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  crossborder
  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  landholding.
  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  ecclesiastical
  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  Settlement
  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,  Edinburgh
  1985,  pp.  177-211.  Cf.  also  Robin  Frame,  Aristocracies  and  the  Political  Configuration
  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.

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