Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- 1 The figure of David
- 2 Transition and survival: St David and St Davids Cathedral
- ST DAVIDS: FROM EARLY COMMUNITY TO DIOCESE
- THE LIFE OF ST DAVID
- THE CULT OF ST DAVID
- THE RELICS OF ST DAVID
- THE DIOCESE OF ST DAVIDS
- 17 The archbishopric St Davids and the bishops of Clas Cynidr
- 18 The dynasty of Deheubarth and the church of St Davids
- 19 The statutes of St Davids Cathedral 1224–1259
- 20 The crisis of the sixteenth century
- 21 The diocese of St David's in the early nineteenth century: a reappraisal
- Bibliography
- Index
17 - The archbishopric St Davids and the bishops of Clas Cynidr
from THE DIOCESE OF ST DAVIDS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- 1 The figure of David
- 2 Transition and survival: St David and St Davids Cathedral
- ST DAVIDS: FROM EARLY COMMUNITY TO DIOCESE
- THE LIFE OF ST DAVID
- THE CULT OF ST DAVID
- THE RELICS OF ST DAVID
- THE DIOCESE OF ST DAVIDS
- 17 The archbishopric St Davids and the bishops of Clas Cynidr
- 18 The dynasty of Deheubarth and the church of St Davids
- 19 The statutes of St Davids Cathedral 1224–1259
- 20 The crisis of the sixteenth century
- 21 The diocese of St David's in the early nineteenth century: a reappraisal
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In the last decade of the eleventh century, Rhygyfarch ap Sulien of Llanbadarn Fawr described in his Vita S. Dauid how the Patriarch of Jerusalem advanced David to the ‘archbishopric’; later, at the synod of Brefi, David's ciuitas is ‘declared the metropolis of the whole country, so that whoever might rule it should be regarded as archbishop’. Rhygyfarch's literary efforts to promote the cult of St David and the dignity and privileges of the bishopric were a prelude to the sustained, and ultimately unsuccessful, campaign for metropolitan status begun in the 1130s by Bishop Bernard and continued into the thirteenth century by Gerald of Wales. The historical reality of an archbishopric of St Davids in the early middle ages, to which Rhygyfarch, Bernard, and Gerald all appealed, has in fact a fairly solid grounding in the sources. There may be no evidence of metropolitan status, but the nature of the bishopric's former archiepiscopal rank can be illustrated by reference to the native Welsh law-codes.
In six versions of Cyfraith Hywel, there is a section on the seven bishop-houses of Dyfed. Here we seem to have evidence for the nature of ecclesiastical organisation in Dyfed before the end of the ninth century. Thomas Charles-Edwards has shown that we may infer from this tract that each constituent cantref of Dyfed (which represented territories once ruled by local petty kings) had its own bishop.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- St David of WalesCult, Church and Nation, pp. 296 - 304Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2007