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Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sigered (fl.799)

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613035Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 52 — Sigered (fl.799)1897William Hunt

SIGERED or SIGERÆD (fl. 799), king of the East-Saxons, was son and successor of Sigeric or Siric, who left his kingdom and went on a pilgrimage to Rome, probably in 799. He was present with Cenulf of Mercia at the dedication of the church of Winchcombe Abbey in Gloucestershire in 811, and may no doubt be identified with the ‘Sigered rex’ who attested a charter of Cenulf in the same year. Other later charters of Cenulf are attested by a Sigered as ‘dux’ or ealdorman. The kings of the East-Saxons had long been under the overlordship of Mercia, and in 824, at which date Sigered may have been alive—for his name comes last in the ancient genealogy of the East-Saxon kings—the kingdom submitted to Egbert (d. 839) [q. v.], king of the West-Saxons. William of Malmesbury, however, says that the last king of the East-Saxons was named Swithred, and that he was driven from his kingdom by Egbert; but he may perhaps here be making a confusion with Swithhead, whose reign comes between those of Selred and Sigeric, the father of Sigered. The St. Albans compiler, under 828, elaborates this notice of Malmesbury's. Yet it may be that a second Swithhead was momentarily set up as king after Sigered.

[Kemble's Codex Dipl. Nos. 197, 198, 209, 210, 216; Anglo-Saxon Chron. an. 798; Mon. Hist. Brit. pp. 629, 637; Will. Malm. Gesta Regum, i. c. 98; Rog. Wend. sub an. 828; Dict. Chr. Biogr. art. ‘Sigeræd’ (2), by Bishop Stubbs.]