book of landaff

8/4/2019 Book of Landaff

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Liber Landavensis - Book

of Llandaff(Also known as: Book of

Landaff or Lan Dav or The

Book Of Teilo)

Link to source of the Bookof Llandaff
http://www.kingarthur.justwizard.com/index.htmlhttp://www.kingarthur.justwizard.com/index.htmlhttp://www.celticchristianity.infinitesoulutions.com/Book_of_Llandaff_source.htmlhttp://www.celticchristianity.infinitesoulutions.com/Book_of_Llandaff_source.htmlhttp://www.celticchristianity.infinitesoulutions.com/Book_of_Llandaff_source.htmlhttp://www.celticchristianity.infinitesoulutions.com/Book_of_Llandaff_source.htmlhttp://www.kingarthur.justwizard.com/index.html


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A assertation of the value of the ancientregisters of

the Cathedral Church of Llandaff

by using the method for ordering themwhich was presented by Alfred

Anscomb in the Celtic Review (1905)

Legend says that Llandaff Church is reported to have been first built by KingLucius (in the Welsh Triads he is called Lleurwg ap Coel ap Cyllin & in AnnalesCymru, Lles ap Coel) about the year 180 AD, but did not have a bishopbefore Dubricius. Dubricius was instated archbishop in Carleon and Llandaffby Aurelius Ambrosius in 490. He resigned in 512, passing the rest of his lifein Bardsey Island, dieing November 14, 522. (In 1170 his bones weretranslated from Bardsey to Llandaff by Urban, the 30th bishop of Llandaff.)The cathedral was built during the time of King Meurig, son of Tewdrig.

The Book of Llandaff is of great value for the study of genealogies as theyapply to the history (from the late 6th to the late 11th century). This is

especially true in the evidence it provides for the early kings of Glamorgan,Glywysing, Ergyng, and Gwent in South Wales and of most importance: KingArthur!

It is extremely unfortunate that the eminent scholar Dr. Wendy Davies,produced a book The Llandaff Charters (1979) with the backing of theNational Library of Wales, where the original charters are kept. Sheproceeded to check meticulously the witness lists of the charters to provethat they were fabricated by Bishop Urban, in the first part of the twelfth

century, to prove the existence of a Church in Llandaff that had threebishoprics and many churches within Glamorgan, Glywysing, Ergyng, and

Gwent.

Using criteria that are extremely difficult to evaluate without getting asplitting headache (therefore preventing anyone from figuring out if she was

right or wrong), she drew the conclusion that these charters were bogus.Unfortunately, she used faulty king lists and ignored the work of AlfredAnscombe, who developed a way to sort the charters and thus give them atrue chronological order, which removes the confusion.

For the Charters to be thrown out because of witness lists is a travesty. When

I go down to the government office to register property, they always make
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mistakes, and in the time of most of these charters, no one really knew whatthe accepted spelling of their names should be. And now suppose, the clerkforgot to write down the name of a witness, would it not be human nature tocreate one so as not to get in trouble!

So here we are with one of the most important documents that establishes

true genealogies, namely the Llandaff Charters, being thrown out because ofone person's opinion. This is in spite of the fact that many scholars before her

have held them to be truly reliable. In fact they are far more reliable than thetreasured genealogies of Harleian, Bonedd Gwr y Gogledd, Mostyn MS 117,and Jesus College MS 20. These documents, in the archives, have beentranscribed so many times by Latin and Welsh scribes that they all need to bedoctored up to match each other, let alone give the true facts. Thus wecontinue to be chained to a King Arthur, the son of Uther, or some othermade up lineage, when right in front of us from the Liber Landavensis isArthur son of Meurig and the grandson of Tewdrig and whose mother isOnbraust, the daughter of Gwrgant the Great, and whose son is Morgan!

To rectify this, I have retrieved the tables of Alfred Anscombe LandavensiumOrdo Chartarum published in (The Celtic Review Vol 6 & 7 (1905)(This work

and method were dismissed out of hand by Wendy Davies in her above bookon footnote 3, page 86.)

