CARADOG
of
LLANCARFAN
(
fl.
1135
),
man of letters
,
is best known from the reference at the end of ‘
The History of the Kings of Britain
’ by
Geoffrey of Monmouth
. Writing about
1135
,
Geoffrey
allows
Caradog
to use as literary material the story of the kings who ruled in
Wales
after
689
, when he closes his detailed narrative, and similarly gives leave to
William
of
Malmesbury
and
Henry
of
Huntingdon
to recite the history of the
English
kings
. The conjunction of names shows that
Caradog
was a
Welshman
of the time who had some literary reputation. But there is nothing to show that he ever carried it the programme thus indicated for him. That he did so in the earlier annals of ‘
Brut y Tywysogion
’ was not asserted until the
16th cent
; the internal evidence, indeed, tells strongly against such an assumption. So far as can be gathered, his real activity lay in a quite different direction. At the end of a life of
Gildas
in a
12th. cent.
Cambridge
manuscript,
Caratoc
of
Nancarban
(the correct form, which became
Llan
carfan
under foreign influence) declares himself in
Latin
verse to be the
author
and the same couplet occurs in a recently discovered life of
Cadog
. The latter, concerned with the
patron saint
of
Llancarfan
, would come naturally from a
writer
who drew his origin from that sanctuary; the former also shows intimate knowledge of the place and its traditions, but is signalized also by a warm interest in the
abbey of Glastonbury
, which suggests that
Caradog
, after the misfortunes which befell
Llancarfan
under
Norman
rule, migrated to a more hospitable dime across the
Bristol Channel
. Nothing is otherwise known of the details of his career; that he died in
1156
rests at present upon no better authority than
David
Powel
's
Historie
,
1584
.
Bibliography:
-
‘The Welsh Chronicles’ in
Proceedings of the British
Academy
, xiv;
-
J. S. P. Tatlock
in
Speculum a journal of mediaeval
studies
, Cambridge, Mass. Medieval Academy of
America
, xiii, 139-52;
-
Antiquity
, xix, 94-5.
Author:
Sir John Edward Lloyd, D.Litt., F.B.A., F.S.A. (1861-1947), Bangor
