The appointment of Bernard as bishop of St Davids in 1115 brought to an end one of the most disruptive and destructive periods in the history of the see. The entries in the Annales Cambriae and the associated versions of the Brut y Tywysogion present a catalogue of the calamities in which the cathedral and see were involved in the last quarter of the eleventh century: a succession of Norse raids, the virtual destruction of the cathedral on three occasions (1071–1073, 1078 [1080] and 1090), a dynastic conflict involving Norse, Irish and Welsh which culminated in the battle of Mynydd Carn in 1081, the visit of the Conqueror to St Davids in the same year and the advent of the Normans into Dyfed in great force in 1093. It is during this period of upheaval that the first reference to the relics of St David appears in the historical record. The Annales Cambriae contains the entry: ‘The reliquary of St David was stolen from his church and it was despoiled of the gold and silver with which it was covered’; and the Brut y Tywysogion: ‘A year after that, the shrine of David was taken by stealth from the church, and close to the city it was completely destroyed.’ These entries have not been securely dated. They have been assigned to the period 1088–91 but probably belong to the year 1090. Significantly perhaps the annalist does not mention the fate of the relics.