Volume 1

The itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales, A.D. MCLXXXVIII / By Giraldus de Barri; translated into English, and illustrated with views, annotations, and a life of Giraldus, by Sir Richard Colt Hoare, bart.

  • Gerald of Wales
Date:
1806
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales, A.D. MCLXXXVIII / By Giraldus de Barri; translated into English, and illustrated with views, annotations, and a life of Giraldus, by Sir Richard Colt Hoare, bart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    [ *i ] LIFE OF GIRALDUS DE BARRI. Giraldus de Barri, distinguished by the name of Cambrensis, or the Cambrian, was descended from an illustrious lineage, being the fourth son of William de Barri, a person of high distinction, by Angharad, daughter of Nest, who was the daughter of Rhys ap Theodor Prince of South Wales. He was born about the year 1146,’ at the castle of Manorbeerb in Pembrokeshire, and at a very early age shewed strong marks of literary talents, and an earnest desire to dedicate himself to offices of religion. Whilst his brothers and their companions amused themselves with tracing fanciful figures on the sands, he was occupied in drawing churches and monasteries. His father, admiring these marks of his youthful propensity, predicted his future progress in learning, decided in his own mind on giving him the advantages of a learned education, * I have differed from some other biographers, and the author of the chronology of the life of Giraldus, in fixing the year of his birth in 1146, instead of 1150. Warton, in his preface to the Anglia Sacra, quotes the authority of Giraldus himself, who in his book, de Instructione Principis, says, that in his twentieth year he was pursuing his studies at Paris, at the very time when Philip Augustus was born, viz. A. D. 1166.
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