Elfodd

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Elfodd (died 809), also known as Elfoddw (Latin Elbodugus or Elvodugus) was a Welsh bishop who induced the Welsh church to adopt the Roman method of determining the date of Easter.

Elfodd appears to have been associated with the monastery at Holyhead on Anglesey as a young man, and must have still been comparatively young when in 768 he persuaded the Welsh church to come into line with Rome as regards the method of calculating the date of Easter. The annals Brut y Tywysogion state:

Eight years after that [768] Easter was moved for the Britons, and Elbodius the servant of God moved it.'

Elfodd's death is recorded under the year 809. Brut y Tywysogion describes him as archbishop [or chief bishop] of Gwynedd. Nennius, who says in the Historia Brittonum that he was the pupil of Elfodd, describes him as a most holy bishop and reveals that Elfodd was a student of the works of Bede. One later source states that he was consecrated as Bishop of Bangor in 755, but may not be reliable.

References

John Edward Lloyd A history of Wales from the earliest times to the Edwardian conquest (Longmans, Green & Co.)
Thomas Jones, ed. Brut y Tywysogion: Peniarth MS. 20 version (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1952)

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