Campus Elleti and Arelate: How Ambrosius Came to be in Southern Wales

Coliseum at Arles

For years now, I have made a case for how and why Ambrosius ended up in Britain.  

The association of this saint (who might well have been confused/conflated with his father, a prefect of Gaul) with Eryri in Wales is simple to account for.  The story of Dinas Emrys, featuring Vortigern and Ambrosius (= W. Emrys), is merely a folk reflection of the meeting of Magnus Maximus (Maximus the Tyrant) and St. Ambrose at Aquileia.

But the occurrence of Emrys at Campus Elleti in Glamorgan, known as Palud or 'swamp, marsh' of Elleti in the Book of Llandaf, is harder to account for.  I have pointed out the fact that the motif of the ballgame at Elleti and Emrys's being called a bastard is echoed in the story of the Irish god Aengus Mac Og at Bri Leith.  I've also reminded everyone that the Welsh counterpart of Mac Og - Mabon - is found at Gileston, the earlier Church of Mabon of the Vale, just across the River Thaw from the location of Campus/Pauld Elleti.  This "coincidence" suggests that Ambrosius, a Latin name meaning 'the divine or immortal one', may have been associated with the youthful god Mabon.

However, I then went on to wonder if Campus Elleti, which might have been Maes Elleti in Welsh, could have represented a fanciful relocation of the River Moselle, the location of Trier, the favored birthplace of St. Ambrose.  Yet this seemed a stretch and I did not push the argument.

I'm now thinking that Palud Elleti, the Marsh of Elleti, holds the clue to explaining why Ambrose was situated in Glamorgan.  

"In 395 CE, Arelate became the seat of the Praetorian Prefecture of the Gauls and in 408 CE was designated as his capital by Constantine III shortly after he was declared emperor in 407 CE."

Prior to Arles being the seat of the Gallic Prefecture, Trier had held that honor.  Most scholars now thin that St. Ambrose was born at Trier, but there is a tradition that he was born at Arles.

http://www.roamintheempire.com/index.php/2019/08/28/arelate-part-i/

St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, lived from 374 to 397.  There are traditions that he was born probably 340 at Trier, Arles, or Lyons and he died 4 April, 397.

https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01383c.htm 

The toponym Arelate is a Latinized form of the Gaulish *Are-lati, meaning 'by or in front of the marsh'. [Delamarre, Xavier (2003). Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise: Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental.]

As for the story of Ambrosius at Wallop fighting the grandfather of Vortigern (proof positive of the chronological shift involving Ambrosius, showing him to be 4th century and not a later figure), I have shown how this came about:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-battle-of-ambrosius-and-vitalinus.html

It is yet another folktale and not a historical episode.