Saint Illtud was an aristocratic Romano-British knight who, according to Celtic traditions, renounced courtly prestige to establish a monastery and academy at Llanilltud Fawr (modern Llantwit Major) in the Vale of Glamorgan around 500 AD. Revered by early chroniclers as the "most learned of all Britons in both the Old and New Testaments and philosophy," his monastic school taught classical grammar, rhetoric, and agriculture, educating the patron saint of Wales, Saint David, as well as Saint Gildas the historian and Saint Samson of Dol.
Saint Illtud was an aristocratic Romano-British knight who, according to Celtic traditions, renounced courtly prestige to establish a monastery and academy at Llanilltud Fawr (modern Llantwit Major) in the Vale of Glamorgan around 500 AD. Revered by early chroniclers as the "most learned of all Britons in both the Old and New Testaments and philosophy," his monastic school taught classical grammar, rhetoric, and agriculture, educating the patron saint of Wales, Saint David, as well as Saint Gildas the historian and Saint Samson of Dol.
