, also known as Felix of Dunwich is a Saint widely credited as the man who introduced Christianity to East Anglia in Eastern 629-31. It remained the bishopric of all East Anglia until c673, when Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury, divided the see and created a second bishopric at Helmham (North Elmham, Norfolk, or South Elmham, Suffolk). Theodore (602&ndash19 September 690 was the eighth Archbishop of Canterbury, best known for his reform of the English Church and establishment of a school in Canterbury North Elmham is a village (population 1428 in Norfolk about 8 km (5 miles north of East Dereham on the west bank of the River Wensum. The Saints are a group of villages in Suffolk, England, near the border with Norfolk. The see of Dommoc continued to exist until the time of the Viking Wars of the 860s, after which it lapsed.

Contents

Foundation

The primary authority for the foundation of the see of Dommoc is Bede's Historia ecclesiastica, ii. Bede (ˈbiːd (also Saint Bede, the Venerable Bede, or (from Latin Beda (beda (c The Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (in English: Ecclesiastical History of the English People) is a work in Latin by the 15. Following the assassination of King Eorpwald of East Anglia by Ricberht in c 627 the kingdom fell back into 'error' for three years, before Sigeberht, brother or half-brother of Eorpwald, took possession of the kingdom. Eorpwald was the son of Raedwald and ruled as King of East Anglia from c 624 to c627 Ricberht is thought to have been King of East Anglia from 627 to 629 following his murder of Eorpwald of East Anglia. Events By Place Byzantine Empire December 12 — Battle of Nineveh: Emperor Heraclius defeats the Persians ending Sigeberht had lived in exile in Gaul during his brother's lifetime, and had been initiated in the sacraments of the Faith, becoming a very Christian and very learned man. Gaul (Gallia was the Roman name for the region of Western Europe comprising present day northern Italy, France, Belgium, western On his accession he resolved to ensure that the whole kingdom shared his faith, and he was very ably supported by Saint Felix. Felix had been born and consecrated in Burgundy. Burgundy (Bourgogne Burgund is a region historically situated in modern-day France and Switzerland, inhabited in turn by Celts ( Gauls) He came to Archbishop Honorius of Canterbury (Saint Honorius), and unfolded to him his desire to preach the Gospel of Life. Honorius (died 30 September 653 was an Archbishop of Canterbury from 627 to 653 Honorius sent him to the East Angles, where he found a fruitful multitude of believers, and brought that whole province to the faith and works of righteousness. He accepted the episcopal seat in the city (civitas) of Dommoc, and when he had governed it for seventeen years he died there in peace. An alternative account surviving in the much later work of William of Malmesbury relates that Sigeberht and Felix came to the kingdom together from Gaul. Biography The education William received at Malmesbury Abbey included a smattering of Logic and Physics; Moral philosophy and History,

Early chronology

The date of the foundation of Dommoc is estimated from the foregoing events, and from the duration of tenure of the first three bishops. Edwin of Northumbria was baptised by Paulinus of York at Easter 626, and they then undertook the conversion of Lindsey and of Eorpwald and his kingdom. Saint Edwin (alternately Eadwine or Æduini) (c 586 &ndash 12 October 632/633 was the King of Deira and Bernicia - which would St Paulinus (born c 584 died 10 October 644 was the first Bishop of York and Bishop of Rochester in England Events By Place Byzantine Empire The Byzantines defeat the Avars and Slavs, who were besieging Constantinople Lindsey was a unit of local government until 1974 in Lincolnshire, England, covering the northern part of the county Eorpwald was slain soon after his baptism, after which there was a reversal of faith for three years. Felix was bishop for seventeen years, his successor Thomas for five, and his successor Berhtgisl Boniface for a further seventeen (a total of 39 episcopal years). Both Thomas and Berhtgisl were consecrated by Archbishop Honorius, who died in 653 (Historia Ecclesiastica iii. Events Sigeberht II the Good succeeds Sigeberht I the Little as king of Essex. 20). After Berhtgisl's death Archbishop Theodore, who reached Canterbury in 669, appointed Bisi to Dommoc, and Bisi attended the Council of Hertford in 673. Canterbury ( ˈkæntəbɹ̩i is a City in eastern Kent in the South East region of England. For the special unit of the Israel Defense Forces see Unit 669. Bifus or Bisi was a medieval Bishop of the East Angles. He was consecrated about 669 The Council of Hertford was a Synod of the Christian Church in England held in 673. Events By Place Europe Hlothhere becomes king of Kent. The city of Ely, England is founded By then Bisi's health was declining so that he was unable to administer the diocese, and soon afterwards Theodore divided the see (Historia Ecclesiastica, iv. 5). Since Berhtgisl cannot have died later than 670 the foundation of Dommoc should date to c630-31, and the assassination of Eorpwald to c 627. Events By Place Byzantine Empire December 12 — Battle of Nineveh: Emperor Heraclius defeats the Persians ending This would place the death of Felix c647 and of Thomas c 652. For the Canadian area code see Area code 416/647. Events By Place Asia A stone tower Astronomical Events By Place Europe Rodoald succeeds his father Rothari as king of the Lombards. That would accord with the Liber Eliensis tradition that Felix baptized Saint Etheldreda in or soon after 631 at Exning, and with William of Malmesbury's statement that he baptized Cenwalh of Wessex in East Anglia before that king was restored to Wessex by King Anna in c647. Æthelthryth, or Æðelþryð, (c 636 - June 23 679) is the proper name for the popular Anglo-Saxon Saint almost universally Exning is a village in Suffolk, England It lies just off the A14 trunk road roughly 12 miles east-northeast of Cambridge, and 10 miles south-south-east of Cenwealh (died 674? also Cenwalh or Coenwalh, was an Anglo-Saxon king traditionally counted as a King of Wessex. Anna was a mid-7th century King of East Anglia. He was the nephew of Raedwald of East Anglia, and probably the second of the sons of Eni, Raedwald's brother

