St. David appears to have been a very extraordinary person, in reference to the period in which he lived. Giraldus Cambrensis, in his Itinerarium Cambriæ, published with annotations by David Powell, at London, 1585, 8vo. and by Sir Richard Hoare, in 2 vols. 4to. 1806, gives
many particulars of St. David, his predecessor in the bishopric; and the praises bestowed by Giraldus on a founder of monasteries may be esteemed deserving of credit, as he was a professed and violent enemy to the monastic orders. He is even said to have added to the Litany, “A monachorum malitia libera nos, Domine,” in an age when their power and influence were esteemed irresistible.
St. David is said to have been the son of Xantus, Prince of Caretica, since named Cardiganshire. He was made a priest early in life, and then participating in the opinion universally prevalent, that the Deity would alone be propitiated by men rendering themselves useless to their fellow-creatures, by assuming almost the feelings and habits of brute beasts, and by adding, so far as they were able, to the misery and wretchedness of the human race, he betook himself to an ascetic life in the Isle of Wight, under the guidance of one Paulinus. But having at length acquired a sufficient stock of reputed sanctity by these efficacious means, he emerged like others from the desert, added to the establishments at Glastonbury, or as some say refounded the great work of St. Joseph of Arimathea, and then created twelve monasteries in Wales.
But St. David owes the largest share of his popularity to the active part which he took in the controversy at that time dividing the Western church; one party maintaining that it had pleased Almighty God to bestow at once on his creatures, and from their births, the inclination and capability of serving him; the other, that these gifts were reserved for some future period, or dealt out from time to time, and bit by bit. The latter opinion having been voted to be the orthodox faith, was zealously supported by St. David against the former, known as the Pelagian heresy.
He certainly lived to a very advanced age, and was buried in the cathedral at Menevia; from whence, we have the testimony of St. Kentigern that his soul was visibly carried by angels into heaven. It is more certain that about the year 962 his relics were transported to Glastonbury,
as this transaction is circumstantially related by John of Glastonbury, in his history of that splendid abbey, published by Hearne.
St. David affords a remarkable instance, not merely of the fact that events are wrested to suit the taste or the prejudices of aftertimes, but of their being utterly inverted and transformed.
When Eastern fictions became blended with the chivalry of Europe, this anchorite, polemic divine, and apostle of his native country, appeared as a military hero, expelling the Saxons from Wales, at the head of an army in which each individual was distinguished from their Pagan adversaries by affixing to his helmet the plant which has since been ever venerated by the Welch. And finally, Mr. Richard Johnson, a canon of Exeter, having adopted the mystical number seven for the Champions of Christendom, and bestowed the undue proportion of four out of seven on these Islands, makes St. David, the champion of Wales, perform all the ordinary achievements of knight errantry, and adding, as was highly proper, a spirit of gallantry to that of valour, presents him as a lover eloping from Jerusalem with an Hebrew princess, who on her part had previously, by entreaties to her father, preserved the hero’s life.
The great tithes of this parish belonged to the priory of Trewardruth, the vicarage to the duchy.
This parish contains 5734 statute acres.