St. David appears to have been a very extraordinary person, in
reference to the period in which he lived. Giraldus Cambrensis, in his
Itinerarium Cambriæ, published with annotations by David Powell, at
London, 1585, 8vo. and by Sir Richard Hoare, in 2 vols. 4to. 1806,
gives many particulars of St. David, his predecessor in the bishopric;
and the praises bestowed by Giraldus on a founder of monasteries may
be esteemed deserving of credit, as he was a professed and violent
enemy to the monastic orders. He is even said to have added to the
Litany, “A monachorum malitia libera nos, Domine,” in an age when
their power and influence were esteemed irresistible.
St. David is said to have been the son of Xantus, Prince of Caretica,
since named Cardiganshire. He was made a priest early in life, and
then participating in the opinion universally prevalent, that the
Deity would alone be propitiated by men rendering themselves useless
to their fellow-creatures, by assuming almost the feelings and habits
of brute beasts, and by adding, so far as they were able, to the
misery and wretchedness of the human race, he betook himself to an
ascetic life in the Isle of Wight, under the guidance of one Paulinus.
But having at length acquired a sufficient stock of reputed sanctity
by these efficacious means, he emerged like others from the desert,
added to the establishments at Glastonbury, or as some say refounded
the great work of St. Joseph of Arimathea, and then created twelve
monasteries in Wales.
But St. David owes the largest share of his popularity to the active
part which he took in the controversy at that time dividing the
Western church; one party maintaining that it had pleased Almighty God
to bestow at once on his creatures, and from their births, the
inclination and capability of serving him; the other, that these gifts
were reserved for some future period, or dealt out from time to time,
and bit by bit. The latter opinion having been voted to be the
orthodox faith, was zealously supported by St. David against the
former, known as the Pelagian heresy.
He certainly lived to a very advanced age, and was buried in the
cathedral at Menevia; from whence, we have the testimony of St.
Kentigern that his soul was visibly carried by angels into heaven. It
is more certain that about the year 962 his relics were transported to
Glastonbury, as this transaction is circumstantially related by John
of Glastonbury, in his history of that splendid abbey, published by
Hearne.
St. David affords a remarkable instance, not merely of the fact that
events are wrested to suit the taste or the prejudices of aftertimes,
but of their being utterly inverted and transformed.
When Eastern fictions became blended with the chivalry of Europe, this
anchorite, polemic divine, and apostle of his native country, appeared
as a military hero, expelling the Saxons from Wales, at the head of an
army in which each individual was distinguished from their Pagan
adversaries by affixing to his helmet the plant which has since been
ever venerated by the Welch. And finally, Mr. Richard Johnson, a canon
of Exeter, having adopted the mystical number seven for the Champions
of Christendom, and bestowed the undue proportion of four out of seven
on these Islands, makes St. David, the champion of Wales, perform all
the ordinary achievements of knight errantry, and adding, as was
highly proper, a spirit of gallantry to that of valour, presents him
as a lover eloping from Jerusalem with an Hebrew princess, who on her
part had previously, by entreaties to her father, preserved the hero’s
life.
The great tithes of this parish belonged to the priory of Trewardruth,
the vicarage to the duchy.
This parish contains 5734 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 3393 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 235 5 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 217 | 262 | 363 | 389
giving an increase of nearly 80 per cent. in 30 years.