HE was son to a British lord, who, to procure him a virtuous education,
placed him in his infancy in the monastery of St. Iltutus in
Glamorganshire. The surname of Badonicus was given him, because, as we
learn from his writings, he was born in the year in which the Britons
under Aurelius Ambrosius, or, according to others, under king Arthur,
gained the famous victory over the Saxons at Mount Badon, now
Bannesdown, near Bath, in Somersetshire. This Bede places in the
forty-fourth year after the first {307} coming of the Saxons into
Britain, which was in 451. Our saint, therefore, seems to have been born
in 494; he was consequently younger than St. Paul, St. Samson, and his
other illustrious school-fellows in Wales: but by his prudence and
seriousness in his youth he seemed to have attained to the maturity of
judgment and gravity of an advanced age. The author of the life of St.
Paul of Leon, calls him the brightest genius of the school of St. Iltut.
His application to sacred studies was uninterrupted, and if he arrived
not at greater perfection in polite literature, this was owing to the
want of masters of that branch in the confusion of those times. As to
improve himself in the knowledge of God and himself was the end of all
his studies, and all his reading was reduced to the study of the science
of the saints, the greater progress he made in learning, the more
perfect he became in all virtues. Studies which are to many a source of
dissipation, made him more and more recollected, because in all books he
found and relished only God, whom alone he sought. Hence sprang that
love for holy solitude, which, to his death, was the constant ruling
inclination of his heart. Some time after his monastic profession, with
the consent, and perhaps by the order of his abbot, St. Iltut, he passed
over into Ireland, there to receive the lessons of the admirable masters
of a religious life, who had been instructed in the most sublime maxims
of an interior life, and formed to the practice of perfect virtue, by
the great St. Patrick. The author of his Acts compares this excursion,
which he made in the spring of his life, to that of the bees in the
season of flowers, to gather the juices which they convert into honey.
In like manner St. Gildas learned, from the instructions and examples of
the most eminent servants of God, to copy in his own life whatever
seemed most perfect. So severe were his continual fasts, that the motto
of St. John Baptist might in some degree be applied to him, that he
scarce seemed to eat or drink at all. A rough hair-cloth, concealed
under a coarse cloak, was his garment, and the bare floor his bed, with
a stone for his bolster. By the constant mortification of his natural
appetites, and crucifixion of his flesh, his life was a prolongation of
his martyrdom, or a perpetual sacrifice which he made of himself to God
in union with that which he daily offered to him on his altars. If it be
true that he preached in Ireland in the reign of king Ammeric, he must
have made a visit to that island from Armorica, that prince only
beginning to reign in 560: this cannot be ascribed to St. Gildas the
Albanian, who died before that time. It was about the year 527, in the
thirty-fourth of his age, that St. Gildas sailed to Armorica, or
Brittany, in France:[1] for he wrote his invective ten years {308} after
his arrival there, and in the forty-fourth year of his age, as is
gathered from his life and writings. Here he chose for the place of his
retirement the little isle of Houac, or Houat, between the coast of
Rhuis and the island of Bellisle, four leagues from the latter. Houat
exceeds not a league in length; the isle of Hoedre is still smaller, not
far distant: both are so barren as to yield nothing but a small quantity
of corn. Such a solitude, which appeared hideous to others, offered the
greatest charms to the saint, who desired to fly, as much as this mortal
state would permit, whatever could interrupt his commerce with God. Here
he often wanted the common necessaries and conveniences of life; but the
greater the privation of earthly comforts was in which he lived, the
more abundant were those of the Holy Ghost which he enjoyed, in
proportion as the purity of his affections and his love of heavenly
things were more perfect. The saint promised himself that he should live
here always unknown to men: but it was in vain for him to endeavor to
hide the light of divine grace under a bushel, which shone forth to the
world, notwithstanding all the precautions which his humility took to
conceal it. Certain fishermen who discovered him were charmed with his
heavenly deportment and conversation, and made known on the continent
the treasure they had found. The inhabitants flocked from the coast to
hear the lessons of divine wisdom which the holy anchoret gave with a
heavenly unction which penetrated their hearts. To satisfy their
importunities, St. Gildas at length consented to live among them on the
continent, and built a monastery at Rhuis, in a peninsula of that name,
which Guerech, the first lord of the Britons about Vannes, is said to
have bestowed upon him. This monastery was soon filled with excellent
disciples and holy monks. St. Gildas settled them in good order; then,
sighing after closer solitude, he withdrew, and passing beyond the gulf
of Vannes, and the promontory of Quiberon, chose for his habitation a
grot in a rock, upon the bank of the river Blavet, where he found a
cavern formed by nature extended from the east to the west, which on
that account he converted into a chapel. However, he often visited this
abbey of Rhuis, and by his counsels directed many in the paths of true
virtue. Among these was St. Trifina, daughter of Guerech, first British
count of Vannes. She was married to count Conomor, lieutenant of king
Childebert, a brutish and impious man, who afterwards murdered her, and
the young son which he had by her, who at his baptism received the name
of Gildas, and was godson to our saint: but he is usually known by the
surname of Treuchmeur, or Tremeur, in Latin Trichmorus. SS. Trifina and
Treuchmeur are invoked in the English Litany of the seventh century, in
Mabillon. The great collegiate church of Carhaix bears the name of St.
