The Portable Medieval Reader

by James Bruce Ross

  In these early days, then, the boy was not a little hindered by the companionship of his brothers, who played with him on holidays and praised as highly as possible the business of their knightly profession, for a boy’s manners are formed by those who live with him. Finally, however, he was much moved by the rebuke and immediate correction of that Bishop David of St. David’s, of pious memory, who was his own uncle; and also by two clerks of the same bishop, one of whom rebuked him by declining the adjective “durus, durior, durissimus,” and the other, “stultus, stultior, stultissimus.” This insult stirred him deeply, so that he began to make progress, aided more by shame than by the rod, and by this disgrace rather than by his teacher or by fear. Afterwards, therefore, he was so wrapped in zeal for his studies that within a short time he far surpassed all his schoolfellows of the same age in his native land. In the course of time, he crossed the sea three times to France, for the sake of further study and profit, and studied for three periods of several years in liberal arts at Paris, until at length, rivalling the most excellent teachers, he taught the trivium there with great success, and won distinguished praise in the art of rhetoric. Here he was so wholly given up to study, so completely devoid of frivolity and buffoonery in action and spirit, that, whenever the teachers in arts wanted to provide an example from among their good scholars, they used to name Giraldus first of all. Thus, because of his merits, he was worthy, in youth and adolescence, not to seek but to give an example of excellence and distinction in the duty of a scholar....

  After these achievements, Giraldus, who “thought that nothing had been done so long as anything remained to be done,” and who never looked backward, but always pressed forward and climbed higher with unfaltering step, determined, for the sake of greater and riper wisdom, and when he had collected his treasure of books, to cross the sea to France, and to apply himself once again with all his heart to the study of liberal arts at Paris. He intended thus to build upon his foundation of arts and literature the walls of civil and canon law, and to complete the building with the sacred roof of theological learning, so that this triple edifice, strengthened by the firmest bonds, should long prevail. After he had applied his studious mind for many years in that city, first to the imperial and then to the pontifical laws, and at last to the sacred Scriptures, at length he attained such popularity by his exposition of canon law, which it was customary to discuss on Sunday, that on the day when it was known in the city that he wished to speak, such a great crowd of almost all the teachers and their students gathered to listen to his pleasant voice, that even the largest hall could scarcely hold his audience. For he expounded the reasoning of canon and civil law in such a lively manner, and supported his exposition with such rhetorical persuasions; he so adorned it with figures and colours of speech as well as with profound wisdom, and by the marvellous art with which he applied them to the proper subjects, he so aptly used the sayings of philosophers and other authors, that the wiser and more learned his hearers were, the more avidly and attentively they applied their ears and minds to listen and to fix it all in their memories. For they were so charmed and entranced by the sweetness of his words that they hung on his lips as he spoke, and listened without weariness or satiety, even if his speech were long and protracted, and such as begets boredom in many people. Therefore, scholars everywhere vied with each other in writing out his lectures word for word, as they came from his own lips, and very eagerly took them to heart. One day, moreover, when a great crowd had gathered from all sides to hear him, after he had finished speaking and while a murmur of praise and applause came from all his hearers, a certain eminent doctor, who had also lectured in arts at Paris, and had long studied law at Bologna, one Master Roger the Norman, afterwards dean of the church of Rouen, burst out with the following words: “Certainly there is no study under the sun which, brought by chance to Paris, does not become incomparably stronger there, and far more excellent than anywhere else.” ...

  After a long stay [late 1176-1179] devoted to study, Giraldus thought it time to return to his country. But he had waited long beyond the time set for his messenger to bring money to Paris for him, and his creditors, to whom he was deeply in debt, were impatient and importuned and pressed harder every day for payment. So he went, full of sorrow and anxiety and in almost the last extremity of despair, to the chapel of St. Thomas of Canterbury, which the archbishop of Reims, the brother of King Louis, had built in the church of St. Germain of Auxerre, where Thomas was canonized as a martyr. Giraldus went there with his companions as a last resort, so that he might devoutly implore the help of the martyr to save him from his troubles. For he knew, as the wise Philo said, that when human aid fails, one must turn to the help that comes from God. And after hearing the solemn mass in honour of the martyr and making his offering, he immediately received from heaven the reward of his devotion. For within the hour he received his messengers who brought him both joy and prosperity, thanks to the marvellous dispensation of God...

