Clydog

Last updated

Clydog (also known as Clydawg, Clodock, Clitaucus, Cleodicus, Cladocus) was a sixth-century Welsh king of Ergyng who became a saint. [1] [2] His feast day is traditionally held on 3 November [3] but is also celebrated on 19 August. [4]

In imagery, Clydog is represented as a king holding a sword and a lily. [5]

Life

Clydog was a member of the clan of the legendary king Brychan, whose children and grandchildren became the famed saints of Cornwall and Wales. His father was Clydwyn, himself a saint and the son of Brychan. Although some sources say he conquered the whole of South Wales, which is unlikely, but it is possible that he was at one time also king of Ceredigion and Dyfed along with his brother Dedyw. His other brothers included St Cynon and St Cynlefr the Martyr and St Berwen. [1]

As king of Ergyng he ruled over parts of Monmouthshire and Herefordshire, known for its time of peace and justice. With his brother Dedyw he trained as a priest under Saint Cadoc at Llancarfan.

Following his return to Ergyng, a woman fell in love with him and refused to marry anyone else. A local Saxon noble had also fallen for the same woman. Shortly after while Clydog was hunting a deer, the Saxon shot Clydog with an arrow, killing him. His body was placed on a cart and taken to the ford of the river below the present church in Clodock, at which point the cart broke and the oxen could go no further. He was thus buried there at Caer Gledog, near Longtown, Herefordshire. [1]

Some sources label Clydog a martyr, being a Christian killed by an outsider, but this is probably a mistranslation of the word merthyr (shrine). [5] A chapel was built above his burial which became a site of pilgrimage. His fame spread and even several centuries later people were still being named after him, including a 12th-century Bishop of Llandaff.

St Clydawg's church now covers the parish of Clodock, which was transferred from Wales to England in 1535.

He was married three times in total; his wives were successively Prawst, Ribrawst and Roistri. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Celtic Christianity</span> Christianity in the Celtic language–speaking world during the early Middle Ages

Celtic Christianity is a form of Christianity that was common, or held to be common, across the Celtic-speaking world during the Early Middle Ages. Some writers have described a distinct Celtic Church uniting the Celtic peoples and distinguishing them from adherents of the Roman Church, while others classify Celtic Christianity as a set of distinctive practices occurring in those areas. Varying scholars reject the former notion, but note that there were certain traditions and practices present in both the Irish and British churches that were not seen in the wider Christian world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saint Wenna</span> Cornish and Welsh saint

Wenna was a medieval princess and Christian martyr who flourished in Wales and Cornwall. Later venerated as a saint, she is honored at multiple churches in Cornwall and Devon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brychan</span> Welsh king and saint

Brychan Brycheiniog was a legendary 5th-century king of Brycheiniog in Mid Wales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Archenfield</span> Historic English name for an area of southern and western Herefordshire

Archenfield is the historic English name for an area of southern and western Herefordshire in England. Since the Anglo-Saxons took over the region in the 8th century, it has stretched between the River Monnow and River Wye, but it derives from the once much larger Welsh kingdom of Ergyng.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bishop of Llandaff</span> Ordinary of the Church in Wales Diocese of Llandaff

The Bishop of Llandaff is the ordinary of the Church in Wales Diocese of Llandaff.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saint Eluned</span> 5c Welsh saint

Saint Eluned, also known as Aled and by other names, was a 5th- or 6th-century virgin martyr from the area of modern Breconshire. George Phillips, writing for the Catholic Encyclopedia, calls her "the Luned of the Mabinogion and the Lynette of Tennyson's Gareth and Lynette.".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Æthelberht II of East Anglia</span> 8th-century saint and king of East Anglia

Æthelberht, also called Saint Ethelbert the King was an 8th-century saint and a king of East Anglia, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom which today includes the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. Little is known of his reign, which may have begun in 779, according to later sources, and very few of the coins he issued have been discovered. It is known from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that he was killed on the orders of Offa of Mercia in 794.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nectan of Hartland</span> 5th-century Welsh and Cornish saint

