Gilda the Wise, Saint (GILDA IL SAGGIO, SANTO) - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VI, p. 257

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

GILDA il SAGGIO, saint. — Breton monk, born in Great Britain around 493, died at Rhuys (Vannes) around 570. He is sometimes also called “Badonicus,” because, as he himself admits (De excidio, I, 26: PL. 69, 347), he was born in the year in which the Britons won a famous battle against the Saxons near Mount Badon. Little else is known with certainty of his life; it may be said that he became a monk and was a disciple of St. Ittut at the monastery of Caervorgan (Wales); that around 510 he went to Ireland to restore the faith and morals—which, however, had not fallen as low as his biographers suggest—and introduced a new liturgy of the Mass there; that he made a pilgrimage to Rome around 520 and, on his return, stayed among the Britons of the Continent and founded a monastery at Rhuys, which after his death was named after him. His feast is celebrated on 29 January.

His principal work: De excidio et conquestu Britanniae ac flebili castigatione in reges, principes et sacerdotes,

in three parts: a prologue; a summary of the history of the Britons from the invasion of the Romans to his own time; a letter full of bitter and exaggerated invectives against the five petty kings Constantine, Vortipor, Cyneglas, Cynan, and Maelgwn, sparing neither the secular clergy nor the people (only the monks escape his scourge), because they had proved weak in resisting the evil customs imported by the invading Picts and Scots and had not improved even after the victory of Badon. The work reveals a person of extraordinary culture, notable holiness of life, and great zeal, learned in Holy Scripture and in various Fathers; but the style is rather obscure. Other works are attributed to him, though their authorship by G. is debated: Liber de poenitentia, 27 canons indicating the penance to be assigned to those who confess; Oratio pro itineris et navigationis prosperitate, in rhythmic verse; Lorica, another prayer in verse in which divine assistance against illnesses is requested for each part of the body. His thought is also cited in a collection of canons mentioned by St. Columbanus (Ep. 1, 4; PL 80, 262) and St. Bede (Hist. eccl., 1, 22; PL 95, 52).

BIBL.: The three lives of G.: T. Mommsen, Chronica minora, III, in MGH, Auct. antiquis., XIII, Berlin 1898, pp. 81–89; the oldest (11th century) is attributed to a monk of Rhuys (pp. 80–110); for the other two, less certain, cf. Acta SS. Januarii, II, Venice 1733, pp. 129–42. Works: De excidio, De poenitentia, and fragments of the Epistolae are reproduced by T. Mommsen, loc. cit., respectively on pp. 25–85 and 86–90; Lorica, in C. Blume, Anal. hymn. medii aevi, LI, Leipzig 1918, pp. 358–64. Studies: A. de la Borderie, L'historien et le prophète des Brétons, Paris 1883; A. Ascombe, St Gildus of Ruys and the Irish regal chronology of the VI century, London 1893; J. Fonsegrives, St Gildus de Ruis et la société bretonne au VIe siècle, Paris 1908; F. Lot, De la valeur du « De excidio », in Medieval studies, Gertrude Schoepperte, Paris–New York 1930; E. Faral, St Amphibalis, in Mélanges Paul Thomas, Paris 1930; Bardenhewer, V, pp. 399–401; C. E. Stevens, Gildus sapiens, in English historical review, 56 (1941), pp. 353–73. Celestino Testore