This was a book written in Latin by the British hermit and writer, St. Gildas. The title is also in Latin. It is pronounced 'Day Ex-id-ee-oh et Con-quest-oo Brit-ann-ee-eye'. It means 'The Ruin & Conquest of Britain'. Gildas said that he wrote it 44 years after the Battle of Mount Badon. This was supposed to have been a famous victory for King Arthur over the Saxons. We don't know when this battle took place. Historians think it was sometime around AD 500. De Excidio was a religious book. In it, Gildas had a big moan about the state of Britain since the Roman Army had left. He told all the people in charge and the priests in the British Church what a bad job they'd made of things. Gildas also wrote, in this book, about things that happened in Britain before and during King Arthur's time. He wrote about: The 'proud tyrant' who was called 'Vortigern' by a later Anglo-Saxon writer named Bede King Ambrosius who led the Britons The Battle of Mount Badon (though he does not mention King Arthur) Five local kings who were ruling in Britain at the time he was writing. He did not like them. Activity Sheet available.