The Journey Through Wales and the Description of Wales (Penguin Classics)

Product Information

IN A 2004 poll of Wales’ greatest heroes, the late 12th century churchman and writer Gerald of Wales ranked 85th. Giraldus was the grandson of Gerald de Windsor, constable of Pembroke Castle during the early years of its existence, and of Princess Nest, the daughter of Rhys ap Tewdr. So his pedigree as a well-to-do nobleman left nothing to be desired. However, with an uncle as bishop of St Davids it was, perhaps, inevitable that his education should have a religious bias. two branches from Milford Haven, from whence it derived the name of Penbroch, which signifies the head of the estuary.

Edited by A. Joseph McMullen, Assistant Professor in Celtic Studies at Centenary University, and Georgia Henley,a Postdoctoral Fellow in TextTechnologies and Digital Humanities at Stanford University, this volume would be of particular interest to students and scholars of Medieval Latin and British history. Although Gerald is often hailed as something of a Welsh hero, “his feeling of ambivalence towards the native Welsh can be seen throughout his career and writings,” says Bailey.Welsh scholar Gerald of Wales was regarded as one of the greatest scholars of his generation. His Journey Through Wales is a traveling account of his visit to Wales with anarchic leader Baldwin in 1188. During his 77-year life, he wrote at least 17 books and excelled at many different tasks. His father was a Norman knight, and his mother was the daughter of a Welsh princess and a Norman lord. As a child, he wanted to be a priest and fought for Welsh independence from the church of St. David’s. Gerald was re-elected Bishop of St. David’s for the second time in 1198. Gerald had become a thorn in the side of the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury. It is only in the decades since that the main purpose of the Marches Line has changed to become a route linking North and South Wales, as well as providing a connection between South Wales and North West England. When the rail network was being built in the nineteenth century, it was never considered that there was a need to provide a link between North and South Wales, as there was no demand for this. The North Wales Coast Line was built to provide a link between the port of Holyhead and the Grand Junction Railway between London, Birmingham and the North of England. Similarly, the South Wales Main Line was built as a link between London, Cardiff and the ports of West Wales.

Four Class 57s (57313-57316) were sublet from Virgin Trains West Coast to operate in top and tail formation, with one Mark 3 and three Mark 2 carriages. [4] By February 2009, the service was being operated by a single Class 57. [5] So Gerald was, for a significant chunk of his life, politically aligned with the English church and the English monarchy. Such connections throw severe doubt on a simplistically nationalistic interpretation of his career.James Goldman's novel Myself As Witness is written from Gerald of Wales' point of view, though in the novel he is referred to as Giraldus Cambrensis, which means Gerald of Wales in Latin. In their musical concerts they do not sing in unison like the inhabitants of other countries, but in many different parts... You will hear as many different parts and voices as there are performers who all at length unite with organic melody. The itinerary reflects the importance of certain places at the time. It omits some towns which came to prominence in later periods of Welsh history, including when English rule was imposed in the late 13th century. The Historical Works of Giraldus Cambrensis, containing The Topography of Ireland, and the History of the Conquest of Ireland, translated by Thomas Forester, and The Itinerary through Wales, and the Description of Wales, translated by Sir Richard Colt Hoare, 1905

Perhaps instead Wales can today be proud of Gerald for what he was; an accomplished intellectual, a lively and observant writer, a determined adversary, a witness to many of the key events of the period, and very much a product of his own time. It took until the 1980s for the first Cardiff-Holyhead services to emerge, under British Rail’s Regional Railways division. One service each way ran every day, running via Crewe. The services initially used the new Class 155 Super Sprinter trains, until they were replaced in the early 1990s by the popular Class 158 Express Sprinters, providing faster, more comfortable journeys. Gerald's next mission, in 1188, was to preach the crusade to the Welsh, many of whom (he tells us) were publicly moved to tears and to go on crusade, even though they had not understood a word of his sermons, which were delivered in French and Latin. He has given us an account of his time in Wales in the ‘Itinerarium Cambriae’ (completed in 1191). Gerald then crossed to France in the company of the justiciar, Ranulf de Glanville, but never went on crusade, having obtained an exemption from his crusading vow. He returned to Wales on the death of Henry II and was offered, successively, the bishoprics of Bangor and Llandaff, but declined both, as he had previously declined the offer by John of the dioceses of Ferns and Leighlin in Ireland. On the death of Peter de Leia (1198), the chapter again nominated him, with three others, as successor. After a journey to France by a number of the canons to seek permission from John for Gerald's election, against the express wish of Hubert, archbishop of Canterbury, he was duly elected on 29 June. He journeyed to Rome to receive consecration at the hands of the pope, which would thus have conferred upon him the dignity of a metropolitan, but the archbishop had sent letters which reached the pope before Gerald did, and which nullified his claim to have been properly elected and to have St David's made independent of Canterbury. On his return he canvassed the support of the Welsh princes, but in 1202 the king took the lands and revenues of St David's into his hands and initiated legal proceedings against him, which came to nothing. Gerald's attempts to restore himself were fruitless, and he returned to Rome to plead the entire matter. The pope annulled both episcopal elections to St David's, and that left the matter as it had been at the start. After several manoeuvres, Gerald eventually consented to the election of Geoffrey Henlaw as bishop and was reconciled with both archbishop and king. Gerald penned several works relating to this lengthy episode which relate his own somewhat biased account of it; but he was clearly embittered by his failure to receive the ecclesiastical promotion which he thought his due. Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference However, at the present time, there are no plans to build a new route linking North and South Wales. It would be the largest infrastructure project in Wales’ history and would take decades to develop, facing many significant challenges.For starters, he was only one quarter Welsh. The rest of his lineage was unmistakably Norman and he was part of the top echelon of Norman society in Wales. Moreover, the lands held by his father and numerous Norman relations had been taken from the Welsh by force only a few decades before he was born. The books that Giraldus produced after the journey, Itinerarium Cambriae and Descriptio Cambriae, still stand as valuable historical documents but their real importance lies in the fact that they set the tone for all travel writing ever since.

Of wild animals, and their kinds, with those that are wanting; of stags, boars, and the small hares [XIX]

His second chance came in 1198 with the death of the bishop whom Henry had appointed to St David’s in 1176. Gerald received his initial education at the Benedictine house of Gloucester, followed by a period of study in Paris from c. 1165–74, where he studied the trivium. He was employed by Richard of Dover, the Archbishop of Canterbury, on various ecclesiastical missions in Wales, and distinguished himself by his efforts to remove supposed abuses of consanguinity and tax laws flourishing in the Welsh church at the time. He was appointed in 1174 as Archdeacon of Brecon, to which was attached a residence at Llanddew. He obtained this position by reporting the existence of the previous archdeacon's mistress; the man was promptly dismissed. While administering this post, Gerald collected tithes of wool and cheese from the populace; the income from the archdeaconry supported him for many years. Some of the manuscripts are illustrated with simple marginal drawings of a few animals. The drawings are almost identically repeated in several of the manuscripts, suggesting that the artists had access to previous copies or perhaps a common example. Gerald of Wales, The Journey Through Wales and The Description of Wales tr. Lewis Thorpe. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978. ISBN 0-14-044339-8 These ranges have provided major obstacles for those planning and building transport links for centuries. The difficulty in travelling through mountainous regions has kept the populations of towns and villages in rural areas low, which in turn has meant there has been little incentive for considerable investment in better transport links, perpetuating a long-running cycle.