S. David at first strenuously declined the primacy; at last he accepted it on the condition that he was to be allowed to transfer the archiepiscopal chair from the busy city of Caerleon upon the Usk--the former capital of Britannia Secunda--to the quiet retreat of Mynyw. Arthur, the famous king, and Pendragon, who is said to have been a nephew of our saint, assented to this. Doubtless the advances westward which the heathen English were making, filled S. David with dread lest the seat of the primacy should one day fall into their hands. So he thought it prudent to remove it to the iron-bound shores of Pembroke, where the English could not so easily land. After his elevation, S. David, in spite of his retiring disposition, proved a vigorous and hard-working prelate. He occasionally resided at Caerleon, and in 529 he convened a synod, which exterminated the Pelagian heresy, and was in consequence named "The Synod of Victory." It ratified the canons and decrees of Brefi, as well as a code of rules which he had drawn up for the regulation of the British Church, a copy of which remained in the Cathedral of S. David's until it was lost in an incursion of pirates. Giraldus says, "In his times, in Cambria, the Church of God flourished exceedingly, and ripened with much fruit every day. Monasteries were built everywhere; many congregations of the faithful of various orders were collected to celebrate with fervent devotion the Sacrifice of Christ. But to all of them Father David, as if placed on a lofty eminence, was a mirror and pattern of life. He informed them by words, and he instructed them by example; as a preacher he was most powerful through his eloquence, but more so in his works. He was a doctrine to his hearers, a guide to the religious, a light to the poor, a support to the orphans, a protection to widows, a father to the fatherless, a rule to monks, and a path to seculars, being made all things to all men that he might bring all to God." He founded several churches and monasteries. It is also generally agreed that Wales was first divided into dioceses in his time. Geoffrey of Monmouth states that he died in his monastery at Mynyw _i.e._, S. David's, where he was honourably buried by order of Maelgwn Gwynedd. This event is recorded by him as if it happened soon after the death of Arthur, who died 542. According to the computations of Archbishop Usher, S. David died 544, aged 82. The Bollandists agree with Usher on the date of his death, but they put his birth back as far as 446, so that according to their calculation he lived to the age of 98.