GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS (1146?-122o)  ,

medieval historian, also called GERALD DE BARRI, was born in Pembrokeshire . He was the son of William de Barri and Augharat, a daughter of Gerald, the ancestors of the Fitzgeralds and the Welsh princess, Nesta, formerly mistress of King Henry I . Falling under the influence of his uncle, David Fitzgerald, bishop of St David's, he determined to enter the church . He studied at Paris, and his . works show that he had applied himself closely to the study ct ,the Latin poets . In 1172 he was appointed to collect tithe in Wales, and showed such vigour that he was made archdeacon . In 1176 an attempt was made to elect him bishop of St David's, but Henry II. was unwilling to see any one with powerful native connexions a bishop in Wales . In 118o, after another visit to Paris, he was appointed commissiary to the bishop of St David's,who had ceased to reside . But Giraldus threw up his post, indignant at the indifference of the bishop to the welfare of his see . In 1184 he was made one of the king's chaplains, and was elected to accompany Prince John on his voyage to Ireland . While there he wrote a Topographia Hibernica, which is full of information, and a strongly prejudiced history of the conquest, the Expugnatio Hibernica . In 1186 he read his work with great applause before the masters and scholars of Oxford . In 1188 he was sent into Wales with the primate Baldwin to preach the Third Crusade .

Giraldus declares that the

mission was highly successful; in any case it gave him the material for his Itinerarium Cambrense, which is, after the Expugnatio, his best known work . He accompanied the archbishop, who intended him to be the historian of the Crusade, to the continent, with the intention of going to the Holy Land . But in 1189 he was sent back to Wales by the king, who knew his influence was great, to keep order among his countrymen . Soon after he was absolved from his crusading vow . According to his own statements, which often tend to exaggeration, he was offered both the sees of Bangor and Llandaff, but refused them . From 1192 to 1198 he lived in retirement at Lincoln and devoted himself to literature . It is probably during this period that he wrote the Gemma ecclesiastica (discussing disputed points of doctrine, ritual, &c.) and the Vita S . Remigii . In 1198 he was elected bishop of St David's . But Hubert Walter, the archbishop of Canterbury, was determined to have in that position no Welshman who would dispute the metropolitan pretensions of the English primates . The king, for political reasons, supported Hubert Walter . For four years Giraldus exerted himself to get his election confirmed, and to vindicate the independence of St David's from Canterbury .

He went three times to

Rome . He wrote the De jure Meneviensis ecclesiae in support of the claims of his diocese . He made alliances with the princes of North and South Wales . He called a general synod of his diocese . He was accused of stirring up rebellion among the Welsh, and the justiciar proceeded against him . At length in 1202 the pope annulled all previous elections, and ordered a new one . The prior of Llanthony was finally elected . Gerald was immediately reconciled to the king and archbishop; the utmost favour was shown to him; even the expenses of his unsuccessful election were paid . He spent the rest of his life in retirement, though there was some talk of his being made a cardinal . He certainly survived John . The works of Giraldus are partly polemical and partly historical . His value as a historian is marred by his violent party spirit; some of his historical tracts, such as the Liber de instructione principum and the Vita Galfridi Archiepiscopi Eborecensis, seem to have been designed as political pamphlets .

Henry II., Hubert Walter and William

Longchamp, the chancellor of Richard I., are the objects of his worst invectives . His own pretensions to the see of St David are the motive of many of his misrepresentations . But he is one of the most vivid and witty of our medieval historians . See the Rolls edition of his works, ed . J . S . Brewer, J . F . Dimock and G . F . Warner in 8 vols . (London, 1861-1891), some of which have valuable introductions .