Treuchmeur: the church of Quimper keeps his feast on the 8th of
November, on which day he is commemorated in several churches in
Brittany, and at St. Magloire's at Paris. A church situated between
Corlai and the abbey of Coetmaloen in Brittany, is dedicated to God
tinder the invocation of St. Trifina.[2]
St. Gildas wrote eight canons of discipline, and a severe invective
against the crimes of the Britons, called De Excidio Britanniae, that he
might confound {309} those whom he was not able to convert, and whom God
in punishment delivered first to the plunders of the Picts and Scots,
and afterwards to the perfidious Saxons, the fiercest of all nations. He
reproaches their kings, Constantine, (king of the Danmonians, in
Devonshire and Cornwall,) Vortipor, (of the Dimetians, in South Wales,)
Conon, Cuneglas, and Maglocune, princes in other parts of Britain, with
horrible crimes: but Constantine was soon after sincerely converted, as
Gale informs us from an ancient Welsh chronicle.[3] According to John
Fordun[4] he resigned his crown, became a monk, preached the faith to
the Scots and Picts, and died a martyr in Kintyre: but the apostle of
the Scots seems to have been a little more ancient than the former.[5]
Our saint also wrote an invective against the British clergy, whom he
accuses of sloth, of seldom sacrificing at the altar, &c. In his
retirement he ceased not with tears to recommend to God his own cause,
or that of his honor and glory, and the souls of blind sinners, and died
in his beloved solitude in the island of Horac, (in Latin Horata,)
according to Usher, in 570, but according to Ralph of Disse, in 581.[6]
St. Gildas is patron of the city of Vannes. The abbey which bears his
name in the peninsula of Rhuis, between three and four leagues from
Vannes, is of the reformed congregation of St. Maur since the year 1649.
The relics of St. Gildas were carried thence for fear of the Normans
into Berry, about the year 919, and an abbey was erected there on the
banks of the river Indre, which was secularized and united to the
collegiate church of Chateauroux in 1623. St. Gildas is commemorated in
the Roman Martyrology on the 29th of January. A second commemoration of
him is made in some places on the 11th of May, on account of the
translation of his relics. His life, compiled from the ancient archives
of Rhuis by a monk of that house, in the eleventh century, is the best
account we have of him, though the author confounds him sometimes with
St. Gildas the Albanian. It is published in the library of Fleury, in
Bollandus, p. 954, and most correctly in Mabillon, Act. SS. Ord. Saint
Belled. t. 1, p. 138. See also Dom Lobineau, Vies des Saints de
Bretagne, (fol. an. 1725,) p. 72, and Hist. de la {310} Bretagne, (2
vol. fol. an. 1707,) and the most accurate Dom Morice, Memoires Sur
l'Histoire de Bretagne, 3 vol. fol. in 1745, and Hist. de la Bretagne, 2
vol. fol. an. 1750.
Footnotes:
1. Armorica, which word in the old Celtic language signified a maritime
country, comprised that part of Celtic Gaul which is now divided
into Brittany, Lower Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine. Tours was
the capital, and still maintains the metropolitical dignity. By St.
Gatian, about the middle of the third century, the faith was first
planted in those parts: but the entire extirpation of idolatry was
reserved to the zeal of British monks. Dom Morice distinguishes
three principal transmigrations of inhabitants from Great Britain
into Armorica: the first, when many fled from the arms of Carausius
and Allectus, who successively assumed the purple in Great Britain:
Constance made these fugitives welcome in Gaul, and allowed them to
settle on the coast of Armorica about the year 293. A second and
much larger colony of Britons was planted here under Conan, a
British prince by Maximus, whom all the British youth followed into
Gaul in 383. After the defeat of Maximus, these Armorican Britons
chose this Conan, surnamed Meriedec, king, formed themselves into an
independent state, and maintained their liberty against several
Roman generals in the decline of that empire, and against the Alans,
Vandals, Goths, and other barbarians. Des Fontaines, (Diss. p. 118,)
and after him Dom Morice. demonstrates that Brittany was an
independent state before the year 421. The third transmigration of
Britons hither was completed at several intervals while the Saxons
invaded and conquered Britain, where Hengist first landed in 470.
