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Giraldiana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

Michael Richter
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Extract

History has an attraction for the amateur as well as for the professional, and though the attraction may be of a similar kind, the amateur is rarely given access to primary sources. Yet it is from these that history is written and fundamentally experienced. Giraldus Gambrensis (1146-1223) wrote about Ireland and his native Wales in the late twelfth century in such a fashion that his works can be read with pleasure, profit and, if correctly presented, understanding by both amateur and professional. Most of his works have been available to professional historians for a century in the edition published in the Rolls Series; the rest of his works have been edited since then. Yet surprisingly, rather little use was made of them until very recently. Only over the past decade has the work of this colourful and controversial individual attracted more than passing attention.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 84 , September 1979 , pp. 422 - 437
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1979

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References

1 Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. Brewer, J. S., Dimock, J. F., Warner, G. F., 8 volumes, Rolls Series 21 (London, 1861-91)Google Scholar; Giraldus Cambrensis, De Invectionibus, ed. Davies, W. S. in Y Cymmrodor xxx (1920)Google Scholar; Giraldus Cambrensis, Speculum Duorum, ed. Huygens, R. B. C., YvesLefevre, General Editor Richter, Michael (Cardiff, 1974).Google Scholar

2 Expugnatio Hibernica. The Conquest of Ireland by Giraldus Cambrensis, edited with translation and historical notes by A. B. Scott and F. X. Martin. Pp lxxix, 393, ill. Dublin, Royal Irish Academy (New History of Ireland ancillary publications III, Irish Medieval Texts, 1) (1978).

3 Gerald of Wales. The journey through Wales. The description of Wales, translated with an introduction by Thorpe, Lewis. Pp 333. (Harmondsworth, 1978).Google Scholar

4 Hunt, R. W., ‘The preface to the “Speculum Ecclesiae” of Giraldus Cambrensis’ in Viatoi viii (1977), pp 189–213 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Goddu, A. A. and Rouse, R. H., ‘Gerald of Wales and the Florilegium Angelicum in Speculum, lii (1977), pp 488–521 CrossRefGoogle Scholar: Richter, M., ‘Giraldus Cambrensis and Llanthony Priory’ in Studia Celtica, xii-xiii (1977-8), pp 182–132.Google Scholar

5 This term will be discussed more fully below p. 429; since it is still widely used, it will not be put in inverted commas from now onwards, though I believe that historians have to reconsider what these newcomers to Ireland should be called. The Norman dynasty of English kings ended in 1135 with Henry I. At the time of the conquest of Ireland, England was under her first Angevin ruler, Henry II (1154-1189).

6 For a fuller treatment of this aspect see Richter, M.. ‘The first century of Anglo-Irish relations’ in History, lix (1974), pp 195–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 See below at note 24.

8 Warren, W. L., Henry II (London, 1973).Google Scholar The section on Ireland in this book is an only slightly revised version of Warren’s acclaimed though controversial article, ‘The interpretation of twelfth-century Irish history’ in Historical Studies, vii, ed. Beckett, J. C. (London, 1969), pp 1–19.Google Scholar

9 See Southern, R. W., Medieval humanism and other studies (New York, 1970).Google Scholar

10 Morris, Colin, The discovery of the individual 1050-1200 (London, 1972), p. 7f.Google Scholar

11 I noticed the following misprints in the Latin text: p. 24, L. 14L fierent for fieret; p. 38, 1. 64 sollicitus for solicitus; p. 52,1. 11 tociens for tocies; p. 146,1. 65 Terch for Tertii.

12 There are some inconsistencies in e.g. giving the allusion to Macrobius, Saturnalia II, 4, 30 in italics on p. 254 but not on p. 204,1. 57; similarly Ovid, Remedium Amoris 91, printed in italics on p. 56 but not on p. 44,1. 40.

l3 See Goddu and Rouse (as above, note 4).

14 Rolls Series, Op. i, p. 227.

15 Expugnatio, pp xx and 279, references which are not contained in the index, s.v. ‘speeches’.

16 Op. i, p. 199.

17 Expugnatio, book I, ch. 15, p. 60ff.

18 On vicus in late classical Rome and early medieval England see Sawyer, P. H., From Roman Britain to Norman England (London, 1978), pp 157, 221, 223.Google Scholar

l9 English Historical Documents, vol. ii, 1042-1189, ed. Douglas, D. C. and Greenaway, G. W. (London, 1953), p. 776.Google Scholar

20 Cf the assessment by Martin, F. X., Expugnatio, p. 280 Google Scholar, which differs from the above suggestion but is not based on Giraldus’s vocabulary.

21 One of the chief characteristics of the Normans was their adaptability; they merged with, and adopted the speech of, the native population in every country in which they established themselves. Were they still Normans when they lived in England as their ancestors had done lor a century and spoke English as their mother tongue? It has been stated most recently that ‘at all social levels except that of the king’s court native French speakers seem to have been rapidly and repeatedly assimilated into the local population’, Clanchy, M. T., From memory to written record England 1066-1307 (London, 1979), p. 168.Google Scholar I myself have tried to demonstrate the same on a larger scale and have suggested that Giraldus’s mother-tongue was English, M. Richter, Sprache und Gesellschaft in Mittelalter. Untersuthungen zurmiindlichen Kommunikation in England von der Mitle deselften biszum Beginn des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts (=Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 18, Stuttgart. 1979), sec esp. p. 159.

22 The Book of Leinster, ed. Atkinson, Robert (Dublin, 1880), p. 342.Google Scholar I am greatly indebted to Dr M. T. Flanagan for drawing my attention to thiscopy.

23 P.R.O. London SC 8/177.1 found the reference to thisdocument in Sheehy, M. P., Pontificia Hibernica. Medieval papal chancery documents concerning Ireland, 640-1261, vol. i (Dublin, 1962), p. 16.Google Scholar Sheehy did not collate this version.

24 See esp. Expugnatio, p. 144,1. 37ff: Sane Hiberniam et omnes insulas quibus sol iusticie Christus illuxit … adius beatiPetrietsacrosancte Romane ecclesie, quodtua etiam nobilitas recognoscit, non est dubium pertinere.

25 A new evaluation of the Remonstrance and the establishment of a critical textual edition of it is highly desirable. Attention may here be drawn to a contemporary, somewhat similar, dispute before the papal court at Avignon between the kingdom of Poland and the Order of the Teutonic Knights over the lordship of Pomerellia which is amply recorded, see Lites ac res gestae inter Polonos ordinemque cruciferorum, 2 vols. (Poznan, 1890-2).Google Scholar One volume has appeared to date of a new edition of this text, Litesas res gestae etc. ed. Helena Chlopocka (Breslau, Warschau, Krakau, 1970).

26 Op. vi, Ppl8, 49 n. 2,60, 61.

27 It was understood in this sense by Lloyd, J. E., History of Wales (London, 1911), p. 543, a passage obviously not consulted by Thorpe.Google Scholar

28 Martin, F. X., ‘Gerald of Wales; Norman reporter on Ireland’ in Studies lviii (1969), pp 279–292.Google Scholar

29 Giraldus Cambrensis, Speculum Duorum (as above, note 1), p. 173.

30 Quoted by Morris, Colin, The discovery ojthe individual (as above, note 10), p. 62.Google Scholar

31 Waddell, Helen The wandering scholars, first published in 1927, Fontana, paperbacked. 1968, p. 149.Google Scholar