Saint Nectan, sometimes styled Saint Nectan of Hartland, was a 5th-century holy man who lived in Stoke, Hartland, in the nowadays English, and at the time Brythonic-speaking, county of Devon, where the prominent St Nectan's Church, Hartland is dedicated to him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ergyng</span> Early medieval Welsh kingdom

Ergyng was a Brittonic kingdom of the sub-Roman and early medieval period, between the 5th and 7th centuries. It was later referred to by the English as Archenfield.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dubricius</span> Sub-Roman Welsh bishop and saint

Dubricius or Dubric was a 6th-century British ecclesiastic venerated as a saint. He was the evangelist of Ergyng and much of south-east Wales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mabyn</span> Medieval Cornish saint

Mabyn, also known as Mabena, Mabon, etc., was a medieval Cornish saint. According to local Cornish tradition she was one of the many children of Brychan, king of Brycheiniog in Wales in the 5th century. The village and civil parish of St Mabyn is named for her, and the local St Mabyn Parish Church is dedicated to her.

Peibo Clafrog, was King of Ergyng in south-east Wales in the 5th or 6th century. He is chiefly known from the legends of Saint Dubricius, who was supposedly his grandson. The contemporary rendering of this name would seem to be Peibio, as in Garthbeibio, a parish in Montgomeryshire, or Ynys Beibio, near Holyhead.

There is archaeological evidence of insular monasticism as early as the mid 5th century, influenced by establishments in Gaul such as the monastery of Martin of Tours at Marmoutier, the abbey established by Honoratus at Lérins; the abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel; and that of Germanus at Auxerre. Many Irish monks studied at Candida Casa near Whithorn in what is now Galloway in Scotland.

Ewyas was a possible early Welsh kingdom which may have been formed around the time of the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century. The name was later used for a much smaller commote or administrative sub-division, which covered the area of the modern Vale of Ewyas and a larger area to the east including the villages of Ewyas Harold and Ewyas Lacy.

Cynog son of Brychan, also known as Saint Cynog or Canog, was an early Welsh saint and martyr. His shrine is at Merthyr Cynog in Wales and his feast day is observed on 7 or 9 October. In Ireland he is known as St. Mocheanog

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Weonards</span> Village in Herefordshire, England

St Weonards is a village and civil parish in Herefordshire, England, located 10 miles (16 km) south of Hereford, 7 miles (11 km) west of Ross-on-Wye and 8 miles (13 km) north of Monmouth, on the A466 road. Within the parish and also on the A466 is the hamlet of Sandyway. St Weonards lies within the area known to the Saxons as Archenfield, previously the kingdom of Ergyng, adjoining the modern border with Wales. Ergyng was later reduced to a semi-autonomous cantref retaining Welsh language and customs until the early nineteenth century.

Clydwyn is a 6th-century Pre-Congregational Saint of Wales.

Saint Dogmael was a 6th-century Welsh monk and preacher who is considered a saint. His feast day is 14 June.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyfeilliog</span> Welsh bishop

Cyfeilliog or Cyfeiliog, was a bishop in south-east Wales. The location and extent of his diocese is uncertain, but lands granted to him are mainly close to Caerwent, suggesting that his diocese covered Gwent. There is evidence that his diocese extended into Ergyng. He is recorded in charters dating from the mid-880s to the early tenth century.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Eve Nicholson. "St Clydawg the Martyr and his Church Today".
  2. David Farmer, Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Oxford University Press, 1996), p104.
  3. Baring-Gould, Sabine. The Lives of the Saints, Vol. XVI, "The Celtic Church and its Saints", Longmans, Green, & Co. (New York), 1898.Vol. I, p. 73-75.
  4. Calendar of the Celtic Saints of Wales.
  5. 1 2 "Saint Clydog". Catholic Saints.