Gerald the Welshman - Giraldus Cambrensis - was born, probably in
1147, at Manorbier Castle in the county of Pembroke. His father was
a Norman noble, William de Barri, who took his name from the little
island of Barry off the coast of Glamorgan. His mother, Angharad,
was the daughter of Gerald de Windsor {1} by his wife, the famous
Princess Nesta, the "Helen of Wales," and the daughter of Rhys ap
Tewdwr Mawr, the last independent Prince of South Wales.
Gerald was therefore born to romance and adventure. He was reared
in the traditions of the House of Dinevor. He heard the brilliant
and pitiful stories of Rhys ap Tewdwr, who, after having lost and
won South Wales, died on the stricken field fighting against the
Normans, an old man of over fourscore years; and of his gallant son,
Prince Rhys, who, after wrenching his patrimony from the invaders,
died of a broken heart a few months after his wife, the Princess
Gwenllian, had fallen in a skirmish at Kidwelly. No doubt he heard,
though he makes but sparing allusion to them, of the loves and
adventures of his grandmother, the Princess Nesta, the daughter and
sister of a prince, the wife of an adventurer, the concubine of a
king, and the paramour of every daring lover - a Welshwoman whose
passions embroiled all Wales, and England too, in war, and the
mother of heroes - Fitz-Geralds, Fitz-Stephens, and Fitz-Henries,
and others - who, regardless of their mother's eccentricity in the
choice of their fathers, united like brothers in the most
adventurous undertaking of that age, the Conquest of Ireland.
Though his mother was half Saxon and his father probably fully
Norman, Gerald, with a true instinct, described himself as a
"Welshman." His frank vanity, so naive as to be void of offence,
his easy acceptance of everything which Providence had bestowed on
him, his incorrigible belief that all the world took as much
interest in himself and all that appealed to him as he did himself,
the readiness with which he adapted himself to all sorts of men and
of circumstances, his credulity in matters of faith and his shrewd
common sense in things of the world, his wit and lively fancy, his
eloquence of tongue and pen, his acute rather than accurate
observation, his scholarship elegant rather than profound, are all
characteristic of a certain lovable type of South Walian. He was
not blind to the defects of his countrymen any more than to others
of his contemporaries, but the Welsh he chastised as one who loved
them. His praise followed ever close upon the heels of his
criticism. There was none of the rancour in his references to Wales
which defaces his account of contemporary Ireland. He was
acquainted with Welsh, though he does not seem to have preached it,
and another archdeacon acted as the interpreter of Archbishop
Baldwin's Crusade sermon in Anglesea. But he could appreciate the
charm of the Cynghanedd, the alliterative assonance which is still
the most distinctive feature of Welsh poetry. He cannot conceal his
sympathy with the imperishable determination of his countrymen to
keep alive the language which is their differentia among the nations
of the world. It is manifest in the story which he relates at the
end of his "Description of Wales." Henry II. asked an old Welshman
of Pencader in Carmarthenshire if the Welsh could resist his might.
"This nation, O King," was the reply, "may often be weakened and in
great part destroyed by the power of yourself and of others, but
many a time, as it deserves, it will rise triumphant. But never
will it be destroyed by the wrath of man, unless the wrath of God be
added. Nor do I think that any other nation than this of Wales, or
any other tongue, whatever may hereafter come to pass, shall on the
day of the great reckoning before the Most High Judge, answer for
this corner of the earth." Prone to discuss with his "Britannic
frankness" the faults of his countrymen, he cannot bear that any one
else should do so. In the "Description of Wales" he breaks off in
the middle of a most unflattering passage concerning the character
of the Welsh people to lecture Gildas for having abused his own
countrymen. In the preface to his "Instruction of Princes," he
makes a bitter reference to the prejudice of the English Court
against everything Welsh - "Can any good thing come from Wales?"
His fierce Welshmanship is perhaps responsible for the unsympathetic
treatment which he has usually received at the hands of English
historians. Even to one of the writers of Dr. Traill's "Social
England," Gerald was little more than "a strong and passionate
Welshman."
Sometimes it was his pleasure to pose as a citizen of the world. He
loved Paris, the centre of learning, where he studied as a youth,
and where he lectured in his early manhood. He paid four long
visits to Rome. He was Court chaplain to Henry II. He accompanied
the king on his expeditions to France, and Prince John to Ireland.
He retired, when old age grew upon him, to the scholarly seclusion
of Lincoln, far from his native land. He was the friend and
companion of princes and kings, of scholars and prelates everywhere
in England, in France, and in Italy. And yet there was no place in
the world so dear to him as Manorbier. Who can read his vivid
description of the old castle by the sea - its ramparts blown upon
by the winds that swept over the Irish Sea, its fishponds, its
garden, and its lofty nut trees - without feeling that here, after
all, was the home of Gerald de Barri? "As Demetia," he said in his
"Itinerary," "with its seven cantreds is the fairest of all the
lands of Wales, as Pembroke is the fairest part of Demetia, and this
spot the fairest of Pembroke, it follows that Manorbier is the
sweetest spot in Wales." He has left us a charming account of his
boyhood, playing with his brothers on the sands, they building
castles and he cathedrals, he earning the title of "boy bishop" by
preaching while they engaged in boyish sport.
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