Editing Gerald of Wales (section)

==Works==
Gerald's writings in good-quality Latin, based on a thorough knowledge of Classical authors, reflect experiences gained on his travels as well as his great knowledge of the standard authorities. He was respected as a scholar in his time and afterwards. The noted scholar [[Edward Augustus Freeman]], in his ''[[The History of the Norman Conquest of England|Norman Conquest]]'', said he was "the father of comparative philology," and in the preface to the last volume of Gerald's works in the Rolls Series, he calls him "one of the most learned men of a learned age," "the universal scholar."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Vision of Britain {{!}} Gerald of Wales {{!}} Introduction |url=https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/text/chap_page.jsp?t_id=Cambrensis_Tour&c_id=1 |access-date=2024-09-03 |website=www.visionofbritain.org.uk}}</ref> His writings were prolific, running to about ten volumes in modern printed editions. Gerald was a man of strong opinions whose works are frequently [[polemic]]al, including bitter attacks on his enemies, but he also had an intense curiosity, recording much valuable detail of everyday life in his ethnographic works.

It is generally agreed today that his most distinguished works are those dealing with Wales and Ireland, with his two books on his beloved Wales the most important: ''Itinerarium Cambriae'' and ''Descriptio Cambriae'' which tell us much about Welsh history and geography and reflect on the [[cultural relationship between the Welsh and the English]]. Gerald, despite his desire for an independent Welsh Church and admiration for parts of Welsh life, was very loyal to [[Marcher Lord|Norman Marcher]] rule, regarding the Normans as more civilised than the Welsh, a feeling reflected in his writings. Professor Davies tells us that Gerald, whom he calls "an admirable story-teller", is the only source for some of the most famous of the Welsh folk tales including the declaration of the old man of [[Pencader, Carmarthenshire|Pencader]] to Henry II which concludes ''Descriptio Cambriae'': {{quotation|This nation, O King, may now, as in former times, be harassed, and in a great measure weakened and destroyed by your and other powers, and it will also prevail by its laudable exertions, but it can never be totally subdued through the wrath of man, unless the wrath of God shall concur. Nor do I think that any other nation than this of Wales, nor any other language, whatever may hereafter come to pass, shall on the day of severe examination before the Supreme Judge, answer for this corner of the earth.}}

It was Gerald who also wrote (of the Welsh) that "If they would be inseparable, they would be insuperable", and that, unlike the English hirelings, who fight for power or to procure gain or wealth, the Welsh patriots fight for their country. He had pleasant things to say about the poetic talents of his people, too:
{{quotation|In their rhymed songs and set speeches they are so subtle and ingenious that they produce, in their native tongue, ornaments of wonderful and exquisite invention both in the words and the sentences... They make use of [[alliterative verse|alliteration]] in preference to all other ornaments of [[rhetoric]], and that particular kind which joins by [[literary consonance|consonancy]] the first letters or syllables of words.}}

Gerald could not have predicted the later perfection of ''[[cynghanedd]]'', the complex system of sound correspondence that has characterised the strict-metre poetry of the Welsh for so many centuries and that is still practised today, especially in competitions for the ''[[eisteddfod]]'' chair. ''Cynghanedd'' did not become a formal system with strict rules until the fourteenth century, but its uniquely Welsh forms had been honed for centuries before that.

Finally, in ''Descriptio Cambriae'', Gerald penned the following words that give so much pride to Welsh singers of today, especially those who participate in the immensely popular [[cymanfa ganu|''cymanfaoedd canu'']] (hymn-singing festivals) held throughout Wales and North America:
{{quotation|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.}}

Another part of the above work,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/dscwl10.txt|title=Project Gutenberg Etext of Description of Wales by G. Cambrensis}}</ref> however, is less positive. As Gerald puts it, "an attention to order now requires that, in this second part, we should employ our pen in pointing out those particulars in which it seems to transgress the line of virtue and commendation". [[David Powel]] published an abridged version of ''Itinerarium Cambriae'' and ''Descriptio Cambriae'' in 1585, omitting Gerald's negative comments about the Welsh. Due to translations into English, the first being done by [[Sir Richard Colt Hoare, Bart.]], and other translations such as in [[Everyman's Library]] and [[Penguin Classics]], Gerald's works on Wales are well known today.

In Gerald's writing on Ireland, his love of music is very evident, too.
{{quotation|Chapter XI of Distinction III (''Topographia Hibernica'', Of the incomparable skill of the Irish in playing upon musical instruments): The only thing to which I find that this people apply a commendable industry is playing upon musical instruments; in which they are incomparably more skilful than any other nation I have ever seen. For their modulation on these instruments, unlike that of the Britons to which I am accustomed, is not slow and harsh, but lively and rapid, while the harmony is both sweet and gay. It is astonishing that in so complex and rapid a movement of the fingers, the musical proportions can be preserved........ it must be remarked, however, that both Scotland and Wales strive to rival Ireland in the art of music......<ref>Wright, T. ''The Historical works of Giraldus Cambrensis'' (1913) London pp. 126–127</ref>}}

