Gerald of Wales - Royal Servant – Travels in Wales and Ireland

Royal Servant – Travels in Wales and Ireland

Gerald became a royal clerk and chaplain to King Henry II of England in 1184, first acting mediator between the crown and Prince Rhys ap Gruffydd. He was chosen to accompany one of the king's sons, John, in 1185 on an expedition to Ireland. This was the catalyst for his literary career; his work Topographia Hibernica (1188) is an account of his journey there. He followed it up, shortly afterwards, with an account of Henry's conquest of Ireland, the Expugnatio Hibernica. Both works were revised and added to several times before his death, and display a notable degree of Latin learning, as well as a great deal of prejudice against a foreign people. Gerald was proud to be related to some of the Norman invaders of Ireland, such as his maternal uncle Robert Fitz-Stephen and Raymond FitzGerald, and his influential account, which portrays the Irish as barbaric savages, gives important insight into Anglo-Norman views of Ireland and the history of the invasion.

Having thus demonstrated his usefulness, Gerald was selected to accompany the Archbishop of Canterbury, Baldwin of Forde, on a tour of Wales in 1188, the object being a recruitment campaign for the Third Crusade. His account of that journey, the Itinerarium Cambriae (1191) was followed by the Descriptio Cambriae in 1194. His two works on Wales remain incredibly valuable historical documents, significant for their descriptions — however untrustworthy and inflected by ideology, whimsy, and his unique style — of Welsh and Norman culture. As a royal clerk, Gerald observed significant political events at first hand, and was offered appointments as bishoprics of Wexford and Leighlin, and apparently at a little later time the bishopric of Ossory and the archbishopric of Cashel, and later the Welsh Bishopric of Bangor and, in 1191, that of Llandaff. He turned them all down, possibly in the hopes of landing a more prominent bishopric in the future. He was acquainted with Walter Map whose career shares some similarities with Gerald. Retiring from royal service, he lived in Lincoln from ca 1196 to 1198 where his friend William de Montibus was now chancellor of the Cathedral. It was in this period that De instructione principis was probably first written, a useful historical source on contemporary events. It was an influential work at the time, spreading, for example, the legend of MacAlpin's treason. Here Gerald is frequently critical of the rule of the Angevin kings, a shift from his earlier praise of Henry II in theTopographia Hibernica. He also wrote a life of St Hugh of Lincoln.