06 — The Historical David

Behind the rich legend of Rhygyfarch’s eleventh-century Vita stands a real but dimly seen sixth-century founder. This section sets the thin, securely knowable record of St David — the monastery at Mynyw, the early Irish and Welsh attestation of his cult, his placing in the genealogies, and the genuinely contested matter of his dates — against the elaborate later tradition, and treats his single most famous saying, the deathbed charge to “do the little things,” with the same source-critical care. Its discipline is to honour the saint by distinguishing the secure from the legendary.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (pre-Schism; Celtic; patron of Wales)

Once the Vita Sancti David has been read as the eleventh-century argument it is (see The Vita Davidis), the question becomes what survives of David when the argument is set aside. The answer is modest but real: a monastic founder named David existed at Mynyw, his community was severely ascetic, his cult is attested very early in the Irish Catalogus Sanctorum Hiberniae and in the Irish martyrologies, he is named in the Welsh genealogies, and his death is registered — at a date the sources do not agree on — in the Annales Cambriae. This section establishes that secure residue and names the points where the evidence is genuinely contested: the year of his death (the traditional 589 against the Annales reading of c. 601), the generation to which he belongs, and the legendary lifespan that later tradition assigned him. It then turns to the words for which David is best remembered — gwnewch y pethau bychain, “do the little things” — tracing them to the medieval Welsh Buchedd Dewi, distinguishing the medieval text from the modern proverb, and weighing their meaning against the Gospel of faithfulness in small things (Luke 16:10).

Files in This Section

File	Description
What Can Be Known	The thin secure record versus the rich legend: that a monastic founder named David existed at Mynyw, that his cult is attested early in the Irish Catalogus Sanctorum Hiberniae and the Irish martyrologies (Tallaght, Óengus) and his death in the Annales Cambriae, and that he is placed in the Welsh genealogies; the dating problem treated both-sides (589 traditional against the Annales reading of c. 601, and the early- versus late-sixth-century question); the 147-year lifespan flagged as legendary; the secure residue distinguished from the Rhygyfarch construction.
The Last Words	David’s famous deathbed exhortation — “be joyful, keep the faith, and do the little things you have seen and heard from me,” the Welsh gwnewch y pethau bychain — traced to the Middle Welsh Buchedd Dewi (Llyfr Ancr Llanddewibrefi, 1346); the medieval text carefully distinguished from the modern proverb gwnewch y pethau bychain mewn bywyd; its spiritual meaning of faithfulness in little (Luke 16:10) and its place in Welsh national and Christian identity.

See Also

• The Vita Davidis — the eleventh-century life whose construction this section subtracts
• The Political Uses of the Life — the purposes that shaped the legendary portrait
• The Monastery at Mynyw — David’s most secure historical monument
• The Rule of the Watermen — the severe asceticism belonging to the older tradition
• The Cult Records — the martyrologies, annals, and calendar entries behind the early cult
• The Latin and Welsh Lives — the Buchedd Dewi and the transmission of the last words
• Welsh Asceticism and the Desert — the desert affinity of David’s teaching of “little things”
• Legacy and Assessment — the saint’s place in Welsh national and Christian identity
• Saint Patrick of Ireland — the Irish church world that attests David’s cult early
• The Pre-Schism Church — the undivided Church that venerated David from early times
• The Church Calendar — the 1 March commemoration attested in the Irish martyrologies
• Methodology — the citation and verification standard governing these files

References

• Charles-Edwards, T. M. Wales and the Britons 350–1064. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. (The historian’s appraisal of the secure kernel; the Catalogus Sanctorum Hiberniae; the dedication-pattern and genealogies; the Annales Cambriae obit and the dating problem; the conventional death-date of 589.)
• Sharpe, Richard, and John Reuben Davies. “Rhygyfarch’s Life of St David.” In J. Wyn Evans and Jonathan M. Wooding, eds., St David of Wales: Cult, Church and Nation. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2007, pp. 107–155.
• Evans, J. Wyn, and Jonathan M. Wooding, eds. St David of Wales: Cult, Church and Nation. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2007.
• James, J. W., ed. and trans. Rhigyfarch’s Life of St David. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1967.
• Buchedd Dewi (Middle Welsh “Life of David”). In Llyfr Ancr Llanddewibrefi, 1346. Ed. J. Morris-Jones and John Rhŷs. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1894.
• Annales Cambriae. Ed. John Williams ab Ithel, Rolls Series, London, 1860; with the chronology as discussed in Charles-Edwards (2013).