Cadfan
St Cadfan by Herbert Bryans, 1919
Photo © Martin Crampin
Photo © Martin Crampin
Click to show suggested citation for this record
Martin Crampin and David Parsons (eds), The Cult of the Saints in Wales, University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, Aberystwyth, (2023)
https://saints.wales/saint/37 (accessed 20 May 2024)
https://saints.wales/saint/37 (accessed 20 May 2024)
first abbot of Bardsey
Texts
No Life of Cadfan is known, but the poem by Llywelyn Fardd provides hints at what was known of the saint and his church at Tywyn in the twelfth century.A long ode of praise to St Cadfan by Llywelyn Fardd, sung c.1150, probably in Tywyn, Merioneth.
Places
Cadfan was thought to have come from Llydaw (Brittany) and is closely associated with Tywyn (Merioneth) and Bardsey Island in Wales. A chapel dedicated to Cadfan in the church at Llangathen in Carmarthenshire has been proposed, and a further church at Llangadfan in Montgomeryshire is dedicated to him. Curiously, this church is listed as dedicated to All Saints in the eighteenth century, as was the church at Tywyn. A further chapel and a well in the churchyard at Tywyn, together with the early evidence from Llywelyn Fardd's poem, makes a very convincing case for the importance of his medieval cult here. Further topographical place-names associated with Cadfan are listed by Baring-Gould and Fisher along a route between Tywyn and Llangadfan, and just as they note that Cadfan was not an unusual name, the church at Llangadfan may perhaps be unconnected with Cadfan of Tywyn. | Church Dedication |  | Well |  | Placename |  | Landscape feature |  | Modern |  | Text |
Further reading
S. Baring-Gould and John Fisher The Lives of the British Saints (London: Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1908), 1–9 View online
David Farmer The Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 70–1
Elissa Henken Traditions of the Welsh Saints (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1987), 174–7, 326–7
Thomas Charles-Edwards 'Cadfan [St Cadfan] (supp. fl. 6th cent.' in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) View online
Images
Two standing figures in stained glass dating from 1883 and 1909 are found at the church at Tywyn, and Dafydd ap Gwilym swore an oath on a figure of the saint in the church, which was perhaps the same one recorded in a valuation of 1535. Cadfan is depicted arriving in Wales with Ithel Hael in a window at Llandrillo-yn-Edeirnion, and clothing Ithel Hael's son, Trillo 'with the monastic habit'. Although no churches dedicated to Cadfan have been identified on or near Bardsey Island, at the Church of St David, Nefyn, on the Llyn Peninsula, Cadfan is included in the east window of 1958, with a scene in which he prepares Lleuddad for the abbacy of Bardsey. A further large window of Cadfan is found nearby in the church at Boduan.View images of Cadfan on the Stained Glass in Wales website