LANDAVENSIUM ORDO CHARTARUM by

Alfred AnscombThe chartulary of the ancient church of Llandaff deserves to be numberedamong the most venerable of the many monuments of Latin Christianitywhich have originated in countries beyond the borders of Italy. The series ofcharters it preserves begins in the middle of the fifth century, and runsonward for seven hundred years. The study of the earliest documents of theseries is complicated and difficult. This is owing partly to their isolatedantiquity; but chiefly to the fact that no chronographical data whateverappear in any one of them until we have penetrated to the middle of the

tenth century. This curious feature of the Llandaff charters has hitherto metwith only slight recognition. It must be obvious, however, that the views of

the collective value of the charters of any particular period are, in thecircumstances, merely tentative, and that conclusions based upon those

views cannot avoid being unreliable. Real progress, in short, cannot be madein research in connection with these documents until they have beenarranged in their due and proper order.

The criteria of distribution are numerous and reliable. The lists of witnesses(royal, prelatic, clerical, and lay) are fairly full, and from time to time we geta note of sonship, or even of more remote descent, and of motherhood, also,
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in reference to princely families.

There are four possible methods of arrangement are:

(1) by the bishops

Order of bishops up to Urban from Godwin & Le Neve in A Survey of theCathedral-church of Landaff (1719) is shown below, however the order andimportance of many of them is in doubt:

1. St. Dubricius (Welsh:Dyfrig)490-512

2. St. Teilo (Welsh: Teillo)512- Feb, 540

3. Oudoceus (Welsh:Euddogwy), nephew of Teilo(presided over the synod atLlandaff in 560)

(Legend says he crownedKing Arthur)

4. Ufelwy 5. Aidan 6. Elgistill 7. Iunapeius 8. Comereg 9. Argwistill 10. Gwrwan 11. Gwodloiou 12. Edilbiu 13. Greciolus 14. Berthigwin 15. Trychan 17. Catwarel (Llandaff

Charters seem to place himhere)

Gap is here

16. Elvogus (Died 763 AD) 18. Cerenhir 19. Nobis, as also the Bishop of

St. David's (Minevia),his death is recorded inBrenhinedd y Saesson on 840ADand he is mentioned in Asser'sLife of King Alfred

20. Gulfridus 21. Nudd 22. Cimelian (873-917/927) 23. Libian (Died 939) 24. Marchluidd (Died 943/945) 25. Pater (Synods At Llandaff

950 & 955) (Llandaff Chartersincorrectly have him afterNobis)

26. Gugan (972-983) 27. Bledri (983-1022) 38. Joseph (1022-1046)

Brenhinedd y Saesson says thathe died in Rome in 1045, being"Teilo's bishop", therefore of

Llandeilo. 39. Herewald Brenhinedd y

Saesson says thathe died 1107 as bishop ofLandaffto be followed by Urban.)

40. Urban (Welsh: Gwrgan)(1107-1134)who had the Book of Llandaffcomplied from old sourcesdating back to the fifth centuryto justify the claims
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of the Llandaff diocese.

(2) by the kings

(3) by the abbots of the diocese, of whom the threeprincipal ones are named and identified in manycharters

There are three major abbeys in the ancient diocese of Llandaff:


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1.St. Cadoc'sabbey in Llancarfan (the valley of Carvan) ("abbas carbanivallis")

2.St. Illtyd'sabbey in Llanilltud Fawr (Llantwit Major) ("abbas ilduti") 3. St. Dochau's abbey in Llandow upon the Ely ("abbas docunni")

(Nothing is available on the saint (incorrectly assigned to Cyngar).Apparently, he moved to Cornwall and was the superior of the femalesaint:St. Kewe

Whether the three abbeys of were founded in the order in which I have

named them, I cannot say. But this is the order of precedence, and, except ina few instances, it is the order in which the three abbots subscribed the

deeds they witnessed to.

