Saint Gildas

Gildas — also known as Gildas Badonicus, Gildas fab Caw (in Middle Welsh texts and antiquarian works) and Gildas Sapiens (Gildas the Wise) — was a 6th-century British monk best known for his religious polemic De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, 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. In his later life, he emigrated to Brittany, where he founded a monastery known as Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys. Differing versions of the Life of Saint Gildas exist, but both agree that he was born at a place called Arecluta which is described by the author as taking its name from a "certain river called the Clut, by which that district is, for the most part, watered." This was long taken by historians to mean that Gildas was born in what is now Scotland on the banks of the River Clyde. He is now thought by some historians to have his origins farther south. Their belief is that his writing suggests a lack of familiarity with the geography of Strathclyde, but is more accurate regarding southern Britain. Furthermore, Gildas shows a familiarity with classical Latin texts that historians such as Nick Higham and E.A. Thompson view as more likely to have been acquired further south, within the bounds of former Roman Britain. Thompson suggested Chester as a possible birthplace, while the linguist Andrew Breeze suggests Arclid, near Sandbach in Cheshire, based on its plausible derivation from Arecluta. In his own work, he claims to have been born the same year as the Battle of Mount Badon. He was educated at a monastic centre, the College of St. Illtud, where he chose to forsake his royal heritage and embrace monasticism. He became a renowned teacher, converting many to Christianity and founding numerous churches and monasteries throughout Britain and Ireland.