Brittany was subjected to the Romans during four centuries: an
independent state successively under the title of a kingdom, county,
and duchy, for the space of about eleven hundred and fifty years,
and has been united to the kingdom of France ever since the year
1532, by virtue of the marriage of king Charles VIII. with Anne,
sole heiress of Brittany, daughter of duke Francis, celebrated in
1491. This province was subdued by Clovis I., who seems to have
treacherously slain Budic, king of Brittany. This prince left six
sons, Howel I., Ismael, bishop of Menevia, St. Tifel, honored as a
martyr at Pennalun, St. Oudecee, bishop of Landaff, Urbian or
Concur, and Dinot, father of St. Kineda. Brittany remained subject
to the sons of Clovis, and it was by the authority of Childobert
that St. Paul was made bishop of Leon in 512. But Howel, returning
from the court of king Arthur in 513, recovered the greater part of
these dominions. See Dom Morice, Hist. t. 1, p. 14. Howel I., often
called Rioval, that is, king Rowel, was a valiant prince, and
liberal to churches and monasteries. Among many sons whom he left
behind him, Howel II. succeeded him, and two are honored among the
saints, viz. St. Leonor or Lunaire, and St. Tudgual or Pabutual,
first Bishop of Treguier. See Morice. t. 1, pp. 14. and 729. Howel
III., alias Juthael, recovered all Brittany. King Pepin again
conquered this country, and Charlemagne and Louis le Debonnaire
quelled it when it thrice rebelled. The latter established the
Benedictin rule at Llandevenec. which probably was soon imitated in
others: for the monastic rule which first prevailed here was that of
the Britons in Wales, borrowed from the Orientals. After the
straggles made by this province for its liberty, Charles the Bald
yielded it up in 858, and some time after treated Solomon III. as
king of Brittany. See Morice, Des Fontaines, &c.
2. In this churchyard stands an ancient pyramid, on which are engraved
letters of an unknown alphabet, supposed to be that of the Britons
and Gauls before the Roman alphabet was introduced among them.
Letters of the same alphabet are found upon some other monuments of
Brittany. See Lobineau, Vies des Saints de la Bretagne. in St.
Treuchmeur, p. 8. Dom Morice endeavors to prove that the Welsh, the
old British, and the Celtic, are the same language. (Hist. t. 1, p.
867.) That they are so in part is unquestionable.
3. Mr. Vaughan, in his British Antiquities revived, printed at Oxford
in 1662, shows that there were at this time many princes or
chieftains among the Britons in North Wales, but that they all held
their lands of one sovereign, though each in his own district was
often honored with the title of king. The chief prince at this time
was Maelgun Gwynedth, the lineal heir and eldest descendant of
Cuneda, who flourished in the end of the fourth, or beginning of the
fifth century, and from one or other of whose eight sons all the
princes of North Wales, also those of Cardigan, Dimetia, Glamorgan,
and others in South Wales, derived their descent. The ancient
author, published at the end of Nenbius, says Maelgun began his
reign one hundred and forty-six years after Cuaedha, who was his
Atavus, or great-grandfather's grandfather. Maelgun was prince only
of Venedotia for twenty-five years before he was acknowledged in
564, after the death of Arthur, chief king of the Britons in Wales,
while St. David was primate, Arthur king of the Britons in general,
Gurthmyll king, and St. Kentigern bishop of the Cumbrian Britons.
"He had received a good education under the elegant instructor of
almost all Britain," says Gildas, pointing out probably St. Iltutus.
Yet he fell into enormous vices. Touched with remorse, he retired
into a monastery in 552; but being soon tired of that state,
reassumed his crown, and relapsed into his former impieties. He died
in 565. Gildas, who wrote his epistle De Excidio Britanniae, between
the years 564 and 570, that of his death, hints that Veralam was
then fallen into the hands of the Saxons: which is certain of
London, &c. The other princes reprehended by Gildas were lesser
toparchs, as Aurelius Canon, Vortipor, Cuneglas, and Constantine.
These were chieftains, Vortipor in Pembrokeshire, the rest in some
quarter or other of Britain, all living when Gildas wrote.
Constantine, whom Gildas represents as a native of Cornwall, and as
he is commonly understood, also as prince of that country, did
penance. The chief crime imputed to him is the murder of two royal
youths in a church, and of two noblemen who had the charge of their
education. Those Carte imagines to have been the sons of Caradoc
Ureich Uras, who was chief prince of the Cornish Britons in the
latter end of king Arthur's reign, as is attested by the author of
the Triades. The prelates whom Gildas reproves, were such as Maelgun
had promoted: for the sees of South-Wales were at that time filled
with excellent prelates, whose virtues Gildas desired to copy.
Carte, t. 1, p. 214.
4. Scoti-chron. c. 26.
5. Gildas's epistle, De Excidio Britanniae, was published extremely
incorrect and incomplete, till the learned Thomas Gale gave us a far
more accurate and complete edition, t. 3, Scriptor. Britan., which
is reprinted with notes by Bertrame in Germany, Hanniae imp. an.
1757, together with Nennius's history of the Britons, and Richard
Corin, of Westminster, De Situ Britanniae. Gildas's Castigatio Cleri
is extant in the library of the fathers, ed. Colon. t. 5, part 3, p.
682.
6. Dom Morice shows that about one hundred and twenty years were an
ordinary term of human life among the ancient Britons, and that
their usual liquor, called Kwrw, made of barley and water, was a
kind of beer, a drink most suitable to the climate and constitutions
of the inhabitants. See Dom Morice, Memoires sur l'Histoire de
Bretange, t. 1, preface; and Lamery, Diss. sur les Boissons.