Gwyddfarch Explained

Gwyddfarch was a hermit and founder of a Celtic abbey at Meifod in Wales.^[1]

He was a son of Amalarus^[2] and disciple of Saint Llywelyn at Welshpool. About 550 AD he founded a monastery^[3] at Meifod. This establishment became the mother church of several other monasteries and was a centre of the order for over one thousand years, and within a generation the monastery had become a centre of pilgrimage. Gwyddfarch taught Tysilio,^[4] who replaced him as abbot.^{[5] [6]}

Legend holds that near the end of his life Tysilio talked the aging abbot out of a pilgrimage to Rome.^[7] He died about the year 610.^[8]

He is commemorated on 3 November.^[9]

Notes and References

1. http://celticsaints.org/2008/1103h.html St. Gwyddfarch, Hermit of Moel yr Ancr, Wales
2. https://cpat.org.uk/Archive/churches/montgom/75.htm "Montgomeryshire Churches Survey", Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust
3. http://www.living-stones.info/downloads/guides/11_St_Tysilio_Marys_web.pdf Saint Tysilio and St marys Church
4. Elizabeth Rees, Celtic Sites and Their Saints: A Guidebook (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2003), p. 121.
5. http://www.anglesey-history.co.uk/places/churches_and_chapels/Llandysilio/index.html Llandysilio - St. Tysilio's Church
6. Web site: Parish Church of St Tysilio and St Mary, Meifod. British Listed Buildings.
7. https://books.google.com/books?id=A04gDQAAQBAJ&dq=Gwyddfarch&pg=PT252 Baring-Gould, Sabine. A Book of North Wales (Library of Alexandria, 2016)
8. https://ia601302.us.archive.org/17/items/livesofbritishsa03bariuoft/livesofbritishsa03bariuoft.pdf Baring-Gould, Sabine and Fisher, John. The Lives of the British Saints, vol. III, London, The Honorable Society of Cymmrodorian, 1911, p. 220
9. http://celticsaints.org/2008/1103h.html St. Gwyddfarch, Hermit of Moel yr Ancr, Wales