  Proceeding, therefore, on his journey and crossing the Flemish sea, he came to Canterbury, and, at the prior’s bidding, dined in the refectory with the monks of that monastery, on the day of the Holy Trinity. Sitting there at the high table with the prior and elder monks, he noticed, as he used to relate, two things, the excessive superfluity of signs, and the multitude of dishes. For the prior gave so many dishes to the monks who served him, and they on their part took these as gifts to the lower tables, and the recipients gave so many thanks, and were so extravagant in their gesticulation of fingers and hands and arms, and in the whisperings by which they avoided open speech, showing in all this a most unedifying levity and licence, that Giraldus felt as if he were sitting at a stage-play, or among actors and buffoons. For it would be more appropriate to order and decency to speak modestly in plain human speech than to use such a mute garrulity of frivolous signs and hissings.

  Of the dishes themselves and their number, what can I say but this, that I have often heard Giraldus tell how sixteen or more very sumptuous dishes were laid on the table in order, or shall I say in disorder? At the last, potherbs were brought to all the tables, but they were scarcely touched. For you might see so many kinds of fish, roasted and boiled, stuffed and fried, so many dishes tricked out by the cook’s art with eggs and pepper, so many sauces and savouries contrived by that same art to stimulate gluttony and to excite the appetite. In addition to these, there was such an abundance of wine and strong drink, of metheglin and claret, of new wine and mead and mulberry wine, and all intoxicating liquors, that beer, which is brewed excellently in England, and especially in Kent, found no place. But there beer was among other drinks as potherbs are among other dishes. You might see here, I say, so excessive and costly a superfluity in food and drink as might not only disgust the partaker, but also weary the beholder.

  What then would Paul the Hermit have said to this, or Anthony, or Benedict, the father and founder of monastic life? Or to seek more recent examples, what would our noble Jerome have said, who in his Lives of the Fathers extols with such praise the parsimony, the abstinence, and the moderation of the primitive Church, saying among other things that as the Church grew in wealth, she greatly declined in virtue? Moreover, Giraldus would sometime tell, as is not beside the point to relate here, how the monks of St. Swithin at Winchester, with their prior, grovelled in the mud before King Henry II of England, and complained to him with tears and wailing that their bishop, Richard, who was in place of an abbot to them, had taken away three of their daily dishes. And when the king asked how many dishes remained, they answered ten, since they were wont, by ancient custom, to have thirteen. “And I,” said the king, “in my court am content with three. Let your bishop perish, unless he reduces your dishes to the number of minel” To what purpose is this waste, especially among men vowed to religion and wearing a religious habit? “For these superfluities might have been sold and given to the poor.” ...

  Now [c. 1184], as the fame of Giraldus increased and became more widesprea
d from day to day, King Henry II, who was then in the March intent upon the pacification of Wales, summoned him, on the advice of his great men. And although Giraldus was most unwilling (for as he values the life of the scholar above all others, so he detests that of the courtier), yet because of the king’s insistence, and also his promises and demands, he finally became a follower of the court, and the king’s clerk. After he had rendered loyal service for several years by following the court, and had been of great aid in the pacification of Wales, not least because of his kinship with Rhys ap Gruffydd and other princes of Wales, he received nothing but empty, untruthful promises from the king, who enriched and promoted so many undeserving persons. But secretly the king praised him greatly in front of his counsellors, and spoke highly of his character, his self-restraint, his modesty, and his loyalty. The king said that if Giraldus had not been born in Wales and if he were not so closely related by blood to the magnates of Wales, and especially to Rhys, he would have exalted him by bestowing on him ecclesiastical honours and rich rewards, and would have made him a great man in his kingdom....