(4) by any two or more of the preceding methodsemployed concurrently.

The first method (by bishops) has been by the 12th century compiler and is

reflected by headings in The Liber landavensis, Llyfr Teilo by Rev. WilliamJenkins Rees (1840)to create large groupings, but cannot be used to sort theindividual charters. The second method (by kings) is dangerous because itrelies on proper interpretation of king lists. (This is the problem with Dr.Wendy Davies book). The third method (by abbots), and witness lists under

them, is used by Alfred Anscomb, which is shown in following section.***However, I have make some corrections to his results which I have

indicated in blue by keeping them under bishops, i.e. D-1 is my first charterunder Dubricius. This is covered in more detail in Link to source of the Bookof Llandaff***

Example of re-ordering technique

Now, in the time of Bishop Oudoceus at least twenty grants were made to hischurch. Fifteen of these preserve the names and abbacies of fifteensuccessive abbots, and it should follow that the threefold course of concurrenttenancy must have been broken frequently enough, that the succession of

the abbots ought to be exactly determinable, and the chronological order ofthe grants can thus be clearly revealed. In the following tables we get, first inTable I the order of the names as they are given in the chartulary; second inTable II, the corrected order. The numbers are their official sequentiallyassigned grant numbers; the letters are the corrected order. The three

abbeys are on the left. The charters with abbots are shown.
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Table I-a: Charters of Bishop Oudoceus

CharterN

umber

17

19

20

21

23

24

25

28

Co

r

rec

tedOrder

B C A M D I H J

C

ad

oc

J

ac

ob

J

ac

ob

J

ac

ob

S

ul

ge

C

on

ce

C

on

ce

C

on

ce

C

on

ce


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n n n n n

Illtyd

Catgen

Catgen

CatgenBi

u

on

Gurhaua

l

Catgen

Colbrit

Colbrit

Colbrit

Docunn

i

E

utigir

n

E

utigir

n

E

utigir

n

Saturn

Sulgen

--

Iudhub

r

Iudhub

r

*24 I Apparently granted during a vacancy in Docunni

Table I-b: Charters of Bishop Oudoceus

C

har

te

r

Numb

2

9

3

0

3

2

3

3

3

4

3

5

3

7


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er

Correcte

d

Or

der

G E F N L O K

Cad

oc

Conce

n

Conce

n

Conce

n

Sulge

n

Conce

n

Dag

an

Conce

n

Il

ltyd

Colbrit

Co

ngen

Co

ngen

G

ur

thaur

Colbrit

El

uoin

Co

brit

Doc

Sul

Sul

Sul

Sat

Iud

Sat

Iud


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un

n

i

ge

n

ge

n

ge

n

ur

n

hu

b

r

ur

n

hu

r

br

In Oudoceus' time, it is quite clear that compiler knew that Jacob was abbotof Llangatoc at Oudoceus' consecration, and took three ' Jacob ' deeds. Hethen, quite by chance, and out of order, transcribed a ' Sulgen ' deed. Hedetected his error, and copied all the ' Concen ' grants he had, except one,and then completed the ' Sulgen ' ones. After that he wrote out the ' Daganus' charter in the last place but one under Oudoceus, and then transcribed the '

Concen ' deed he had passed over.

The broken succession is clearly indicated by the recurrence of names in thewrong places, and the true chronological order of the three abbots, and of thegrants they witnessed in Oudoceus's day is as follows :

