Gerald of Wales

105
Gerald of Wales bigraphy, stories - Medieval clergyman and historian

Gerald of Wales : biography

Gerald of Wales (c. 1146 – c. 1223), also known as Gerallt Gymro in Welsh or Giraldus Cambrensis in Latin, archdeacon of Brecon, was a medieval clergyman and chronicler of his times. Born ca. 1146 at Manorbier Castle in Pembrokeshire, Wales, he was of mixed Norman and Welsh descent; he is also known as Gerald de Barri.

Later life and death

Gerald spent the remainder of his life in academic study, most likely in Lincoln, producing works of devotional instruction and politics, and revising the works on Ireland and Wales he had written earlier in his life. He spent two years (1204–6) in Ireland with his relatives and made a fourth visit to Rome, purely as a pilgrimage, in 1206. The controversy over St David’s soured his relationship with the crown. In 1216 a baronial plan to put Louis VIII of France on the throne of England in the First Barons’ War was warmly welcomed by him. He died in about 1223 in his 77th year, probably in Hereford and he is according to some accounts buried at St David’s Cathedral.Robert Bartlett, ‘Gerald of Wales (c.1146–1220×23)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004

There is a statue, by Henry Poole of Gerald in City Hall, Cardiff, and he was included in the vote on 100 Welsh Heroes for his Descriptio Kambriae and Itinerarium Kambriae. His reputation in Ireland, due to his negative portrayal of the Irish, is much less friendly.

Travels in Wales and Ireland

Gerald became a royal clerk and chaplain to King Henry II of England in 1184, first acting mediator between the crown and Prince Rhys ap Gruffydd. He was chosen to accompany one of the king’s sons, John, in 1185 on John’s first expedition to Ireland. This was the catalyst for his literary career; his work Topographia Hibernica (first published 1188, and revised at least four more times) is an account of his journey to Ireland; Gerald always referred to it as his Topography, though "History" is the more accurate term.O’Meara 14. He followed it up, shortly afterwards, with an account of Henry’s conquest of Ireland, the Expugnatio Hibernica. Both works were revised and added to several times before his death, and display a notable degree of Latin learning, as well as a great deal of prejudice against a foreign people. Gerald was proud to be related to some of the Norman invaders of Ireland, such as his maternal uncle Robert Fitz-Stephen and Raymond FitzGerald, and his influential account, which portrays the Irish as barbaric savages, gives important insight into Anglo-Norman views of Ireland and the history of the invasion.

Having thus demonstrated his usefulness, Gerald was selected to accompany the Archbishop of Canterbury, Baldwin of Forde, on a tour of Wales in 1188, the object being a recruitment campaign for the Third Crusade. His account of that journey, the Itinerarium Cambriae (1191) was followed by the Descriptio Cambriae in 1194. His two works on Wales remain incredibly valuable historical documents, significant for their descriptions — however untrustworthy and inflected by ideology, whimsy, and his unique style — of Welsh and Norman culture. As a royal clerk, Gerald observed significant political events at first hand, and was offered appointments as bishoprics of Wexford and Leighlin, and apparently at a little later time the bishopric of Ossory and the archbishopric of Cashel, and later the Welsh Bishopric of Bangor and, in 1191, that of Llandaff. He turned them all down, possibly in the hopes of landing a more prominent bishopric in the future. He was acquainted with Walter Map whose career shares some similarities with Gerald. Retiring from royal service, he lived in Lincoln from ca 1196 to 1198 where his friend William de Montibus was now chancellor of the Cathedral. It was in this period that De instructione principis was probably first written, a useful historical source on contemporary events. It was an influential work at the time, spreading, for example, the legend of MacAlpin’s treason. Here Gerald is frequently critical of the rule of the Angevin kings, a shift from his earlier praise of Henry II in the Topographia. He also wrote a life of St Hugh of Lincoln.