Talk:Côr Tewdws

Name
I am not sure if Cor Tewdws is the correct name or not. One reference has it listed as Bangor Tewdis, and some suggest it might be the College of Theodosius. I am not sure what the Guinness Book of Records 1982 says, but since it was used as the original reference I've left the article at the original intended title - Cor Tewdws. -- zzuuzz (talk) 01:47, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

March 2007
Hello all, and thank you for contributing to this school site. I'm part of the WikiProject_Schools/Assessment team, and, as it appears to be one of the oldest schools in England, then I'm reviewing this page. I'm currently giving it a grade of stub on the Wikipedia 1.0 Assessment Scale and an importance of High on this importance scale.

My reasoning is as follows: This article is small at the moment. But this is a very old (albeit closed) school Victuallers 14:21, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Reassessed, see near the bottom of this month's assessments. PhoenixTwo 15:49, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Clarification on dates??? This article says that the school was burnt down in 446, and then re-established after a lapse of 62 years through the efforts of Germanus of Auxerre. The article on Germanus indicates that he died in 448. Mannanan51 (talk) 00:26, 4 April 2011 (UTC)mannanan51

Apart from sentence about Illtyd the content is mythological and the entry (together with references in other articles should be deleted in totoClive Sweeting

February 2014
Wow, this article was a mess! I rewrote a large portion of the article and added subsections. I also read through the top 20 sources available online on this subject, and tried to include as many legitimate citations as possible. A few notes:

- College of Theodosius/Cor Tewdws/Bangor Tewdws: The school was allegedly founded by Theodosius I, but I couldn't find any source substantiating that. I imagine the name of the original school would have been in Latin, if it was indeed founded by a Roman emperor during the Roman occupation of Britian. After that, the college is still called the "college of Theodosius" but in Welsh. Cor means college, and Bangor means chief university. This explains the multiple names.

- A significant problem with source material: Iolo Morganwg forged many of the "historical" documents he published, and a lot of has been written about Cor Tewdws depends on the Iolo MSS. A significant number of secondary sources use Iolo's manuscripts as a source. His account of founding, size, and significance of the college is highly suspect - for example, his MSS says that St. Patrick was kidnapped by Irish pirates while he was a teacher there, except St. Patrick's own biography says he was only 16 when he was kidnapped, and was not a practicing Christian at the time. Or again, the Iolo MSS says that St. Germain commissioned St. Illtud to found the college, but St. Germain was already dead by the time the college was founded, and The Book of Llandaff (a legitimate resource) says that St. Dubricius commissioned St. Illtud (and the dating of the St. Dubricius commission lines up). This isn't my own research, I'm also drawing on published works by historians. So when it comes to the other things that the Iolo MSS asserts, but which are not backed up by other historical sources, I think they should be treated as suspect. It's probable that the Iolo MSS makes the college out to be larger and more significant that it really was, mainly because Iolo Morgawg was trying to fabricate a grand Celtic University to rival Oxford and other English colleges. - Florimell1919 (talk) 19:33, 21 February 2014 (UTC)Florimell1919Florimell1919 (talk) 19:33, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Translation
Not sure it's even necessary to explain this in the article, but it does not actually mean "St. Illtud's Awesome Church". It's just "St. Illtud's Major" or "Greater St. Illtud's", distinguishing it from Llanilltud Fach which was... well, smaller. Llan ≠ "church", which is an entirely different Welsh word, and it means "holy enclosure" in the same sense that lord means "bread-keeper": i.e., only in vague reference to etymology. It's the parish church, the parish town, and the parish and best glossed by just omitting it: St. Illtud's. — Llywelyn II   02:55, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Reliability and revamp
This article is based on the works of the 18th century antiquary, Iolo Morganwg, who is not a reliable source Walgamanus (talk) 15:58, 25 July 2021 (UTC). I have revamped the article to reflect the history of the acceptance or not of Côr Tewdws. Walgamanus (talk) 18:28, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

When your largely rewritten version of the article says "The college is believed to have been invented by the historian of ill-repute, Edward Williams, more generally known as Iolo Morganwg", you are misinformed. Although Iolo Morganwg certainly invented much twaddle about Côr Tewdws, there are sources about this college going back to the saints' lives of medieval times. To start the article by calling it a "fictional" college is therefore almost certainly incorrect, and certainly shouldn't be stated in a Wikipedia article as if it were established fact. Your very ambitious and free-ranging rewrite of this article largely makes it an article about Iolo Morwanwg rather than about Côr Tewdws. I don't have time to untangle valuable additions in your rewrite from stuff that is irrelevant or plain wrong. Therefore with respect (and I mean respect - I'm not using the word in inverted commas!) I'm just going to revert to the previous version. You could always put in an extra section focusing on Iolo Morganwg's fantasies, though, without trying to replace the existing quite balanced article? Dodo64 (talk) 11:14, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

I've left the banner at the top about the accuracy of the article being disputed, and also your four tags about sources being obsolete (even though I'm not sure what you mean by that in some cases). Dodo64 (talk) 11:40, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your input, Dodo64. I stand by all my statements and spent a lot of time adding references to justify them. Unfortunately, if the article is to remain, it has to be largely about Iolo because he is the only source for the Côr Tewdws (which he actually calls the Bangor Dewdws). However, if you can provide me with the "sources about this college going back to the saints' lives of medieval times", I would be happy to alter the article accordingly. The only ones I know of refer to SS. Illtud/Germanus' foundation not the earlier supposed Roman one. Walgamanus (talk) 13:56, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

No problem. The existing article refers to early sources including the Life of Sampson and the Book of Llandaff. The former seems to be the Vita Sancti Samsonis. The article about Samson of Dol says it was written between 610 and 820 and includes a link to an English translation: https://web.archive.org/web/20100916040115/http://www.lamp.ac.uk/celtic/elibrary/translations/samson.htm This might be worth putting in this article too. As you say, it refers to the Illtud (Eltut) foundation. However, I thought your contention was that the college was fictional? Is that your view, or do you only mean that the college existed but was founded later than the 395 date in the intro of the existing article? I haven't yet attempted to look up other saints' lives (David, Gildas etc) or the Book of Llandaff, but it might be fun. Dodo64 (talk) 02:03, 19 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Yes Dodo64, that's exactly what the revamp of the article said. There was no Roman Côr Tewdws only a 6th century Bangor Illtyd, for which I pointed readers to the article on St Illtyd's Church, Llantwit Major. I can try and make this more clear if you like. Walgamanus (talk) 21:31, 19 August 2021 (UTC)


 * I have reverted back to my original revamp. I have tried to put additional emphasis, particularly in the intro, on the fact that the Côr Tewdws refers to the supposed Roman foundation and not to St Illtud's 6th century foundation which is pretty well recorded. However, it is difficult to do much more as this information was already in the article. There was always a section at the bottom on the generally accepted foundation of the Bangor Illtyd by St Illtud which points readers to article on Llanilltud Fawr Church but I have also added a disambiguation tag at the top. Walgamanus (talk) 23:50, 20 August 2021 (UTC)