The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales | Page 3

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This etext was prepared by David Price [email protected], from
the 1912 J. M. Dent edition.

The Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales

INTRODUCTION

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.