The Bishop of Dunwich is an episcopal title which was first used by an

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

bishop between the seventh and ninth centuries and is currently used by the suffragan bishop of the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. The title takes its name after

Dunwich Dunwich is a village and civil parish in Suffolk, England. It is in the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB around north-east of London, south of Southwold and north of Leiston, on the North Sea coast. In the Anglo-Saxon period, Dunwich was t ...

in the English county of

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

, which has now largely been lost to the sea. In about 630 or 631 a

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, pro ...

was established by St. Felix for the

Kingdom of the East Angles la, Regnum Orientalium Anglorum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the East Angles , common_name = East Anglia , era = , status = Great Kingdom , status_text = Independent (6th centu ...

, with his

episcopal seat A cathedral is a church that contains the ''cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominations ...

initially, briefly established at

Soham Soham ( ) is a town and civil parish in the district of East Cambridgeshire, in Cambridgeshire, England, just off the A142 between Ely and Newmarket. Its population was 10,860 at the 2011 census. History Archaeology The region between Dev ...

before being transferred to

on the

coast. There is a possibility the unidentified

Dommoc ''Dommoc'' (or ''Domnoc''), a place not certainly identified but probably within the modern county of Suffolk, was the original seat of the Anglo-Saxon bishops of the Kingdom of East Anglia. It was established by Sigeberht of East Anglia for Sai ...

may be Dunwich, but this is yet to be proved. In 672 the diocese was divided into the sees of Dunwich and

Elmham North Elmham is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It covers an area of and had a population of 1,428 in 624 households at the 2001 census, including Gateley and increasing slightly to 1,433 at the 2011 Census. For ...

by St. Theodore,

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...

. The line of bishops of Dunwich continued until it was interrupted by the

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

invasions in the late ninth and early tenth centuries. By the mid 950s the sees of Dunwich and

were reunited under one bishop, with the

episcopal see An episcopal see is, in a practical use of the phrase, the area of a bishop's ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Phrases concerning actions occurring within or outside an episcopal see are indicative of the geographical significance of the term, mak ...

at Elmham.

List of bishops

Footnotes

* The current list of Anglo-Saxon bishops is primarily compiled by the 3rd edition of the ''Handbook of British Chronology''. The earlier 2nd edition mentioned two others: Alric, probably bishop of Dunwich and Husa, bishop of Dunwich or Elmham. These two are no longer considered to have been bishops and as such are not listed in the 3rd edition.

References

External links

{{Bishops of Dunwich (ancient)