  At this time [1185] the Patriarch Heraclius of Jerusalem came to England, and offered to the king the keys of that city, humbly requesting him, but accomplishing nothing, that either the king himself would come to the defence of the Holy Land, or would send there one of his sons, three of whom were still living. But the king did neither the one thing nor the other, but despised this great messenger, and was therefore himself despised. Deserting God and deserted by Him, since from this time the king’s glory, which had until then grown continually, was turned to shame, he sent his younger son John with a great army to Ireland. And he sent with him Master Giraldus, because he had a great number of kinsmen there, descended from the first conquerors in Ireland, and because he himself was an honest and prudent man....

  After Giraldus had thus gained a great name and wide renown in this island [Ireland], between Easter and Pentecost he crossed over into Wales, where he applied his whole mind with all diligence to the completion of his Topography of Ireland, which he had already begun. In the course of time, when the work had been completed and corrected, not wishing to put his lighted candle under a bushel but to raise it up on a candlestick, that it might show its full light, he determined to go to Oxford, where the English clergy were most flourishing and most excellent in learning, and there to read his book before this eminent audience. And, since the work was divided into three parts, by reading one daily, he spread it over three days. On the first he received and entertained in his lodging all the poor of the whole city, whom he had called together for the purpose; on the next day he entertained all the doctors of the different faculties, and their pupils of greatest fame and renown; and on the third day the rest of the scholars with the knights, the citizens, and others of the borough. This was indeed a costly and noble undertaking, by which were renewed in some fashion the authentic and ancient times of the poets; nor can either the present age nor any past age in England show such a day.

  About that time [1187], after the Holy Land had been conquered by the heathens and Parthians under the leadership of Saladin, King Henry, following the example of his son Richard, count of Poitou, who was the first of all the princes on this side of the Alps to be signed with the cross, took the cross, together with Philip, king of the French, at Gisors, in the presence of, and persuaded by, the archbishop of Tyre. The king came to England from Normandy, where he had delayed briefly, around the first of February. Immediately, he summoned a council at Geddington in the region of Northampton, and there Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, preached and displayed the cross ... and the great men of England, of both clergy and laity, took the cross upon their shoulders. Moreover, in order to attract and bind good men of Wales as well as of England to the service of the cross, the king sent Archbishop Baldwin into Wales. He came to Hereford with Ranulph de Glanville, who had been sent with him, about the beginning of Lent, and entered Wales at Radnor, where he met Rhys ap Gruffydd and many of the great men of Wales. After the archbishop had delivered a sermon on the service of Christ crucified, Giraldus the archdeacon, giving an example to others, at the earlier request of the king, and the insistence of the archbishop and justiciar in the king’s name, and inspired as much by his own devotion as by the exhortation of such great men, first of all took the cross from the hands of the archbishop....

  Then the archbishop, going on his way, and taking with him the archdeacon Giraldus as his inseparable companion in the duty of preaching, crossed Wales, and proceeding along the south coast through the diocese of Llandaff towards Mynyw, preached the cross and the service of the Crucified everywhere, in suitable places. When he had entered Dyfed, and approached the region of Mynyw, the archbishop first preached at Haverford in the centre of the province to the clergy and people of those parts whom he had called together there. Then he charged Giraldus to preach the word of God. And in that hour God granted him such grace of speech and of persuasion, that the greatest part of the young men of that whole region, the flower of knighthood, took the cross, and also a countless number of the people. When the archbishop saw that at his own words so few out of so great a multitude had taken the cross, he said, as if in sorrow and wonder, “God, what a hard-hearted people this is!” And when he ordered the cross which he held in his hand to be given to the archdeacon, to support him, the archdeacon, who was sitting at the archbishop’s side, asked that his bishop, Peter, should be enjoined to speak. But the archbishop answered that in these matters rank should not be regarded, but only him to whom God had given grace. Now the archdeacon had divided his sermon into three parts, saving the greatest force of persuasion for the end of each... ,

  Many were amazed, moreover, that, although the archdeacon spoke only in French and Latin, the common people who knew neither language wept in uncounted numbers, no less than the others, and more than two hundred rushed to receive the sign of the cross....