Location

Despite its former importance, the original location of Dommoc has been lost for many centuries and forms the subject of scholarly debate. This reflects rival claims staked during the 13th century by the monks of Eye, Suffolk, (for Dunwich, Suffolk) and of Rochester in Kent (for Walton, Suffolk) . Eyes are organs that detect Light, and send signals along the Optic nerve to the visual areas of the brain Dunwich (ˈdʌnɨtʃ is a small town in Suffolk, England, within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB. Rochester is a town in Kent, England. It is located within the Unitary authority area of Medway and is at the lowest bridging point of the Walton is a small town in Suffolk, between the rivers Orwell and Deben. The uncertainty therefore arose between the tenth and twelfth centuries. William Camden, in his Britannia, promoted general acceptance of the identification with Dunwich, formerly a splendid city on the Suffolk coast between Aldeburgh and Southwold, all but a tiny part of which has now been swept out to sea. William Camden ( 2 May 1551 &ndash 9 November 1623) was an English Antiquarian and historian Aldeburgh ( IPA /ˈɔlbrə/ is a town in Suffolk, East Anglia, England; it is located on the Alde river at 52° 9' North 1° 36' East Southwold is a Seaside town in the Waveney district of Suffolk, East Anglia, England, at the mouth of the River Blyth The Rochester claim for Walton refers to the place near or in Felixstowe, Suffolk, at the tip of the Colneis peninsula between the River Deben and the River Orwell. Felixstowe is a seaside town on the North Sea coast of Suffolk, England. The River Deben is a medium length river in Suffolk rising in Debenham, passing through Woodbridge, turning into a tidal estuary before entering the The River Orwell flows through the County of Suffolk in England. This Walton is not to be confused with Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex, which stands on the south side of the Orwell and Stour estuary mouth, and which has never been seriously considered as a candidate for Dommoc. Walton-on-the-Naze is a small town in Essex, England, on the North Sea coast in the Tendring district The scholarly revival of the claim for Walton as Dommoc was the work of Stuart Rigold.

Bede records that Sigeberht ruled East Anglia together with Ecgric, his relative or cognatus, who until Sigeberht's abdication had ruled over part of the Kingdom, and afterwards succeeded to the rule of all of it. Ecgric was an East Anglian king who shared the kingdom with his kinsman Sigebert until the abdication of Sigebert c 634 The meaning of the arrangement is not clear, but there is no difficulty in accepting that during his own reign Sigeberht had the power to grant a coastal site to Felix either at Dunwich or Felixstowe, since it was he who granted the shore fort at Cnobheresburg to Saint Fursey (Historia Ecclesiastica, iii. Saint Fursey (also known as Fursa Fursy Forseus Furseus) (d 650 was an Irish monk who did much to establish Christianity throughout the British 17-18).

