Gildas

Life


Gildas — also known as Gildas the Wise or St. Gildas — was a 6th-century British monk best known for his scathing religious polemic "De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae" (On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain), which recounts the history of the Britons before and during the coming of the Saxons. He is one of the best-documented figures of the Christian church in the British Isles during the sub-Roman period, and was renowned for his Biblical knowledge and literary style. Despite all this later comment very little is known about where he wrote, or when, or who he actually was. In his later life, some have speculated that Gildas emigrated to Brittany where he founded a monastery known as St. Gildas de Rhuys. However it is now generally believed that the Gildas of Brittany is a different person. There is no evidence that the Welsh Gildas should properly be considered as a saint, although he is referred to as such in the signage at the Amphitheatre.

It is thought from his Latin style that Gildas wrote "De Excidio" after 480 and before 550 with the closest estimate being 510-530. His knowledge of the north is sketchy and his damning accusations of the Welsh kings have been taken to indicate that since Gildas was able to accuse these men, he must certainly have lived a long way away from the territory controlled by them. Others have suggested a location outside of these territories, but close enough to receive information at short notice. Contrary to suggestions of Wales, Chester or Northamptonshire (which all suffer from the objections to a northern location), one writer suggested a southern location, close enough to Dumnonia to write the latest gossip, others favor a south-western location based on Gildas apparent knowledge of geographical details. His coasts, which he describes as having ‘curving bays’ and ‘large promontories which jut out’, are much better reflected by the coasts of Kent, Sussex and Dorset than those of Yorkshire or Cumbria. The cliff-edge fortifications are of a very limited distribution, stretching from East Devon to South-east Wales. He tells of agriculture on wide plains and ‘stretched hills’, which points more to the down-land of the southern chalk hills, than to the barren north. Even the snow-white pebbles in the streambeds suggest a chalk or limestone geology.

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The probably highly innacurate life of Gildas written by Caradoc of Llancarfan in the middle of the 12th century states that Gildas had 23 brothers who were always always rising up against their rightful king, and his eldest brother, Hueil, would submit to no rightful high king, not even the mythical Arthur. Gildas never mentions Arthur although he does mention the Battle of Mount Badon, in which Arthur supposedly defeated the Saxons. Hueil would often swoop down from Scotland to fight battles and carry off spoils, and during one of these raids, Hueil was pursued and killed by King Arthur. Local tradition places Hueil's death in Ruthin (and his home in Edeirnion, near Corwen, North Wales). The life and the story of Hueil are almost certainly fabrications.

The signage at the amphitheatre has Gildas writing at the monastery at Bangor-on-Dee. This monastery is believed to have been founded in about AD 560 by Saint Dunod (or Dunawd) and was an important religious centre in the 6th century. The monastery was destroyed in about 613/616 by the Anglo-Saxon king Æthelfrith of Northumbria after he defeated the Welsh armies at the Battle of Chester. Clearly, if Gildas' "De Excidio" is dated to before 550 (or in the narrower range 510-530) he cannot have been writing at the Bangor-on-Dee monastery.

There is some evidence to suggesst that Gildas wrote at Cor Tewdws or Bangor Tewdws (Meaning "college" or "chief university" of Theodosius) a Celtic monastery and college in what is now Llantwit Major, Glamorgan. This establishment is believed to have been founded c. 395. The original college was said to have been established by (or in honour of) the Roman Emperor Theodosius I, and was named after him. In 380, Theodosius declared Nicene Christianity the only legitimate Imperial religion, ending support for traditional polytheistic religions and customs. The college was reputedly burnt down in 446, with different sources attributing the destruction to Irish pirates and Saxon war bands. After the sack of the College of Theodosius, the site lay barren for 62 years, until it was re-established by St. Illtud c. 508. According to the Book of Llandaff, St. Dubricius commissioned Illtud to re-establish the college, and the place came to be known as Llanilltud Fawr. It has been suggested that followers of St. Illtud at Cor Tewdws included St. David of Wales, Samson of Dol, St. Paul Aurelian, Paulinus and Gildas. Unfortunately much of the discussion has been led astray by dubious sources, especially those compiled by the discredited Iolo Morganwg (Edward Williams, 1747-1826), who is believed to have forged much of his source material.

Works
Gildas "Ruin" is in three parts. The first part consists of Gildas' explanation for his work and a brief narrative of Roman Britain from its conquest under the principate to Gildas' time:


 * "Concerning her obstinacy, subjection and rebellion, about her second subjection and harsh servitude; concerning religion, of persecution, the holy martyrs, many heresies, of tyrants, of two plundering races, concerning the defense and a further devastation, of a second vengeance and a third devastation, concerning hunger, of the letter to Agitius (usually identified with the patrician Flavius Aetius) and otherwise known as the "Groans of the Britons", of victory, of crimes, of enemies suddenly announced, a memorable plague, a council, an enemy more savage than the first, the subversion of cities, concerning those whose survived, and concerning the final victory of our country that has been granted to our time by the will of God."

The second part consists of a condemnation of five British kings, and as it is the only contemporary information about them, it is of particular interest to scholars of British history. Gildas swathes the condemnations in allegorical beasts from the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation, likening the kings to the beasts described there: a lion, a leopard, a bear, and a dragon.

The third part begins with the words, "Britain has priests, but they are fools; numerous ministers, but they are shameless; clerics, but they are wily plunderers." Gildas continues his jeremiad against the clergy of his age, but does not explicitly mention any names in this section, and so does not cast any light on the history of the Christian church in this period.

Despite all his condemnation it appears that Gildas found his own time with invasions by the Anglo-Saxons largely paused and the Britains largely living in peace against outsiders. However Gildas has the Briton's squandering this period of peace with civil war, internal disputes, and general unrest. Moreover natrural disastered happened: the extent to which Western Europe was afflicted by famines through an “Extreme Weather Event” of circa 535 AD is disputed, but in 535 the Byzantine historian Procopius recorded in his (AD 536) report on the wars with the Vandals,


 * "..during this year a most dread portent took place. For the sun gave forth its light without brightness ... and it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear..".

Gildas perhaps alludes to a similar dense cloud:


 * "a certain thick mist and black night of their offences sit(s) upon the whole island"

It is possible that this weakening of the sun was due to a volcanic eruption. Various candidates have been put forward for the location of this volcano.

It is also possible that Britain was struck by an outbreak of bubonic plague during the period. Procopius and other contemporaries record the plague as devastating Constantinople in 542 AD and then spreading both east and west. Gildas refers to the pestilence in Britain in the same era, though without dating the attack. The documents now known as Annales Cambriae and the Annals of Tigernach record “a great mortality”, believed to be the same plague as mentioned by Procopius, hitting Ireland and Wales at this time. Many historians put the date of Gildas around the time that one of the five kings mentioned by Gildas died of the "great mortality".

So Gildas is writing at a time when Chester was probably a British (Welsh) rather than a Saxon (English) city. The next major Saxon campaign against the Britons was to not occur until around 577. The actual date when the Saxons took permanent control of Chester is not entirely clear.

The sixth century saw the establishment of many religious institutions in Wales. While the Celtic Church and that which was to later develop in the rest of Britain had differences these are not now believed to have been as marked as once thought, but on the whole the Celtic church appears less centralised and more prone towards local monastic settlements. If the signage at the Amphiteatre is to be believed then it might be thought that there was a cult based on Welsh (Celtic) martyrs at Chester at an early time.

Related Pages

 * : a possible connection between the rules condemned by Gildas and those who appear at Chester in Bede;