  When this praiseworthy mission had been accomplished, and as the archbishop was passing from the borders of Wales into England, some of his clerks who were travelling with him spoke about this pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and asked him who could worthily handle the glorious tale of the recovery of the land of Palestine by our princes, and of the defeat of Saladin and the Saracens at their hands. The archbishop replied that he had provided for that, and had someone ready who could relate the story very well. When they questioned him further and asked who it was, he turned to Giraldus who was riding by his side, and said, “This is the one who will write it in prose, and my nephew Joseph will tell it in verse ...” He began, moreover, to commend highly the archdeacon’s book, the Topography of Ireland, which Giraldus had given to the archbishop as they entered Wales and which he had read from beginning to end; he praised it greatly both for its style and for the way in which the subject had been handled....

  The archbishop asked Giraldus whether he had taken from any of our hagiographers or expositors some evidence concerning the allegorical interpretations of the natures of birds which he had given in the first book of his Topography. When Giraldus answered that he had borrowed nothing, the archbishop replied that these were written in the same spirit in which the fathers wrote. He added this also, that Giraldus should not allow the gift of this excellent style which God had given him to lie idle, but that he should always use it, and write continually, so that his time might not be lost in idleness, but that by constant study and praiseworthy labour, he should extend the memory of his name to future ages. Thus he would earn perpetual grace and favour, not only from future generations, but from all save the envious of the present time. He said and repeated that Giraldus should love God’s gift of so gracious a style far more than earthly riches that must soon perish, or worldly dignities that must swiftly pass away. For, he said, Giraldus’ works could neither pass away nor perish, but the older they became in process of time, the dearer and more precious they would be to all men for all eternity....

  [The purpose of the following journe
y to Rome, the first of several, was to obtain papal confirmation of his election as bishop of St. David’s, and to have this see raised to metropolitan rank. Both aims, which dominated much of Giraldus’s career, were opposed by the archbishop of Canterbury.] So, crossing the Alps and passing quickly through Italy and Tuscany, Giraldus arrived in Rome about the feast of St. Andrew [Nov. 30, 1199], and approaching the feet of Pope Innocent III, then in the second year of his reign, he presented to him six books which he had composed with diligent study, saying among other things, “Others give you pounds, I give you books.” These books, moreover, the pope, who was very learned and loved literature, kept all together by his bed for almost a month, and displayed their elegant and pithy sayings to the cardinals who visited him. Finally, he gave all except one to various cardinals, at their request. But he would not let himself be parted from the Gemma Ecclesiastica,which he loved more than the others....

  From De rebus a se gestis, J. S. Brewer, ed., Rolls Series, voL 21; trans. M.M.M.

  Moreover, though Master Giraldus had thrice gone to Rome on account of the aforesaid suits, yet after only two years had elapsed, he firmly resolved to seek the thresholds of the apostles for a fourth time [1207], but solely by way of pilgrimage and devotion, in order that by the labours of the journey, by the giving of alms ... and by true confession and absolution, all the stains contracted in his past life and that also which he had incurred by the security which, with some loss of honour, he had been forced both by Church and state to give, when he was reconciled with the archbishop, might be wiped away past all doubt.... Moreover, he resigned into the pope’s hands all the churches and ecclesiastical benefices, of which some had been given him in his boyhood while he was unworthy to hold them, and others had been conferred upon him by his parents and kinsmen, who were moved thereto by the bonds of the flesh, and had perhaps been taken from more worthy persons by force, or acquired through the court or in some other unlawful manner; and he committed himself wholly to the pope’s wisdom for the guidance of all the days of his life that might be yet to come and for the salvation of his soul at the last. And the pope of pure grace and by his free gift restored all these to him before his departure and gave him salutary instruction for their use and governance and showed him how he should live henceforth and how provide for his final departing. Let the careful reader therefore consider whether the labours of Master Giraldus should be regarded as spent wholly in vain....