According to a letter preserved in the Correspondence of St Boniface, Ælfwald was lord of seven minsters.

He also appears to have promoted literacy in East Anglia. The East Anglian royal pedigree was preserved in writing during Ælfwald’s reign and he was sponsor of one the earliest saint’s lives written in England, the Latin Life of St Guthlac, which its author, Felix [not St Felix], dedicated to him. I have also suggested that the Old English epic of Beowulf might have been composed in East Anglia in his time – for more on this point see my book on the subject.

King Ælfwald had a sister, Abbess Ecgburh.

© Copyright Dr Sam Newton, Blotmonaþ AD 2000