In the fourth life he is said to have been born in Bretagne; to have been educated by St. Phylebert, abbot of Tournay; to have founded a monastery, which, by its description, answers to that of Ruys; and to have gone to Island, by which, however, Ireland is evidently meant—when it terminates abruptly. In the life by the monk of Ruys, he is said to have been born in ‘Arecluta fertilissima regione,’ which ‘Arecluta autem regio, quum sit Britanniæ pars, vocabulum sumpsit a quodam flumine quod Clut nuncupatur.’ His father, Caunus, had four other sons—Cuillus, who succeeded him; Mailocus, who founded a monastery at ‘Lyuhes in pago Elmail;’ Egreas; Alleccus; and Peteona, who became a nun. Mailocus is evidently St. Meilig, son of Caw, to whom the church of Llowes in Elfael, Radnorshire, is dedicated. Egreas, Alleccus, and Peteona are Saints Eigrad, Gallgo, and Peithien, children of Caw, to whom churches in Anglesea are dedicated. If he was born, therefore, in Britain, it is more probable that Arecluta was the vale of the Clwyd in North Wales, where St. Kentigern founded the church of Llanelwy, or St. Asaphs. He is said in this life to have been educated by Illtutus, and to have gone to Ireland in the reign of King Ainmere, and after going to Rome to have gone to Armorica when he was thirty years old, and founded the monastery of Ruys, where after ten years he wrote his history. This places the date of his leaving Britain for Armorica in 546, and his history in 556, and he is said to have died an old man in Armorica. Ainmere, king of Ireland, reigned according to Tighernac, from 566 to 569, and the Annales Cambriæ have at 565, ‘Navigatio Gildæ in Hybernia,’ and Tighernac has at 570 ‘Gillas quievit.’ He therefore probably died in Ireland, and the monk of Ruys has made his visit to Ireland precede his going to Armorica in order that he may claim Ruys as the place of his death. The acts compiled subsequent to the appearance of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s history identify Cuillus, his father’s eldest son, with Geoffrey’s Howel, king of Alclyde—transfer his birth to Strathclyde, where his father is in the one life Nau rex Scotiæ—in the other Caunus rex Albaniæ—increase his family from four to twenty-four sons—import the element of Arthur and his times into his acts; and finally take him to Glastonbury, where he dies after it has been besieged by King Arthur,—additions which have led to the solution of two Gildases, but which may more reasonably be rejected as spurious. Footnote 108: