Description

Despite a frustrated ecclesiastical career - his ongoing failure to secure the See of St David's embittered him - Giraldus Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales, Gerald de Barry, c.1146-1220/23) composed many remarkable literary works, initially while employed as a royal clerk for Henry II and, subsequently, in semi-retirement in Lincoln. Eight volumes of his works were compiled as part of the Rolls Series of British medieval material. Volume 8, edited by archivist George F. Warner (1845-1936) and published in 1891, contains his 'Liber de principis instructione', a moral treatise including much invective against the Angevin court. Written while Louis of France - in whose support Giraldus composed a poem - was scheming to replace King John, the Latin text, in Giraldus' vigorous and anecdotal style, gives a vivid picture of contemporary politics, while the English introduction illuminates nineteenth-century interest in the period.