Table II-a: Corrected Order

Chart

erNu

mb

er

20

17

19

23

30

32

29

24

Corre

A B C D E F G H


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ct

e

dOrder

Cad

oc

Jac

ob

Jac

ob

Jac

ob

Co

nc

en

Co

nc

en

Co

nc

en

Co

nc

en

Co

nc

en

Illty

d

Catgen

B

iuon

Cat

ge

n

Cat

ge

n

Cat

ge

n

Con

ge

n

Con

ge

n

Co

lb

rit

Co

lb

rit

Do

cu

nn

i

Eutigirn

Eutigirn

Eutigirn

Sulgen

Sulgen

Sulgen

Sulgen

*


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Table II-b: Corrected Order

Charter

Number

25

28

37

34

21

33

35

Co

r

rec

tedOrder

I J K L M N O

C

ad

oc

C

on

ce

C

on

ce

C

on

ce

C

on

ce

S

ul

ge

S

ul

ge

D

ag

an


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n n n n n n

I

lltyd

Colbrit

Colbrit

Colbrit

Colbrit

Gurthauar

Gurthauar

E

luoin

Doc

unni

Iu

dh

urbr

Iu

dh

urbr

Iu

dh

urbr

Iu

dh

urbr

S

at

urn

S

at

urn

S

at

urn

Applying this criterion to the re-arrangement of thechartersin the attempt to define the chronological sequenceof the first one hundred and six Llandaff chartersin sets of two tables I. Lay Witnesses & II. Clerical

Witnesses:

(In the spreadsheets below the charter numbers in Roman numerals are theproposed order, but the added numbers in red are the original acceptedcharter numbers. These numbers were obtained using Dr. Davis' book bycomparing descriptions. The folio numbers shown can be correlated to theNational Library of Wales folio number by adding 28 to the folio shown, thusthe first folio 21 corresponds toFolio 49 at NLW.)

The completion of Alfred Anscomb work that ordersthe charters by means of the three abbots andwitnesses will be shown in his spreadsheets below.

However, it did not make sense that grants should be
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allowed to move away from each bishop, so I have

shown my order, which sorts only within bishops, inblue notation above his order. (The completion of mymodified method applied to the source is located

atSource of the Book of Landaff.)

Applying this modified method to sort the charterswithin bishops follows:

Archbishop Dubricius Charters (1- 9) (labeled D - in the spreadsheetbelow)

Archbishop Teilo Charters (10-16) (named T -) Archbishop Oudoceus Charters (17-37) (named O-) Bishops Ubelviu to Grecielis in Charters (38-55) (named U-G -), who

are actually just suffragans of Teilo, have been placed in front ofOudoceus, as the kings in the charters including King Arthur clearlybelong to the time of Teilo. (These have been adjusted slightly to fitthe king order.)

Bishop Berthguinus Charters (56-82) (named B-) Bishop Trychan Charters (83-95) (named T-)

For the next charters, I have emphasized the kingorder, which leads to a new order of bishops:

Bishop Cerenhir Charters (105-108) (named CI-) Bishop Catguaret (96-104) (named CA-) Bishop Ciueilliauc (112-114) Bishop Nud (115-123) The rest (124-158) are in their initial order after the gap caused by

missing charters.

Note: The images may take a while to load.

Dubricius D-(1-5) (Grants 1- 5) & Teilo T-(1-7)(Grants 6-11)
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Bishops Ubelviu to Grecielis U-G(1-18) (Charters 38-55) spreadsheetswapping ignored


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Now come to the dissection of twenty-four grants made to Bishop Oudoceus.During his episcopate the diocese of Llandaff recovered from the demoralizingeffects of the plague, and also from the temporary defection of Oudoceus' spredecessor, St. Teilo.

Nearly eight years of St. Teilo' s episcopate were spent with St. Samson in

Armorica; and, as we have noted, very few additions to the temporalities ofthe see are recorded as having been made in his time.

The spiritual condition of the diocese of Llandaff is not likely to have beenmuch better then than that condemned by St. Gildas in that epistle of hiswhich commences Britannia habet reges, and which was composed in AD499, when Gildas began to be about thirty years old. After the publication ofit Gildas spent thirty years of his long life in the valley of the Wye, and in theisland of Echin.