Bede's use of the term civitas for Dommoc, (which is also occasionally called Domnoc or Dommoc-ceastre), suggests that the site had once been a Roman settlement, possibly fortified. The re-use of Roman forts or fortified enclosures for early Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical and monastic purposes is well-attested, for instance at Othona (Bradwell-on-Sea, Essex), Rochester and Reculver (Kent), Durobrivae (Castor, Cambridgeshire), and in East Anglia at Fursey's monastery (probably Burgh Castle or Gariannonum). The Latin word castra, with its singular castrum, was used by the ancient Romans to mean buildings or plots of land reserved to or constructed for use as a military Bradwell-on-Sea is a Village in Essex, England. It is located about 9 km (5 miles north-northeast of Southminster and is 30 km (19 miles east Essex is a county in the East of England. The County town is Chelmsford, and the highest point of the county is Chrishall Common Rochester is a town in Kent, England. It is located within the Unitary authority area of Medway and is at the lowest bridging point of the Reculver is a popular summer resort situated about east of Herne Bay, on the North Kent coast of England. KENT (1400 AM) is a Radio station broadcasting a Adult Standards/MOR format Castor is a village in the Soke of Peterborough in England. Formerly in Northamptonshire, it is now in Cambridgeshire but is administered Burgh Castle is a Village and Civil parish in the English County of Norfolk. Gariannonum (also written Garianonum, Gariannum) is a Roman fort near the village of Burgh Castle in Norfolk one of several Roman forts that It is certain that there was a stone fort at Walton, like other shore-forts of about six acres enclosure, and that it was adjacent to a large Roman settlement, most of which (including the fort) is now lost into the sea. The nature of Roman Dunwich is less well understood, for although some important Roman roads lead towards it, the site was lost to the sea too early for archaeological records. The Roman Roads were essential for the growth of the Roman Empire, by enabling the Romans to move armies and trade goods and to communicate news However it formerly had an important harbour which might have been protected by a fort. (Similarly Aldeburgh (which means 'old burgh' in Old English) may also have possessed a fort defending the Alde estuary. ) The placename evidence is also indecisive.

G. E. Fox and C. E. Stevens suggested that the fort at Walton might be the Portus Adurni of the Notitia Dignitatum, usually identified as Portchester. The Notitia Dignitatum is a unique document of the Roman imperial chanceries Portchester is a small Suburb to the northwest of Portsmouth, England. Be that as it may, the existence of additional forts not mentioned in the Notitia presents no difficulty since that is not a list of all fortresses, but of military units and their stations under the command of the Count of the Saxon Shore. The Count of the Saxon Shore or comes litoris Saxonici was the head of the " Saxon Shore " military command of the later Roman Empire.

Dunwich

The similarity of sound between Dommoc and Dunwich may be misleading. Dommoc is a difficult name to construe, but could derive from the Latin dominicum, a church, possibly in an Irish-assimilated form domnhac, as Fletcher notes. The name Dunwich (in c 1200 Donewic or Donewiz) should mean the wic (market, possibly from vicus, often riverine or estuarine) at the hill. The important wic names of Ipswich and Norwich are comparable. Ipswich ( ˈɪpswɪtʃ is a Non-metropolitan district and the County town of Suffolk, England on the Estuary of the River Orwell History Roman The Romans had their regional capital at Venta Icenorum on the river to the south which is near modern-day Caistor St Edmund If the name Dommoc became Dunwich, its original meaning was lost in the shift and a different etymological structure was adopted to explain and replace it, between the tenth and twelfth centuries.

There was no known church dedicated to Saint Felix at Dunwich, but that is no objection since the founder could not have commemorated himself and would likely have made an apostolic dedication. Dunwich was thriving at Domesday, but following sea encroachments many of its ecclesiastical possessions were granted to the rising Priory of Eye in north Suffolk. The Domesday Book (ˈduːmzdeɪ bʊk also known as Domesday, or Book of Winchester) was the record of the great survey The seal-matrix of the last-known bishop of Dommoc, Ethilwald, was discovered about two hundred years ago at Eye. Eye also possessed in post-mediaeval times a book now lost, known as the 'Red Book of Eye', written in Lombardic majuscule and presumably with purple-stained pages, reputed to have belonged to Saint Felix. Capital letters or majuscules pronunciation /məˈdʒʌskyuls ˈmædʒəˌskyuls/ in the Roman alphabet A, B, C, D, These may have reached Eye from Dunwich, but they might also have been taken to Hoxne, close to Eye, during the tenth or eleventh centuries from any centre in East Anglia, when Hoxne was temporarily the episcopal seat. Hoxne (pronounced Hoxen is an anciently established village in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk, England, about five miles east-southeast of Diss

During the fifteenth century, when the Dunwich identification had taken hold, a series of glass windows depicting Saint Fursey, Saint Felix, Saint Etheldreda, and other Anglo-Saxon subjects existed at Blythburgh church, not far from Dunwich. Blythburgh is an English Village in area known as the Sandlings, part of the Suffolk heritage coast However that site had its own independent Wuffing tradition connected with the grave of King Anna of East Anglia (d. The Wuffings were the ruling dynasty of East Anglia. They took their name from the early East Anglian king Wuffa. Anna was a mid-7th century King of East Anglia. He was the nephew of Raedwald of East Anglia, and probably the second of the sons of Eni, Raedwald's brother 653), but (conversely) its position at the fordable headwaters of the Blyth estuary, controlling the Blyth and its watershed hinterland suggests the likely existence of a royal dwelling in that neighbourhood in the time of Anna himself, and of Saint Felix. For articles about other rivers named River Blyth, see River Blyth (disambiguation. If so, the siting of an episcopal seat at Dunwich would be readily explicable.

