In honour of the patron saint of Wales, who is also my namesake, let us consider three texts about Saint David, first the Vita S. Dauid published by Rhygyfarch ap Sulien in A.D. 1081, second Trucidare Saxones, a Cambro-Latin martial poem published perhaps on Saint David's Day, 1 March 1200, third the Office for Saint David's Day, composed after 1220 and extant in a manuscript written during the period 1320–1390.

Rhygyfarch's Vita S. David

Sulgenus Sapiens, Sulien the Wise, twice Bishop of Saint David's, once 1072/3–1078 and again 1080–1085, had four sons, Rhygyfarch, Arthgen, Deiniol, and Ieuan. From the family home at Llanbadarn Fawr in Ceredigion literary works of the father and the oldest and youngest sons survive. Sulien may be responsible for introduction of the Vita S. Maedoc into Wales, if he did not himself compose it. The oldest son Rhygyfarch composed the prose Vita S. Dauid and three poems, De Psalterio ‘On the Psalter’, De Messe Infelici ‘On an Unhappy Harvest’, and Planctus Rice-march, ‘Rhygyfarch's Lament’ for the Norman Conquest of Wales. The youngest son Ieuan composed the prose Vita S. Paterni and three poems, Inuocatio Iohannis ‘Ieuan's Invocation’, Carmen de Vita et Familia Sulgeni ‘Song about the Life and Family of Sulien’, Disticha Iohannis ‘Ieuan's Distichs’, and an old Welsh englyn on the episcopal staff of Saint Padarn.

A hallmark of works that issued from the house of Sulien the Wise is apparent limpid simplicity that proves on analysis to hide astonishing complexity. Though each of the features is simple, together they comprise a tightly woven text that one might describe in painter’s diction as intensely polychromatic and in musician’s diction as densely polyphonic. Rhygyfarch practised this compositional technique to such a degree that one might describe him, if he had been a circus performer, as juggling many balls while breathing fire and riding a unicycle.