Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

but another reading-and a more probable one-finds favour, which takes it as standing for Lindensium, "of Lincoln." 1

S. CADGYFARCH, Bishop, Confessor

CADGYFARCH was a son of the previous saint, and brother of S. Gwrmael.2 He is said to have been a bishop, but we are not told of what see, and to be the patron of the church of Bryn Buga, the old name for Usk, situated in the hundred or commote of the name in Monmouthshire. Usk church is now dedicated to S. Mary Magdalene

S. CADO, CADOR, or CADWY, Prince, Confessor

THIS saint was a son of Geraint, prince of Devon and Cornwall. He has been laid hold of by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and brought into his fictitious history. He makes Cador, Duke of Cornwall, come to the assistance of Arthur when besieging the Saxon Colgrin in York. Colgrin appeals for help to Germany, and Baldulf, brother of Colgrin, goes to his aid at the head of a body of six thousand men, but is waylaid by Cador and defeated. A little later, when Arthur hastens to Alclud, where Howel lies sick, and is besieged by the Picts and Scots, Cador is placed in command of the army opposed to the Saxons. “The Duke of Cornwall, who had the command of ten thousand men, would not as yet pursue the Saxons in their flight, but speedily made himself master of their ships. . . . After this he hastily pursued the enemy and allowed no quarter." Then we have Lucius Tiberius, procurator of the Roman Commonwealth, making war on Arthur, and in a great battle that ensues Cador distinguishes himself.

All this rubbish may be cast aside. The sole element of truth in it, is the naming of Cado as Duke of Cornwall, and father of Constantine, probably "the tyrannical whelp of the unclean lioness of Domnonia," whom Gildas assailed with such rancour.

1

Cataw or Cado, with his brothers Cyngar, Iestyn, and Selyf, are

Bright, Early English Church History, pp. 10, 11; Haverfield in English Hist. Review, July, 1896, p. 419.

2 Iolo MSS., pp. 116, 136.

mentioned in the Myvyrian Bonedd 1 as sons of Geraint ab Erbin. They were saints of Llancarfan. In Peniarth MS. 127 (early sixteenth century) his name is written Cattw, but the Iolo MSS.2 genealogies identify him with Caw, lord of Cwm Cawlwyd. The two were confounded at an early period.3

Cato or Cado is mentioned in the Life of S. Carannog, where we are told, in an episode relating to the foundation of Carantock Church in Cornwall, that "in those times, Cato and Arthur ruled in that country, living at Dindraithov," that is, in Welsh, Dindraethwy, a place known to be in Cornwall-" the Dun Tredui, the three-fossed fort of Crimthan Mor (366--378) in Britain, when the Gadhels held sway there down to the Ictian Sea." 5 He is mentioned, as "Cathov filius Gerentonis," in the Genealogy of S. Winnoc. Cado, son of Geraint, occurs in the early fifteenth century pedigrees in the Jesus College (Oxon) MS. 20, and he is there given a son, Pedur or Peredur, who is probably to be identified with the Berth, son of Cado, in the Tale of Culhwch and Olwen." His name assumes also the form Cadwy; and he is mentioned in the Triads as one of the three men (al. the three in Arthur's court) who were "best towards guests and strangers." 8

No churches bear the name of Cado in Wales or in Cornwall. It is possible that Portscatho may be named after him; it is in a portion of Cornwall redolent with reminiscences of Geraint and the royal Domnonian family. But probably any church he may have founded, if he did found any, has been attributed to the better known and more popular Cadoc.

S. CADOC or CATWG THE ELDER, Abbot

THE Conversion of S. Illtyd took place when he was a married man, when he was hardly younger or older than twenty-seven. He became a famous abbot, and the epoch when he exercised his great influence

1 Myv. Arch., pp. 421, 423.

[blocks in formation]

3 Caw is in one passage in the Tale of Culhwch and Olwen (Oxford Mabinogion, p. 123) called Cado, and in the Bonedd in Hafod MS. 16, Cadw. Cado also occurs for Cato the Philosopher.

