aspects Giraldus’s career depended to a considerable degree on both his Welsh and
his English connections.
Thus it was as the legate of the archbishop of Canterbury that Giraldus began his
career in the diocese of St David’s, collecting tithes, and it was the archbishop who
ordered Bishop David of St David’s to appoint Giraldus as archdeacon of Brecon
after the deposition of his married predecessor, Jordan—although the bishop was
doubtless happy to advance his nephew’s career in this way.33 Indeed, Giraldus’s
family connections made the diocese of St David’s the obvious place to demonstrate
his credentials as an ecclesiastical reformer trying to put into practice the ideals he
had absorbed so enthusiastically in the Paris of Peter the Chanter.34 Politically, it was
those family connections which made Giraldus so potentially valuable to the Ange¬
vin court: it can be no accident that he was employed at precisely the time, in 1184,
when Henry II was trying to repair the détente with the Lord Rhys established in
1171-2, a détente which had been threatened by a recent rebellion by Rhys’s nephew,
Morgan ap Caradog, lord of upland Glamorgan, with the active support of Rhys
himself.35 36 Yet those connections also made Giraldus vulnerable, as he discovered
when, after Henry’s death in July 1189, he failed in his missions to restore the peace
in Wales in the face of much more serious attacks on royal and Marcher lands and
castles by Rhys and his sons. A Cistercian abbot, William Wibert, who accompanied
Giraldus on three of these missions, allegedly accused his companion of betraying
the royal cause by siding with his Welsh kinsmen.3,1 Later, however, Giraldus was
blamed by the Welsh for having the Lord Rhys and his sons excommunicated by the
bishop of St David’s; and had one of his prebends plundered as a result.37
One question which arises from an examination of Giraldus’s career is how he saw
himself in relation to England and Wales: did he identify with one country more than
the other? This question can be approached from two directions. First, we can exam¬
ine Giraldus’s statements regarding his identity. These have attracted considerable
scholarly attention. Very briefly, the tendency of much work over the last three
decades has been to minimize the significance of Giraldus’s Welsh ancestry and
associations, in an understandable reaction against interpretations of him as an early
Welsh nationalist, interpretations based excessively on the autobiographical writings
33 Giraldus, Opera 1 pp. 24, 27. For Jordan, see most recently Julia Barrow (ed.), St Davids
Episcopal Acta 1085-1280 (South Wales Record Society), Cardiff 1998.1 am very grateful
to Dr Barrow for providing me with a copy of this work in advance of publication.
34 Bartlett, Gerald (as n. 6) pp. 27-33.
35 Cf. Lloyd (as n. 3) 2 p. 561; J. Beverley Smith, The Kingdom of Morgannwg and the
Norman Conquest of Glamorgan, in: T. B. Pugh (ed.), Glamorgan County History, Vol. 3,
The Middle Ages, Cardiff 1971, pp. 37-9; John Gillingham, Henry II, Richard I and the
Lord Rhys, in: Peritia 10 (1996) pp. 229-31.
36 Giraldus, Opera 1 pp. 203-13. Cf. Gillingham, Henry II (as n. 35) pp. 234-5 and n. 57.
Giraldus also claimed later that he had been accused by Prince John of emptying Wales of
its defenders on account of his success in recruiting troops for the Third Crusade in 1 188,
thereby handing it over to his Welsh kinsmen: Giraldus, Opera 1 p. 76.
37 Ibid. pp. 321,332.
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