Geraint of Dumnonia
Geraint was a King of Dumnonia who ruled in the early eighth century. During his reign, it is believed that Dumnonia came repeatedly into conflict with neighbouring Anglo-Saxon Wessex who started to control what became the county of Somerset after a series of battles that culminated in a victory of the West Saxons and South Saxons under Ine in AD 710. A letter survives addressed to him from Aldhelm on the Easter Problem. It is clear that in the later seventh century the British in Cornwall and Devon still observed Easter on the dates that the Celtic church had calculated, at variance with Catholic practice. Geraint is venerated as a saint, and appears in the Welsh language classic "The Mabiginion". He was the last recorded king of a unified Dumnonia, with subsequent kings (eg Doniert, Huwell) reigned over a reducing area of influence that eventually encompassed only a part of Cornwall.
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