"Grenzgänger"

Schneider, Reinhard

Bibliographic data

Description

Persistent identifier:: 1655725092

URN:: urn:nbn:de:bsz:291-sulbdigital-226447

Title:: "Grenzgänger"

Author:: Schneider, Reinhard

Place of publication:: Saarbrücken

Publisher:: SDV, Saarbrücker Dr. und Verl. Saarländische Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek

Structure type:: Monograph

Collection:: Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Saarländische Landesgeschichte

Volume number:: 33

Year of publication:: 1998

Number of pages:: 225 S.

Copyright:: Saarländische Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek

Language:: eng

Digitised pages:: 230

Description

Title:: A cross-border career: Giraldus Cambrensis between Wales and England

Author:: Pryce, Huw

Structure type:: Chapter

Collection:: Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Saarländische Landesgeschichte

Digitised pages:: 16

Full text

Huw Pryce
A CROSS-BORDER CAREER: GlRALDUS CAMBRENSIS BETWEEN
Wales and England
Norman conquest and settlement in Britain perpetuated and intensified Anglo-Welsh
warfare, an aspect of Anglo-Welsh relations amply attested from the seventh century
onwards. But Norman ambition resulted in more than the continuation of cross-
border troop movements: it also led to the creation of new links between Wales and
England. This was true in two respects in particular. The first concerned secular land-
holding. Norman lords held estates both in Wales and in England (as well as, in some
cases, Normandy).' Thus, for example, it was on a journey from England, where he
held the substantial honour of Clare in Suffolk, to his lands in Ceredigion in west
Wales, granted him by King Henry I, that Richard fitz Gilbert was ambushed and
killed by the Welsh in the vicinity of Abergavenny in April 1136.1 2 3 Conversely, from
the late eleventh century some members of native Welsh princely dynasties were
granted estates by English lords or kings in the border counties of England, although
such cross-border landholding was insignificant by comparison with that of members
of the Scottish royal family and aristocracy.2 Second, the subordination of the Welsh
bishoprics to the authority of the archbishop of Canterbury and the establishment of
Benedictine priories and cells dependent on English monasteries forged closer eccle¬
siastical ties than had existed before 1066.4 These connections, together with others
they brought in their wake—notably a quickening of trade—increased the opportuni¬
1 See e.g. R. R. Davies, Conquest, Coexistence, and Change: Wales 1063-1415, Oxford
1987, pp. 84-5; I. W. Rowlands, The Making of the March: Aspects of the Norman Settle¬
ment in Dyfed, in: R. Allen Brown (ed.), Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-
Norman Studies, III, 1980, Woodbridge 1981, pp. 144-5, 148-50. For land held by
Giraldus’s father in Devon, see below, p. 53.
2 J. S. Brewer, James F. Dimock and George F. Warner (eds.), Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, 8
vols. (Rolls Series), London 1861-91,6 pp. 47-8. Henceforth Giraldus, Opera.
3 For Welsh examples, see J. E. Lloyd, A History of Wales from the Earliest Times to the
Edwardian Conquest, 3rd edn, 2 vols., London 1939, 2 pp. 398, 496, 553, 616-17; below,
pp. 49-50. For Scotland, see K. J. Stringer, Earl David of Huntingdon 1152-1219, Edin¬
burgh 1985, pp. 177-211. Cf. also Robin Frame, Aristocracies and the Political Configura¬
tion of the British Isles, in: R. R. Davies (ed.), The British Isles 1100-1500, Edinburgh
1988, pp. 144-6, 150-2; R. R. Davies, Domination and Conquest: The Experience of
Ireland, Scotland and Wales 1100-1300, Cambridge 1990, pp, 54-5.
4 Davies, Conquest (as n. 1) pp. 179-94.
45

Description

Description

Table of contents

Monograph

Chapter

Image

Image fragment

Citation links