4 Cambro-British Saints, pp. 99–100.

5 Cormac's Glossary; Old Irish Glossaries, W. Stokes, Lond. 1862, p. xlviii. Oxf. Mabin., p. 108.

7

Myv. Arch., p. 393; see also Oxf. Mabin., pp. 106, 159.

8 See Mr. Egerton Phillimore's valuable note in Y Cymmrodor, xi, pp. 90-1.

as a teacher was between 490 and 520. His pupils, Gildas, Samson, and Paul died towards the end of the sixth century. There is reason to . believe that Illtyd died between 527 and 537, and we cannot put his conversion much later than 476.

The famous Cadoc, or Catwg, of Llancarfan was contemporary with Gildas, Samson, David, and Paulus Aurelianus. He died about He was nephew of Paul Penychen, with whom, before his conversion, Illtyd served as a fighting man. It is not therefore possible to admit, with the authors of the Lives of S. Cadoc and of S. Illtyd, that this latter was converted by Cadoc of Llancarfan, who was born not before 497.

But that there was a Cadoc or Catwg an abbot in South Wales before the renowned saint of that name, son of Gwynllyw, is more than doubtful. The statements made in the Iolo MSS. are not of much value; they are late. According to them Garmon appointed both Illtyd and Catwg to be abbots. Now the Garmon here referred to was certainly not Germanus of Auxerre, as we hope to show later, but Germanus the Armorican, who died Bishop of Man in 474. This Germanus did. have something to do with Illtyd, as we learn from the Life of S. Brioc. The late Brychan lists 2 give a Cadoc son of Brychan, and these are responsible for the statement that "he was made bishop by Dyfrig, his brother," and that "he went to France where he lies buried." But neither version of the Cognatio knows anything of a Cadoc the son of Brychan. His name is clearly a misreading of the late genealogies for Rydoch (i.e. Iudoc), or Ridoc, the Reidoc of the Jesus Coll. MS. 20.

13

There was a Cadoc or Caidoc who crossed to the land of the Morini from Britain at the close of the sixth century, and was the means of the conversion of S. Ricarius, and the foundation of the Abbey of Centule in 627. There this Cadoc died and was buried, and an epitaph was composed for his tomb by S. Angilbert, Abbot of Centule. He is commemorated on May 30.4 Of his parentage the Welsh authorities have no record.

The origin of the story of the association of Cadoc with Illtyd that occurs both in the Life of S. Illtyd and in that of S. Cadoc would seem to be this. A tradition was current that Illtyd when in the service of Paul Penychen had been hunting one day in the Carfan valley, when many of his comrades floundered into the bogs that occupied

1 Iolo MSS., p. 131.

2 Ibid., pp. 111, 119, 140; Myv. Arch., p. 419.

3 Iolo MSS., p. 119; Peniarth MS. 75, p. 53.

Acta SS. Boll., Mai, vii, pp. 262 -3.

the bottom and perished, and this so affected the mind of Illtyd that he renounced the world. At the same time another tradition told how that Cadoc, when at a place unnamed, was harassed by the servants of Sawyl Benuchel, who demanded of him a meal, and were cursed by him, and perished miserably in a morass.

The author of the Vita S. Iltuti knew of both these legends, and fused them together. He turned Sawyl Benuchel into Pawl Penychen, and located the scene in Nantcarfan, where the accident to the party of Illtyd had actually taken place; unconscious of the gross anachronism he committed, he brought Cadoc into association with Illtyd, and gave him a hand in the conversion of Illtyd. At a later date, when Lifris wrote his Life of S. Cadoc, finding this story in the Vita Iltuti, he took it into his composition, unconscious of the fact that it was a reduplication of the legend he had already recorded of Cadoc and Sawyl Benuchel.

We may accordingly dismiss Cadoc the Elder as an unhistorical personage, who never existed.

