{"id":5595,"date":"2014-05-04T22:18:29","date_gmt":"2014-05-05T02:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=5595"},"modified":"2018-08-24T15:48:25","modified_gmt":"2018-08-24T19:48:25","slug":"sunday-may-5-2014-in-search-of-gildas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=5595","title":{"rendered":"Sunday, May 5, 2014 \u2014 In Search of Gildas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Grotto-of-St.-Gildas.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-5596\" src=\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Grotto-of-St.-Gildas.jpg\" alt=\"Grotto of St. Gildas\" width=\"404\" height=\"605\"><\/a><span style=\"color: #000000;\">One spe\u00adcial trip, at my request, was to the chapel of Saint Gildas. Gildas is well-known to those who study Eng\u00adlish his\u00adto\u00adry in the \u201cdark ages\u201d, because his <em>De Excidio et Con\u00adques\u00adtu Bri\u00adtan\u00adni\u00adae<\/em> is the first writ\u00adten his\u00adto\u00adry of Britain. In fact, it is pret\u00adty much the only doc\u00adu\u00admen\u00adtary source for fifth and sixth cen\u00adtu\u00adry Britain. Bede\u2019s <em>His\u00adto\u00adry<\/em> doesn\u2019t appear until the year 731. But Gildas spent part of his career on the con\u00adti\u00adnent (he is sup\u00adposed to have slain a drag\u00adon on a brief vis\u00adit to Rome), and specif\u00adi\u00adcal\u00adly in Mor\u00adbi\u00adhan, where he died. There are two writ\u00adten biogra\u00adphies of Gildas on which we depend for infor\u00adma\u00adtion, but they were writ\u00adten respec\u00adtive\u00adly in the ninth and twelfth cen\u00adturies, and tell very dis\u00adsim\u00adi\u00adlar sto\u00adries. The ear\u00adli\u00adest life relates that Gildas con\u00advert\u00aded the hea\u00adthen of the Blavet val\u00adley by stand\u00ading upon a great rock over\u00adlook\u00ading the riv\u00ader and shout\u00ading his exhor\u00adta\u00adtions. That sort of thing, appar\u00adent\u00adly, worked in those days. When some\u00adone has already slain a drag\u00adon, he prob\u00ada\u00adbly has a suf\u00adfi\u00adcient\u00adly force\u00adful per\u00adson\u00adal\u00adi\u00adty to pull it off. Any\u00adway, the rock is still there, with a medieval chapel at its foot, and the place is won\u00adder\u00adful\u00adly atmos\u00adpher\u00adic. It being before the tourist sea\u00adson, Didi\u00ader and I had it all to our\u00adselves. Gildas lived, with one acolyte, in a tiny grot\u00adto under\u00adneath the rock, still acces\u00adsi\u00adble, until he returned to his monastery on the coast and com\u00adplet\u00aded <em>Con\u00adques\u00adtu Bri\u00adtan\u00adni\u00adae<\/em>. While the late medieval chapel was closed, I have found a pic\u00adture of its interior.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Chapel-of-St.-Gildas.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-5597\" src=\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Chapel-of-St.-Gildas.jpg\" alt=\"Chapel of St. Gildas\" width=\"768\" height=\"510\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Chapel-of-St.-Gildas.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Chapel-of-St.-Gildas-300x199.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One spe\u00adcial trip, at my request, was to the chapel of Saint Gildas. Gildas is well-known to those who study Eng\u00adlish his\u00adto\u00adry in the \u201cdark ages\u201d, because his De Excidio et Con\u00adques\u00adtu Bri\u00adtan\u00adni\u00adae is the first writ\u00adten his\u00adto\u00adry of Britain.&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=5595\">Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,940],"tags":[1443,1444,1441,1439,1442,1440],"class_list":["post-5595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-blog","category-am-blog-2014","tag-blavet","tag-conquestu-britanniae","tag-de-excidio-et-conquestu-britanniae","tag-gildas","tag-morbihan","tag-saint-gildas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5595"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5604,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5595\/revisions\/5604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}