Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cadvan (6th cent.)
CADVAN (6th cent.), Welsh saint, was born in Brittany; his father's name is given as Eneas Lydewig. Cadvan arrived in Wales early in the sixth century, having fled before the Frankish invasion of Gaul. He was accompanied by a large number of persons, like himself of good birth, who proposed to devote themselves to a religious life on the loss of their possessions. Cadvan founded the churches of Llangadvan in Montgomeryshire and Towyn in Merionethshire, where there exists a rude pillar called St. Cadvan's stone to this day. The pillar bears an ancient Welsh inscription, almost the only one of the kind remaining, which is given in Haddan and Stubbs's ‘Early Ecclesiastical Documents,’ i. 165. In conjunction with Einion Vrenin, Cadvan founded a monastery on Bardsey Isle, off the promontory of Carnarvonshire, of which he was the first abbot. He is called the tutelary saint of warriors, and is commemorated on 1 Nov.
[Rees's Essay on Welsh Saints, 213–14; Iolo MSS.; article by Rev. Charles Hole in Dictionary of Christian Biography, i. 364; Archæologia Cambrensis, new ser. i. 90, 205, ii. 58; Hübner's Inscriptiones Britanniæ Christianæ, p. 44.]