Sigebert, stepbrother of King Earpwald of the East Angles, spent years in exile in Gaul, where he was baptised and became a committed Christian. After Earpwald's death East Anglia fell back into disorder and paganism. About 631 Sigebert returned and became king.

He set about converting his people at once. St Felix came with him from Gaul and was given a see at Dunwich, and Sigebert built a monastery at Burgh Castle for the Irish monk St Fursey. He also founded a school for boys on the model of the schools he had seen in Gaul.

Then he gave the kingdom to his kinsman Egric and entered a monastery. When the pagan King Penda of Mercia invaded, the people dragged Sigebert out of the cloister to lead them because he had been a brave warrior. As a monk he refused to carry weapons and held only a staff. The army was defeated, and he and Egric were both killed.

Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 128 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.

6*. Kennera. himself diligently to gain a heavenly throne. Some time after this it happened that the Mercians, under King Penda, made war on the East Angles, who finding themselves inferior in martial skill to the enemy, entreated King Sigebert to lead them to battle and encourage the soldiers.

Sigebert, Saint, king and martyr, date of birth unknown; d. about 637, was the stepbrother of Earpwald, king of the East Angles. During the reign of Redwald he lived an exile in Gaul [roughly modern France and Belgium] where he received baptism and became an ardent Christian. Earpwald died about 627, and East Anglia seems to have relapsed into anarchy and heathenism for some three years until Sigebert returned thither, about 631, and became king. He at once set about the conversion of his people, being greatly assisted by St. Felix, who seems to have come over from Gaul with him, and for whom a see was established at Dunwich in Suffolk. Another prominent figure in Sigebert's revival was the Irish monk, St. Fursey, or Fursa, for whom he built a monastery at Burghcastle in Suffolk. With the aid of St. Felix, Sigebert also established a school for boys on the model of the monastic schools in Gaul, the masters for it are said to have been supplied from Canterbury, The prospects of Christianity now seemed so bright that Sigebert felt justified in carrying out his long-cherished design of retiring to a monastery. He therefore resigned the kingdom to his kinsman, Egric, received the tonsure [shaving part of the head as a sign of entering the clergy or monastic life], and entered a monastery, said to have been Bedrichsworth, which later became Bury St. Edmunds. Not long after this, however, Penda the pagan King of Mercia [the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the English Midlands], invaded East Anglia, and Egric, finding himself unable to repel the invasion, joined with his subjects in begging Sigebert to lead them, as he had formerly been a most brave warrior. In spite of his great unwillingness, Sigebert was dragged from his cloister and compelled to march at the head of the army; but, to indicate his profession as a monk, he refused absolutely to carry any weapons of war and instead bore only a rod. In the ensuing battle his army was totally defeated, he and Egric both perishing in the fight. In the "Acta Sanctorum [the Bollandists’ huge collection of saints’ lives]" his life is given under date of October 29, but the feast is not now observed even in England.

Bede [English monk and historian (d. 735)], Hist. eccles., ed. Giles (London, 1843), II, xx, III, xviii, also in P. L.; Acta SS., Oct. XII, 892–904; William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, I, xcvii; Idem, Gesta pontificum, 147, both in Rolls Series (London, 1870–1887); Liber Eliensis, ed. Stewart, I (London, 1848), i; Dugdale, Monasticon anglicanum, III (London, 1846), 98; Pits, De illustribus Angliæ script. (Paris, 1619), 108; Stanton, Menology of England and Wales, (London, 1887), 35.