Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Uchtryd
UCHTRYD (the Welsh form of Uhtred) (d. 1148), bishop of Llandaff, was archdeacon of Llandaff in the time of Bishop Urban (1107–1153), and in that character attests the agreement drawn up in 1126 between the bishop and Earl Robert of Gloucester (Liber Landavensis, ed. 1893, p. 29). In 1131 he was one of Urban's envoys in the matter of the dispute with the sees of Hereford and St. David's (ib. pp. 60, 64). He was clearly a Welshman (the name is not uncommon at this period), and probably married, since ‘Brut y Tywysogion’ (Oxford Bruts, p. 328) mentions a daughter Angharad, who became the wife of Iorwerth ab Owain, of the Welsh line of Caerllion. Upon Urban's death in 1134 he was elected to the see of Llandaff, and in 1140 was consecrated by Archbishop Theobald [q. v.] (Continuator of Flor. Wig.) He did not continue the barren litigation as to the boundaries and privileges of the see which occupied so much of Urban's episcopate, and appears only in minor controversies with the priory of Goldcliff (Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, i. 346–7) and the abbey of St. Peter's, Gloucester (Historia et Cartularium Sancti Petri, ed. Hart, ii. 14). He died in 1148, a date given by the ‘Annals of Tewkesbury,’ and to be inferred from the notices in the ‘Bruts’ and ‘Annales Cambriæ.’ According to the Gwentian ‘Brut’ (Myvyrian Archaiology, 2nd ed. p. 711), the famous Geoffrey of Monmouth [q. v.] was Uchtryd's nephew and adopted son, and Mr. Gwenogfryn Evans believes (preface to edition of 1893) that the ‘Liber Landavensis’ in its original form was compiled by Geoffrey at Llandaff under his uncle's patronage. That Uchtryd had a nephew called Geoffrey is shown by the occurrence of ‘Galfrido sacerdote nepote episcopi’ among the witnesses to a charter of his dated 1146 (Cartulary of St. Peter's, Gloucester, ii. 55), but the author of the ‘History of the Kings of Britain’ is not supposed to have been ordained priest until 1152 (Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, i. 360). The chapter of St. David's, in a letter to Eugenius III of about 1145, accuse Uchtryd of illiteracy and immorality; it is possible, however, that the document, the knowledge of which is due to the zeal of Giraldus Cambrensis on behalf of the claims of St. David's, may be spurious (Gir. Cambr., Works, iii. 56–8, 187–8).
[Haddan and Stubbs's Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents; Annales Cambriæ.]