Narrative
Gildas was reportedly the son of Caunus, king of some southern provinces in North Britain. According to legend his father was killed in war by king Arthur. According to Alban Butler (1798),Identification with Saint Gildas the Wise
"Gildas the Albanian" was invented by British historians of the 17th and 18th century, including Bishop James Ussher and Alban Butler, in an attempt to explain inconsistencies in references made by historical sources and ''vitae'' to the 5th/6th century British writer "Gildas the Wise." This was founded on a belief that Gildas the Wise was born in AD 494 and died in AD 570, and wrote his ''De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae'' between AD 564 and 570. Gildas the Albanian, Butler and others believed, lived much earlier, dying in AD 512. By 1876, this theory had been dismissed, after it was noted that the details of the lives of the two Saints named Gildas were broadly the same. Robert Chambers, summing up the invention and abolition of "Gildas the Albanian" in '' Chambers Book of Days'' (1883), observed: Modern historians believe there was only one Gildas, the author of ''De Excidio'', about whom little is reliably known, and that he lived earlier than was supposed by Butler and other 18th century historians: "it is unlikely that Gildas wrote 'De Excidio...''before 480/490 or much after about 550".For example, Guy Halsall: "We know nothing about Gildas himself. His name is not recognizably British...a late fourth-century Moorish prince was called Gilda. Otherwise the name is unique."Edmonds, Columba. "St. Gildas." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. 26 Jan. 2013Notes
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* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gildas the Albanian 512 deaths People whose existence is disputed