Cadoc

Saint Cadoc or Cadog (Medieval Latin: Cadocus; also Welsh: Cattwg; born c. 497 or before) was a 5th-6th century Abbot of Llancarfan, near Cowbridge in Glamorganshire, South Wales, a monastery famous from the era of the British church as a centre of learning, where Illtud spent the first period of his religious life under Cadoc's tutelage. Cadoc is credited with the establishment of many churches in Cornwall, BrittanyDyfed and Scotland. He is known as Cattwg Ddoeth, "the Wise", and a large collection of his maxims and moral sayings were included in Volume III of the Myvyrian Archaiology. He is listed in the 2004 edition of the Roman Martyrology under 21 September. His Norman-era "Life" is a hagiography of importance to the case for the historicity of Arthur as one of seven saints' lives that mention Arthur independently of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae.

Biography

Cadoc's story appears in a Vita Cadoci written shortly before 1086 by Lifris of Llancarfan; "it was clearly written at Llancarfan with the purpose of honouring the house and confirming its endowments," Consequently, it is of limited historical merit though some details are of interest. Llancarfan did not survive the intrusion of Norman power into South Wales, being dissolved about 1086.