Caradoc by Llancarfan

Caradoc of Llancarfan ( Welsh Caradog o Lancarfan ) was a Welsh clergyman and author located in Llancarfan , Wales during the 12th century. He is believed to be the author of the Life of Gildas and a Life of Saint Cadog in Latin .

He was a contemporary of Geoffrey of Monmouth , who wrote the Historia regum Britanniae . At the end of the Historia there is a reference to Caradoc, who wrote a continuation from 689 to his time. This could have been the Chronicle Brut y Tywysogion , although no surviving medieval copies name Caradoc as its author.

The origin of the Life of Gildas is set between 1130 and 1150. The author was familiar with Glastonbury Monastery , from which it has been concluded that he may have moved from Llancarfan to Glastonbury.

Caradoc's version of the Life of Saint Cadog can be found in a manuscript from the University of Cambridge , along with the Life of Gildas . At the end of the manuscript, the author introduces himself in a Latin couplet as the same author as the author of the second Life . In the story of the Life of Cadog , King Arthur appears as a main character.

The 16th century Welsh antiquarian David Powel claimed that his Cronica Walliae ( History of Cambria ) was a continuation of this chronicle. At the end of the 18th century, Iolo Morganwg wrote that this claim related to Caradoc's lost chronicle, Brut Aberpergwm . This work was published in The Myvyrian Archeology of Wales and became one of the most influential and well known of Iolo's numerous forgeries that gave the Kingdom of Morgannwg ( Glamorgan ) a central place in early and medieval Welsh history.

It was not until John Strong Perry Tatlock expressed doubts in a 1938 article about the articles on Caradoc that Thomas Frederick Tout had written in the Dictionary of National Biography and John Edward Lloyd in the Dictionary of Welsh Biography . He writes that "even the recently deceased Professor Tout in a large part of his account in the DNB certainly makes unfounded claims, uses worthless authorities and disregards or misrepresents the implications of the reliably known."

Individual evidence

1. ^ JE Lloyd: Caradoc of Llancarfan In: Dictionary of Welsh Biography , National Library of Wales April 9, 2016.
2. ↑ Caradoc of Llangarfan: The Life of Gildas. ( Memento of the original from September 6, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Fordham University Medieval Sourcebook. Fordham University 2016 
3. ↑ GJ Williams: Traddodiad Llenyddol Morgannwg. University of Wales Press, 1948: 3-4.
4. ^ JSP Tatlock: Caradoc of Llancarfan. In: Speculum , vol. 13, April 2, 1938: 9-152. (doi = 10.2307 / 2848396)
5. ↑ “Even the late Professor Tout devotes most of his account in the Dictionary of National Biography to statements certainly groundless, uses worthless authorities, and ignores or distorts the implications of what is reliably known”.

literature

• 

  Wikisource: Dictionary of National Biography  - Sources and full texts (English)
  : Caradog of Llancarvan, vol. 9
• BISLAM; Fabricius, Bibliotheca latina, Vol. 1, 309
• Vita Gildae auctore Caradoco Lancerbanensi, in: MGH Auct. ant. 13, Berlin 1898, pp. 107–110 [edition of the original Latin text].
• Hugh Williams, translator. Two Lives of Gildas by a monk of Ruys and Caradoc of Llancarfan. First published in the Cymmrodorion Record Series, 1899. Facsimile reprint by Llanerch Publishers, Felinfach, 1990.