Gwyddfarch was a hermit and founder of a Celtic abbey at Meifod in Wales.[1] He was a son of Amalarius and disciple of St. Llywelyn at Welshpool. About 550 AD he founded a monastery[2] 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,[3] who replaced him as abbot.[4][5]
Legend holds that near the end of his life Tysilio talked the aging abbot out of a pilgrimage to Rome.[6] He is commemorated on 3 November.[7]
References edit
- ^ St. Gwyddfarch, Hermit of Moel yr Ancr, Wales.
- ^ Saint Tysilio and St marys Church.
- ^ Elizabeth Rees, Celtic Sites and Their Saints: A Guidebook (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2003), p. 121.
- ^ Llandysilio - St. Tysilio's Church, Anglesey History
- ^ "Parish Church of St Tysilio and St Mary, Meifod". British Listed Buildings.
- ^ Sabine Baring-Gould, A Book of North Wales(Library of Alexandria, 2016).
- ^ St. Gwyddfarch, Hermit of Moel yr Ancr, Wales.