Gerald's works on Ireland, although invaluable for their detail, are obviously biased, and have been attacked by Irish writers such as [[Stephen White (Jesuit)|Stephen White]]. The following passage from his ''Topographia Hibernica'' shows why the Irish might not always be too enamoured with Gerald's views: {{quotation| Distinction III    *Chapter XXXV    (Of the number of persons in this nation who have bodily defects): Moreover, I have never seen in any other nation so many individuals who were born blind, so many lame, maimed or having some natural defect.  The persons of those who are well-formed are indeed remarkably fine, nowhere better; but as those who are favoured with the gifts of nature grow up exceedingly handsome, those from whom she withholds them are frightfully ugly.  No wonder if among an adulterous and incestuous people, in which both births and marriages are illegitimate, a nation out of the pale of the laws, nature herself should be foully corrupted by perverse habits.  It should seem that by the just judgements of God, nature sometimes produces such objects, contrary to her own laws, in order that those who will not regard Him duly by the light of their own consciences, should often have to lament their privations of the exterior and bodily gift of sight.<ref>Wright T. ''The Historical Works of Giraldus Cambrensis'' (1913) London pp. 147&nbsp;– 148</ref>}}

Gerald was a keen and observant student of natural history, but the value of his observations is lessened by credulity and the inability to distinguish fact from legend. He gives a vivid and accurate description of the last colony of the [[Eurasian beaver]] in Wales on the [[River Teifi|Teifi]], but spoils it by repeating the legend that beavers castrate themselves to avoid danger.<ref>Perry, Richard ''Wildlife in Britain and Ireland'' Croom Helm London 1978 pp. 41-43</ref> Likewise, he gives a good description of an [[osprey]] fishing, but adds the mythical detail that the bird has one webbed foot.<ref name="Perry p.200">Perry p.200</ref> His description of Irish wildlife has been the subject of much adverse comment for its inaccuracies and lapses into fiction<ref name=LostBirds19>D'Arcy, Gordon ''Ireland's Lost Birds'' Four Courts Press Dublin 1999 p. 19</ref> but nonetheless, despite its faults, some have argued that it gives an important glimpse of Irish fauna in the 1180s.<ref name=LostBirds19/> Certainly the book has valuable details about Irish birds: while the [[common kingfisher]] is now common in Ireland, Gerald states clearly that it was not found there in his time: on the other hand the [[white-throated dipper]], which he had evidently not seen before, was very common in Ireland.<ref>Moriarty, Christopher ''Down the Dodder'' Wolfhound Press Dublin 1991, pp. 114-5</ref> He also observed the great numbers of [[birds of prey]] in Ireland, including the [[golden eagle]] and the [[Eurasian sparrowhawk]], which he said were more numerous in Ireland than in England.<ref name="Perry p.200"/>

===List of works===
[[Image:Maurice FitzGerald, Lord Lanstephan.jpg|thumb|right|A drawing of Gerald de Barri's uncle, [[Maurice FitzGerald, Lord of Llanstephan]], from a manuscript of the ''Expugnatio Hibernica'']]
* ''[[Topographia Hibernica]]'' ("Topography of Ireland", 1187)<ref>Wright, T. ''The Historical works of Giraldus Cambrensis'' (1913) London p. viii</ref>
* ''[http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/conquest_ireland.pdf Expugnatio Hibernica]'' ("Conquest of Ireland", 1189)<ref>Wright, T. ''The Historical works of Giraldus Cambrensis'' (1913) London p. ix</ref>
* ''[[Itinerarium Cambriae]]'' ("Journey through Wales", 1191)
* ''[[Descriptio Cambriae]]'' ("Description of Wales", 1194)
* ''[[De instructione principis]]'' ("Education of a prince")
* ''De rebus a se gestis'' ("Autobiography")
* ''De iure et statu Menevensis ecclesiae'' ("Rights and privileges of the Church of St Davids")
* ''Gemma ecclesiastica'' ("Jewel of the church")
* ''Speculum ecclesiae'' ("Mirror of the church")
* ''Symbolum electorum''
* ''Invectiones''
* ''Retractationes''
* ''Speculum duorum'' ("A mirror of two men") ([https://www.uwp.co.uk/book/speculum-duorum/ Described at this link])
* ''Life of St [[Hugh of Lincoln]]''
* ''Life of [[Geoffrey, Archbishop of York]]''
* ''Life of [[Æthelberht II of East Anglia|St Ethelbert]]''<ref>{{cite journal |first=M. R. |last=James |title=Two Lives of St. Ethelbert, King and Martyr |journal=[[The English Historical Review]] |volume=32 |year=1917 |issue=126 |pages=214–44: 222–36 |jstor=551656 |doi=10.1093/ehr/xxxii.cxxvi.214|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1431744 }}</ref>
* ''Life of [[Remigius de Fécamp|St Remigius]]''
* ''Life of [[St David]]''

====Lost works====
* ''Vita sancti Karadoci'' ("Life of [[Saint Caradoc|St Caradoc]]")
* ''De fidei fructu fideique defectu'' ("About the fruit of faith and [about] the lack of faith")
* ''Totius Kambriae mappa'' ("Map of all Wales", c. 1205)
* ''De philosophicis flosculis'' ("The Flowers of Philosophy")

====Online editions====
* [https://archive.org/details/historicalworksc00gira 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 Hoare, 2nd Baronet|Sir Richard Colt Hoare]], 1905