Talk:Gildas

message: "Cuneglasus of "the Bear's Stronghold" (Din Eirth, possibly Dinarth near Llandudno)" - unlikely to be Dinarth I would have thought, since Maelgwn's main stronghold at Deganwy would have been only a couple of miles away. Apart from Maelgwn, I don't think anything further is known of the other kings denounced by Gildas Rhion 20:54, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cuneglasus 

message: I'm not sure where the problem lies -- in the Wikipedia software or my browser -- but when a link is indicated next to a square braket like this Aetius], 
the text of the actual link is swallowed, & all I see is this Aetius]. To fix that problem, I have added a space where this problem occurs to fix this.
Or am I the only person to see that phenomena? -- llywrch 21:43, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Square brackets and links 

message: That's actually a picture of Abelard and Heloise.  Abelard was abbot of St. Gildas de Rhuys  MaryJones 23:09, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I think you're right. I never saw Gildas with a nun. Let's delete it. Andrew Dalby 00:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture 

message: I removed the following passage:
:The vision presented in this work of a land devastated by plundering raiders and the misrule of corrupt and venial officials has been readily accepted by scholars for centuries, because not only did it fit the accepted belief of invading, destructive barbarians who destroyed Roman civilization within the bounds of the former empire, but it also explained away the awkward question of why Britain was one of the few parts of the Roman Empire that did not acquire a Romance language, as had France and Spain. 
It seemed a little strange to me.  Obviously, huge sections of the Roman Empire were not Latin speaking, or spoke Latin only as a second language.  The large numbers of early Latin loanwords in Welsh are adequate evidence of a Roman presence.  The question "why didn't Latin replace British as the colloquial tongue of (lowland) Britain" is not in any way "awkward", nor mysterious, nor indeed in need of much explanation -- Britain was a distant frontier province, separated by the sea, and not as desirable for colonization by Romans from Italy as were Gaul, Spain, and (parts of) North Africa.  If anything, it's the lack of survival of Gallic and the pre-Roman Iberian languages that is "awkward" -- Albanian, spoken much closer to Italy, survived quite nicely.
Anyway, it's not clear how Gildas' account relates to the linguistic situation -- there's no evidence that Latin was a vernacular language spoken by a majority of Britons under Roman rule even before the arrival of the Saxons, and subsequent events would have affected Latin and British speakers equally.
RandomCritic (talk) 14:19, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Deleted

message: I re-wrote the first sentence to avoid using the expression 'Celtic Church'. For one thing, Gildas would have thought of himself as a Roman Christian, just as St. Patrick did, equating Christianity with 'Romanitas'. For another, he would have been totally unfamiliar with the word 'Celtic', also with the idea that the Church in his part of the world was a separate entity from the church on the other side of the Channel.Nennius (talk) 08:45, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That's an excellent point.--Wetman (talk) 19:47, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Celtic Church 

message: What are the original sources for the two years of birth? The 1911 Britannica only states 516. Kaldari (talk) 19:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes I think 516 will be the right year, Britannica is the most scholarly encyclopedia. Also see this discussion. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 19:29, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Year of birth 

message: Mention of the Apocalyptic beasts should be in the Gildas article ... else we have part I (religious theme), part II (tirade), part III (religious theme). All 3 parts are consistently religious when the Apocalypse is included. Ultimately, when the first and third parts are expanded, De Excidio should probably have its own article.
Not sure why there is a tradition of editing Gildas to refer to Dumnonia rather than Damnonia ... Gildas ties all of the kings together through Maelgwn, and that is historically accurate and credible regarding Damnonia. It makes no sense regarding Dumnonia, which was not under Maelgwn's pre-eminence, and had no known relationship of this kind with either Maelgwn or his kingdom.
Comments welcome. Regards, Notuncurious (talk) 22:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  De Excidio update 

message: According to  Gildas left Steep Holm to become Abbot of Glastonbury. Is this strong enough evidence to include in the article?— Rod talk 19:56, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Steep Holm & Glastonbury 

message: From his brother's names, his father was presumably named Caw. Anything else known about him?
His brother 'Maelog'/'Mailoc' was apparently also revered as a saint, with his feast on the following day, 30 January, per this guy. — LlywelynII 22:53, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd really prefer to see a more modern source than something printed in 1761 - what do modern scholars say? Ealdgyth - Talk 23:00, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Family

message: I've changed the pipelink from "Brythonic" back to "British" in the lead. "Brythonic" is not an ethnic category, it's a linguistic one, and is inappropriate here, partly because linguists seem to prefer "Brittonic" these days, partly because the only language Gildas is known to have used is Latin, but mainly because it's uninformative. It's specialist jargon, which the general reader will have to look up. "British" at least tells you where he came from geographically, which is far more relevant in the introduction than which group of languages the language he presumably spoke belonged to. --Nicknack009 (talk) 06:12, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that's fine - Brythonic/Brittonic is almost exclusively used for the language family; and while Gildas probably referred to himself as a "Britto" in Latin, we would normally translate that as "British" in English.Cagwinn (talk) 15:42, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Brythonic" 

message: In the text we have "but both agree that he was born in what is now Scotland, on the banks of the River Clyde" while in the box we have "Born 	c. 500 traditionally the valley of the river Clwyd in north Wales."
Please could an expert resolve this.  Brownturkey (talk) 07:36, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: The sources are unreliable and I have corrected. This article needs general revison as it appears to be largely based on sources which are dated and unreliable. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:51, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contradiction