Giraldus was also drawn into political affairs in England. As a curial clerk this was
arguably inevitable, but it can be argued that he was imprudent in the degree to
which he advertised his political allegiances.69 In his autobiography, De Rebus a Se
Gestis, Giraldus is reticent about his reasons for leaving the court, maintaining that
his departure was due to his realizing the incompatibility between the courtier’s and
the scholar’s life.70 As we have seen, he had fallen victim to malicious rumours of
disloyalty spread by William Wibert, who asserted that Giraldus conspired with his
Welsh kinsmen in Deheubarth against the crown. Giraldus attributed his difficulties
at court to Wibert, but the crucial reason for his departure may well have been that he
was caught on the wrong side of the constitutional crisis which blew up during
Richard I’s absence on crusade and subsequent imprisonment in Germany.71 During
that absence Giraldus appears to have become associated with Richard’s younger
brother, Prince John, whom he had accompanied to Ireland in 1185; John apparently
offered Giraldus the bishopric of Llandaff, which lay within the lordship of Glam¬
organ (held by John at that time), an offer which was refused.72 By October 1191
John had succeeded in engineering the expulsion of his brother’s chief justiciar,
William Longchamp, and had taken over as regent in his place.73 In c. 1193 Giraldus
wrote a life of Geoffrey, archbishop of York, an illegitimate son of Henry II, which
was extremely hostile to Longchamp (to whom, two years earlier, Giraldus had
dedicated his Itinerarium Kambriae) as well as to Hubert Walter, thereby revealing
his allegiance to John’s party.74 The following year, however, Richard was released
from his German captivity, Longchamp was restored, and John was compelled to
submit to his brother’s authority. Despite the further volte-face represented by the
dedication of the Descriptio Kambriae to Hubert Waiter, it is very likely that Ri¬
chard’s return ended Giraldus’s curial career.75 There then developed a growing
disenchantment with the Angevin dynasty, which reached its apogee in 1216-17,
when Giraldus wrote a poem welcoming Prince Louis of France on the latter’s
invasion of England at the request of a baronial faction hostile to John.76 Giraldus’s
connections and preoccupation with Wales did not prevent him, then, from engaging
with political events in England,
What attracted Giraldus to Hereford and Lincoln were their libraries and the presence
of other scholars. For Giraldus the scholar, England possessed intellectual as well as
69 Richter, Giraldus (as n. 6) p. 86.
70 Giraldus, Opera 1 p. 89. This dichotomy had previously been emphasized by John of
Salisbury in his Policraticus of 1159: Nederman, Pohcraticus (as n. 19) p. 4.
71 Richter, Giraldus (as n. 6) pp. 84-7; Michael Richter, Gerald of Wales, in: Traditio 29
(1973) pp. 383-4; Gillingham, Henry II (as n. 35) p. 235 n. 57.
72 Giraldus, Opera 1 pp. 61,87.
11 J. T. Appleby, England without Richard 1189-1199, London 1965, Chap. 3.
74 Giraldus, Opera 4 pp. 355-431.
75 Bartlett, Gerald (as n. 6) pp. 64-5. Dimock dated the completion of the Descriptio, and
hence its dedication to Hubert, to the beginning of 1194: Giraldus, Opera 6 p. xxxiv.
76 Bartlett, Gerald (as n. 6) pp. 91-9.
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