>

1

S. CADOC or CATWG, Abbot, Bishop, Martyr

BUT one tolerably complete Life of S. Cadoc exists, and that was written by Lifris, Lifricus, or Leofric, mentioned in the Book of Llan Dâv,1 who was the son of Bishop Herwald (1056-1104), and "Archdeacon of Glamorgan and Master of S. Cadoc of Llancarfan." This is by much the most important of all the Lives of the Welsh Saints written in Wales. It is a composition of material of various sorts heaped together without order. It has two prefaces, then the Life in thirty-three chapters; this is followed by the Passio in three chapters, and then by a series of miracles wrought after the death of the Saint. Then ensue three genealogies, a constitution of the Society of Llan

He

1 Pp. 271-4. We know from the Life itself (c. 41) that Lifris wrote it. was probably the last abbot of Llancarfan. It is not at all improbable that the records forming the cartulary may have been copied out of a book of the gospels on the altar at Llancarfan. During his stay with Cadoc at Llancarfan Gildas made such a copy, and Caradoc of Llancarfan, in his Life of Gildas, tells us that, about 1150, it "still remained in the Church of S. Cadoc, covered all over with gold and silver," and that it was used by the Welsh for taking oaths upon. (Prof. Hugh Williams, Gildas, p. 407.) According to the Life of S. Cadoc (Cambro-British Saints, p. 66) it was copied in Echni. Whether the codex Caradoc refers to was the actual work of Gildas is, of course, matter for doubt.

carfan, with a list of its possessions and their appropriation; a rule about making wills; then it goes back to the story of the conversion of Gwynllyw, to introduce his donations, and then ensues a cartulary of Llancarfan.

The Life is in the early thirteenth century MS. Cotton. Vesp. A. xiv, and has been printed in the Lives of the Cambro-British Saints, pp. 22– 96, very inaccurately. The errors have been rectified by Professor Kuno Meyer, in Y Cymmrodor, vol. xiii (1900), pp. 77-84, and the donations have been correctly reprinted by Dr. F. Seebohm, in his Tribal System in Wales, 1895, pp. 205-224.

The Life by Lifris formed the basis for that by John of Tynemouth, Cotton. Tiberius E. 1 (fourteenth century), which is given in Capgrave's Nova Legenda Anglia. Another MS. is in Cotton. Titus D. xxii (fifteenth century). There existed formerly a Life of S. Cadoc at Quimperlé in Finistère, but as the thirteenth century writer of the Cartulary of Ste. Croix there complains, it had been carried off surreptitiously by a priest, named Judhuarn, who died before he returned it, and the book was not recovered.1

However, probably the substance of the Life had already been taken into the Breviary lections for the Feast of S. Cadoc at Quimperlé, and although no copy of this Breviary now exists, Albert le Grand saw it, and from it, and from the lections in the Vannes Breviary, composed his Life of S. Cadoc. The Life in the Acta SS. of the Bollandists is a mere reproduction of that of John of Tynemouth, after a transcript made from Capgrave.

Gwynllyw, King of Gwynllywg, had married Gwladys, daughter, or more probably granddaughter, of Brychan, and had carried her off vi et armis. Cadoc was their son. Gwynllyw, who was a lawless tyrant, had sent his robber bands into Gwent, beyond the Usk, and had carried off the cow of an Irish hermit, whose name was Tathan or Meuthi. The hermit ventured to the caer of the King to implore its restoration. According to the account in the Life of Cadoc he was well received and courteously treated; but according to that in the Life of Tathan he was treated with horse-play and insult.3 However, Gwynllyw retained him to baptize the child that was then born to him, and it was given the name of Cathmail, which occurs in mediaeval Irish as Cathmál, in Welsh Cadfael. Although Cathmail was his

1 Cartulary of Quimperlé, Paris, 1896, p. 217.

2 In the Vita S. Tathei, Cambro-British Saints, he is called Tatheus. In that of Cadoc he is given as Meuthi; in the Life by Albert le Grand it is Menechesius. Meuthi (Mo-thai) is another form of the same name as Tathan. It has the prefix Mo (my) and the other the affix an.

3 Vita S. Tathei, Cambro-British Saints, p. 265.

« ForrigeFortsett »