The Battle of odan, also known as the Battle of Mons Badonicus, was a battle purportedly fought between Britons and Anglo-Saxons in Post-Roman Britain during the late 5th or early 6th century. It was credited as a major victory for the Britons, stopping the westward encroachment of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms for a period.
Gildas — also known as Gildas Badonicus, Gildas fab Caw and Gildas Sapiens — was a 6th-century British monk best known for his scathing religious polemic De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, which recounts the history of the Britons before and during the coming of the Saxons. He is one of the best-documented figures of the Christian church in the British Isles during the sub-Roman period, and was renowned for his Biblical knowledge and literary style. In his later life, he emigrated to Brittany where he founded a monastery known as Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys.
In Welsh mythology, Elffin ap Gwyddno was a son of Gwyddno Garanhir, 'Lord of Ceredigion'. The earliest example of the name occurs in several of the mythological poems attributed to Taliesin in the Book of Taliesin. The date of their composition is uncertain but probably predates the Norman conquest. Several late medieval compositions refer to Elffin and Taliesin in more detail.
Taliesin was an early Brittonic poet of Sub-Roman Britain whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the Book of Taliesin. Taliesin was a renowned bard who is believed to have sung at the courts of at least three kings.
Cunedda ap Edern, also called Cunedda Wledig, was an important early Welsh leader, and the progenitor of the Royal dynasty of Gwynedd, one of the very oldest of Western Europe.
Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon was king of Gwynedd in Wales from around 655 to 682 AD. Two devastating plagues happened during his reign, one in 664 and the other in 682; he himself was a victim of the second. Little else is known of his reign.
Historia regum Britanniae, originally called De gestis Britonum, is a pseudohistorical account of British history, written around 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It chronicles the lives of the kings of the Britons over the course of two thousand years, beginning with the Trojans founding the British nation and continuing until the Anglo-Saxons assumed control of much of Britain around the 7th century. It is one of the central pieces of the Matter of Britain.
Aurelius Conanus or Aurelius Caninus was a Brittonic king in 6th-century sub-Roman Britain. The only certain historical record of him is in the writings of his contemporary Gildas, who excoriates him as a tyrant. However, he may be identified with one of the several similarly named figures active in Britain during this period. In the 12th century Geoffrey of Monmouth adapted Gildas' account for his chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae, and thereafter Aurelius Conanus was remembered as a legendary King of Britain.
Vortiporius or Vortipor was a king of Dyfed in the early to mid-6th century. He ruled over an area approximately corresponding to modern Pembrokeshire, and Carmarthenshire, Wales. Records from this era are scant, and virtually nothing is known of him or his kingdom. The only contemporary information about Vortiporius comes from the Welsh ecclesiastic Gildas, in a highly allegorical condemnation from his De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae. At the time the work was written, Gildas says that Vortiporius was king of Dyfed, that he was grey with age, that his wife had died, and that he had at least one daughter.
Cadfan ap Iago was King of Gwynedd. Little is known of the history of Gwynedd from this period, and information about Cadfan and his reign is minimal.
Iago ap Beli was King of Gwynedd. Little is known of him or his kingdom from this early era, with only a few anecdotal mentions of him in historical documents.
Beli ap Rhun was King of Gwynedd. Nothing is known of the person, and his name is known only from Welsh genealogies, which confirm that he had at least two sons. He succeeded his father Rhun ap Maelgwn as king, and was in turn succeeded by his son Iago. Beli was either the father or grandfather of Saint Edeyrn.
Rhun ap Maelgwn Gwynedd, also known as Rhun Hir ap Maelgwn Gwynedd, sometimes spelt as 'Rhûn', was King of Gwynedd. He came to the throne on the death of his father, King Maelgwn Gwynedd. There are no historical records of his reign in this early age. A story preserved in both the Venedotian Code and an elegy by Taliesin says that he waged a war against Rhydderch Hael of Alt Clut and the kings of Gododdin or Manaw Gododdin. The small scattered settlement of Caerhun in the Conwy valley is said to be named for him, though without strong authority. Rhun also appears in several medieval literary stories, as well as in the Welsh Triads. His wife was Perwyr ferch Rhûn "Ryfeddfawr" and their son was Beli ap Rhun "Hîr".
Cynan Dindaethwy or Cynan ap Rhodri was a king of Gwynedd in Wales in the Early Middle Ages. Cynan was the son of Rhodri Molwynog and ascended to the throne of Gwynedd upon the death of King Caradog ap Meirion in 798. His epithet refers to the commote of Dindaethwy in the cantref Rhosyr. Unlike later kings of Gwynedd, usually resident at Aberffraw in western Anglesey, Cynan maintained his court at Llanfaes on the southeastern coast. Cynan's reign was marked by a destructive dynastic power struggle with a rival named Hywel, usually supposed to be his brother.
Owain Danwyn was a king of Rhos in Gwynedd, northwestern Wales, in the mid-5th century. He was the son of Einion Yrth and the father of Cynlas Goch, probably the Cuneglasus excoriated by Gildas. Very little is known of his life. Graham Phillips and Martin Keatman proposed a theory that he was the historical figure behind the legend of King Arthur.
Yr Hen Ogledd, or in English the Old North, is the historical region that was inhabited by the Brittonic people of sub-Roman Britain in the Early Middle Ages, now Northern England and the southern Scottish Lowlands, alongside the Celtic Kingdom of Elmet. Its population spoke a variety of the Brittonic language known as Cumbric which is closely related to, if not a dialect of Old Welsh. The people of Wales and the Hen Ogledd considered themselves to be one people, and both were referred to as Cymry ('fellow-countrymen') from the Brittonic word combrogi. The Hen Ogledd was distinct from the parts of North Britain inhabited by the Picts, Anglo-Saxons, and Scoti.
De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae is a work written in Latin by the probably 6th-century AD British cleric St Gildas. It is a sermon in three parts condemning the acts of Gildas' contemporaries, both secular and religious, whom he blames for the dire state of affairs in sub-Roman Britain. It is one of the most important sources for the history of Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries, as it is the only significant source for the period written by a near contemporary of the people and events described.
Wales in the early Middle Ages covers the time between the Roman departure from Wales c. 383 until the middle of the 11th century. In that time there was a gradual consolidation of power into increasingly hierarchical kingdoms. The end of the early Middle Ages was the time that the Welsh language transitioned from the Primitive Welsh spoken throughout the era into Old Welsh, and the time when the modern England–Wales border would take its near-final form, a line broadly followed by Offa's Dyke, a late eighth-century earthwork. Successful unification into something recognisable as a Welsh state would come in the next era under the descendants of Merfyn Frych.
Manaw Gododdin was the narrow coastal region on the south side of the Firth of Forth, part of the Brythonic-speaking Kingdom of Gododdin in the post-Roman Era. It is notable as the homeland of Cunedda prior to his conquest of North Wales, and as the homeland of the heroic warriors in the literary epic Y Gododdin. Pressed by the Picts expanding southward and the Northumbrians expanding northward, it was permanently destroyed in the 7th century and its territory absorbed into the then-ascendant Kingdom of Northumbria.
