St. Gildas the Wise

St. Gildas the Wise was a British monk and writer of the sixth century, born, by tradition, about 500 in the north of Britain, who became a learned churchman in an age of turmoil, when the Britons struggled against the invading Anglo-Saxons and the old Roman Christian order was breaking apart. He is said to have lived and taught in Wales, Ireland, and Brittany, and to have ended his days as a monk in Brittany.

He is remembered above all for his work On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain, De Excidio Britanniae, a passionate sermon in the guise of history, in which he laments the calamities that had befallen his people and denounces the sins and misrule of the British kings and the corruption of the clergy, calling them to repentance. Though written to rebuke rather than to record, it is one of the very few contemporary written sources for the history of Britain in that dark and obscure period, and thus of great value to historians. He died about 570, and is venerated as a saint, his memory kept on 29 January.