Gildas

Gildas was a sixth-century British monk, active roughly between 450 and 570, who is best known for his religious polemic On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain, a work that recounts the history of the Britons before and during the arrival of the Saxons and denounces the rulers and clergy of his day. He is one of the best documented figures of the Christian church in the British Isles during the sub-Roman period and was known for his command of the Bible and his literary style. Tradition holds that he was educated at the monastery school of Saint Illtud and later settled in Brittany, where he founded the monastery now called Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys and was buried. Later writers called him Gildas the Wise, and his account shaped early ideas of post-Roman Britain.