His intercourse with St. Cadoc and St. Illtyd is well known; but we are notinformed whether he cooperated with St. Dogwin also. The three abbeysfounded in the diocese of Llandaff by these eminent churchmen had beencentres of spiritual light, and intellectual advancement as well, for many

years; but Dogwin had died in AD 501, and it is probable that neither Cadocnor Illtyd long survived him.

The great plague, among the victims of which was Maelgwn, King ofGwynedd, broke out in Western Britain in AD 509. When Teilo fled to

Armorica, shortly after it began, Bishop David and the hermit Gildas were theonly prominent churchmen left in Deheubarth.

Bishop Teilo came back in AD 517, and in that year St. David of Meneviadied, and also Gereint map Erbin, the Prince of Dyfneint, Arthur's cousin. Wedo not know how long Bishop Teilo survived, but in Oudoceus's Life we readof a dispute between Bishop Oudoceus and Gildas himself. It is clear,

therefore, that the consecration of Oudoceus must be assigned to the intervalthat fell between AD 517, the year of Teilo' s return, and AD 529, the year of

Gildas' s departure.

No explanation is afforded of the state of things indicated by the dissection ofthe last six chapters, namely, the survival of Bishop Oudoceus into the reignof Ithail ma Marcant map Athruis, and the fact that six donations were madeto Bishop Bethgwyn during the reign of Morcant map Athruis himself. If theentry of Oudoceus's name in No. XLVIII is not a mistake for Berthgwyn's (aview that the present writer doe not incline to), Oudoceus' advancing yearsmay be supposed to have necessitated the appointment of Berthgwyn as anadjudicator or as suffragen.

In No. XXXV. Sadoc and Guoncatui appear among the laymen. The

abbreviation d. stands for deditor immolauitor whatever term describes the


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act of the donor.

Bishop Oudoceus, ca. 520. O-(1-21) (Grants 17-37)


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Bishop Oudoceus, ca. 520. O-(1-21) (Grants 17-37 cont.)


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Next is the analysis of the lists of witnesses to grants made to BishopBerthwyn. These grants number twenty-three in all. Bishop Trychansucceeded, and thirteen grants made to him are on record.

Bishops Gwyddleu and Heddylfyw follow, but only two additions to thetemporalities are recorded in their times. Bishop Grecielis comes next, and

two out of the seven grants he received are dealt with.

After Cadwared there is a long interval of more than two centuries withoutany notice whatever in the Book of Llandaff. This interval is not closed till wecome to Pater, who was bishop in AD 955, Indiction xiii., in the reign ofNeuwy son of Gwriad. It is probable that Bishop Cadwared may have survivedinto the eighth century.

Scribal errors and misreadings become more frequent as we advance. Amongthe more glaring are danoc abbas Ilduti(No. LIIL), which yields n: : g and c:: n, for 'Dagon';gundon for ' Gurdoc,' with n: : r and on : : oc, in No.LI.;cobreigen for ' Cobreiden ' with g : : d, in No. LXXI;congant for 'Conguaret ' with n : : r, in No. LXXVI.;loguonaulfor 'Ioguonaul,' i.e. Juvenal,with long imisread Z, in Nos. LXXXIIL, LXXXIV. The variations in spelling are

important for the phonologist, especially as regards . Theoccasionally evanescent nature of the voiced guttural is indicated by theequivalents Conhae: Conhage (Nos. LIV., LXV.), and by the strengthening thefinal syllable, -ig, received by the in- fixing of c, as in 'Ercicg,' 'Gliwissicg.'

The tendency to misread this c as n has led to much speculation aboutCymric patronymics in -ing. The wavering between a and o is noteworthy, as

in canguaret, conguaret, congiwret.

Bishop Berthwyn (B-1-27)(Charters 56-82)


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Bishop Berthwyn (B-1-27)(Charters 56-82) cont. & Bishop Trychan T-(1-14) (Charters 83-95+97 out of place)


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Bishop Trychan T-(1-14) (Charters 83-95+97 out of place) cont.


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book of landaff

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