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____ Wuffa
Death: 578
Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuffa_of_East_Anglia
Wuffa (or Uffa, Old English: ?uffa) is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon genealogies as an
early king of East Anglia. If historical, he would have flourished in the 6th century.
By tradition Wuffa was named as the son of Wehha and the father of Tytila, but it is
not known with any certainty that Wuffa was an actual historical figure. The name
Wuffa was the eponym for the Wuffingas dynasty, the ruling royal family of the East
Angles until 749.
Bede regarded Wuffa as the first king of the East Angles, but the author of the
Historia Brittonum, writing a century later, named Wehha as the first ruler.
Background[edit]
The kingdom of the East Angles was an independent and long-lived Anglo-Saxon
kingdom that was established after migrants arrived in southeast Suffolk from the area
now known as Jutland. Rainbird Clarke identified Wehha as one of the leaders of the
new arrivals: the East Angles are tentatively identified with the Geats of the Old
English poem Beowulf.[1] Historians have used sources such as the Anglian collection
too as an aid in calculating a date for the establishment of the kingdom. Collingwood
and Myers note the use of literacy sources and archaeological finds as evidence in
how the region was settled during and after the 5th century, when various disparate
groups arrived in Norfolk and Suffolk from different parts of the coast and the rivers of
the Fens.[2]
The kingdom of the East Angles was bordered to the north and east by the North Sea,
to the south by mainly impenetrable forests and by the Fens marshes on its western
border. The main land route from East Anglia would at that time have been a corridor,
along which ran the prehistoric Icknield Way.[3] The Devil's Dyke (near modern
Newmarket) may have at one time formed part of the kingdom's western boundary, but
its construction cannot be dated accurately enough to establish it as of Anglo-Saxon
origin.[4]
Pedigree and reign[edit]
According to the East Anglian dynastic tally in the Anglian collection, Wuffa was the
son of Wehha and the father of Tytila.[5] His name, which is a diminutive form of the
Old English word for wolf, is the eponym for his dynasty, the Wuffingas, (which taken
literally, means 'the kin of Wuffa').[6][7] It has been suggested that Wuffa and his
dynasty may possibly have originated from a Germanic tribe known as the Warni:
Wuffa has been identified with the 'King of the Angli', as depicted by the Byzantine
scholar Procopius. According to Procopius, a 6th-century Warni prince called Radigis
was brotrothed to the sister of the 'King of the Angli'.[7] The historian Michael Wood
has suggested that before the arrival of Wuffa's dynasty in Britain, it had been
founded by "some powerful and important warrior" that was of an ancient royal line.[8]
According to the 13th century chronicler Roger of Wendover, Wuffa ruled from 571 to
578,[9] but the origin of this information is unknown.[10] According to Michael Wood,
current evidence suggests that Wuffa ruled the East Angles in around 575.[11]
Bede named Wuffa as the grandfather of Rędwald, "from whom the East Anglian
kings are called Wuffingas",[7][12] but Bede's view that Wuffa was the first King of
the East Angles is contradicted by the 9th century Historia Brittonum, which instead
apparently names a person called Guillem Guercha. In the Historia Brittonum, Guillem
Guercha is listed as part of a long pedigree:
Woden begat Casser, who begat Titinon, who begat Trigil, who begat Rodmunt, who
begat Rippa, who begat Guillem Guercha, who was the first king of the East Angles.
Guercha begat Uffa, who begat Tytillus, who begat Eni, who begat Edric, who begat
Aldwulf, who begat Elric.[13]
The 19th-century historian Sir Francis Palgrave confused matters when he stated that,
"Guercha is a distortion of the name Uffa, or Wuffa, arising in the first instance from
the pronunciation of the British writer, and in the next place from the error of the
transcriber".[14] D. P. Kirby has however concluded that Nennius intended to mean
that it was Wehha, and not Wuffa, who was the earliest Wuffingas king.[15]
A lack of documentary evidence prevents scholars from knowing if Wuffa is anything
more than a legendary figure and the true identity of the first East Anglian king cannot
be known with certainty.[16] The historian Martin Carver has argued that Wuffa is
"best regarded as an emblematic figure personified from royal origin-myth" [17]
Later East Anglian kings claimed their right to rule by being descended from Wuffa, in
the same way that the Kentish kings claimed descent from Oisc.[18]
Parents
____ Webha ()
----- ----- ()
Siblings
____ Wuffa ( - 578)
Marriage To ----- ----- ()
m.
Notes
Children by ----- -----
____ Tytila ( - 593)
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