ELFODD , bishop (d. 809),
whose name appears in the forms ‘Elbodugus’ and ‘Elbodg’ (Harleian MS. 3859), and ‘Elvodugus’ (Nennius), representing Old Welsh ‘Elbodu(g),’ is famous for his adoption (in 768, according to Harleian MS. 3859) of the Roman Easter, which the Welsh Church had rejected in 602-3. The traditions concerning his origins vary, but a connection with the monastery of Cybi at Holyhead is asserted in most of them (see Br. SS., iii, 431). He is said (ibid.) to have become bishop of Bangor in 755, but this statement rests on late and extremely dubious authority — the manuscripts of Iolo Morganwg. The chronicler Nennius (q.v.), who styles himself Elfodd's pupil (‘Elvodugi discipulus’), refers to him as ‘episcopus sanctissimus’ with no local designation; and the record of his death in 809 (Harleian MS. 3859) calls him ‘archiepiscopus Guenedote regione’ (chief bishop in the land of Gwynedd), a phrase which at that date in Wales had no connotation of metropolitan authority.
Bibliography:
- J. E. Lloyd, Hist. W., 203-4.
Author:
Emeritus Professor Robert Thomas Jenkins, C.B.E., D.Litt., Ll.D., F.S.A., (1881-1969), Bangor.