Felixstowe

The apparent connection between Felixstowe and the name of Felix is suggestive, but the placename Felixstowe is not recorded before the thirteenth century and its origin is disputed. A Stow may be a holy site, but the Domesday name for the Walton fort is Burch, a form of the word Burgh. A priory dedicated to St Felix was founded within the fort at Walton around the end of the eleventh century by Roger Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk, who invited monks from Rochester to establish themselves there. Roger Bigod (d 1107 was a Norman knight who came to England in the Norman Conquest. During the twelfth century the powerful Bigod family also had a castle at Walton and a separate large residence there (the Manor, or Old Hall), at which King John issued the Ipswich Town Charter in 1200. John (24 December 1167 &ndash 19 October 1216 reigned as a King of England from 6 April 1199 until his death Ipswich ( ˈɪpswɪtʃ is a Non-metropolitan district and the County town of Suffolk, England on the Estuary of the River Orwell

The church site at nearby Falkenham (overlooking the river Deben between Hemley and Felixstowe Ferry) may have early Wuffing associations, for it is dedicated to the royal martyr Saint Æthelberht (d. Æthelberht (died May 20, 794 at Sutton Walls, Herefordshire) was king of East Anglia. 794). Falkenham was at Domesday a sub-manor or berewick of Walton, and in the time of Archbishop Lanfranc it was claimed by Rochester as one of a group of possessions which had been taken from it into royal keeping during the Viking Wars. Lanfranc (c 1005 – 1089 was Archbishop of Canterbury, and a Lombard by extraction A Viking is one of the Norse ( Scandinavian Explorers Warriors Merchants, and pirates who raided and colonized wide areas

The situation of Walton fort, overlooking the seaward reaches of the Deben estuary towards the former island of Bawdsey on the north bank, was of prime importance to the control of that river and lay directly within the sphere of Rendlesham, the Wuffinga royal dwelling known to have existed a little above the fordable headwaters of the Deben estuary in c 660. Bawdsey is a village in Suffolk, England near Felixstowe, within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB. Rendlesham, near Woodbridge Suffolk was a royal centre of authority for the king of the East Saxons, of the Wuffinga line the proximity of the Sutton The Sutton Hoo cemetery demonstrates the outstanding importance of this river as a seat of regnal power shortly before Sigeberht's time, during the period of Rædwald's reign, and as the centre of a regio or province spreading from the Orwell to beyond the River Alde and across the tributary hinterlands of the Alde and Deben rivers. Sutton Hoo near Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, is the site of two Anglo-Saxon cemeteries Rædwald, son of Tytila, was King of the East Angles from c 600 AD until his death in c 624 AD The River Alde is a River in Suffolk, England, with a source near Laxfield in the same area as the River Blyth.

It is strongly inferred that St Paulinus, from the Canterbury mission, was present in East Anglia at Rædwald's court in around 616, and it seems likely that the dedication of Rendlesham church to Saint Gregory the Great belongs to the early phases of that mission into East Anglia. Canterbury ( ˈkæntəbɹ̩i is a City in eastern Kent in the South East region of England. After his escape from York in 632-3, Paulinus became Bishop of Rochester until his death in c644, during the first decade of Felix's episcopacy of Dommoc. York ( is an historic Walled city sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. Bede records that Felix obtained teachers from Kent to supply the school founded in East Anglia by Sigeberht. KENT (1400 AM) is a Radio station broadcasting a Adult Standards/MOR format Rochester was then the closest bishopric to East Anglia by the sea-route to Kent from the Deben. It is therefore possible that when Roger Bigod founded a priory at Walton fort he was consciously renewing a connection between Rochester and Walton which had been developed in the time of Felix and Paulinus.

Rochester's claim is expressed thus: 'b. Felix fundavit eccl'iam q'e m'o Felixstowe uocatur et in ea sedit xvji annis' (The blessed Felix founded the church which is now called Felixstowe and sate in that (place) 17 years). It appears in the monastic register compiled before 1251 (Harleian MS 261), under the annal for 633. The 16th century antiquary John Leland noted sources supporting both the claims of Eye for Dunwich and of Rochester for Walton. This is about John Leland antiquary For other people called John Leland see John Leland (disambiguation. However it must be remembered that there are several East Anglian sites associated with the work of Saint Felix. Although one of these two seems most likely, there is no absolute certainty that it was either.

Sources

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