The Journey Through Wales and the Description of Wales by Gerald Of Wales

Author:Gerald Of Wales
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Great Britain, General, Medieval, Science, Earth Sciences, Geography
Publisher: Penguin UK
Published: 2004-05-27T05:20:21+00:00

THE DESCRIPTION OF WALES

FOR STEPHEN, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY,447

THE FIRST PREFACE TO THE DESCRIPTION OF

WALES.

Some time ago I set out in three books The Topography of Ireland, with its natural curiosities until then unknown, taking three years over the task. Next I completed The Vaticinal History of the Conquest of Ireland, in two books, which took me two years. Then I published the Archbishop’s Journey through Wales, thus preventing his far from easy mission from ever being forgotten. I now propose, in this short treatise, to write a Description of Wales, my own country, and to describe the Welsh people, who are so very different from other nations. These new fruits of my labours I dedicate to you, Stephen,448 Archbishop of Canterbury, so famous both for your piety and for your learning,449 just as I did my Journey. It may seem an insignificant gift to one so distinguished, because, of course, you are used to receiving such fine presents.

Some, indeed, take exception to what I have done. In their concern for me, they see me as a painter who, rich in precious colours, the master of his art, a second Zeuxis,450 strives with great skill and industry to portray a humble cottage or some other subject by its very nature base and ignoble, when they were expecting me to paint a temple or a fine palace. They are surprised that, from all the great and striking subjects which the world can offer, I choose to extol in my writings and to adorn with all the flowers of my rhetoric those rugged countries, Ireland, Wales and Britain.

Others again rebuke me more harshly, saying that I should not squander on such insignificant themes the gifts which God has given me, or sit up late at night wasting my time praising princes, who have no interest in literature and are so tight-fisted, and who refuse to recommend or reward works of great literary merit. They add, moreover, that these talents which I have so lavishly received from God, as if from heaven above, should be used for sublime subjects and for God’s greater glory. ‘Every good gift and every perfect gift’451 comes from God, as from a never-failing source, and it should be used in praise of Him from whose bounty nothing offered from a grateful heart can ever go unrewarded. Distinguished writers have composed and published admirable histories of other countries. I have been inspired to think that it may be a useful and praiseworthy service to those who come after me if I can set down in full some of the secrets of my own native land. By writing about such humdrum matters I can rescue from oblivion those deeds so nobly done which have not yet been fully recorded. What could my own crude and feeble efforts add to the Fall of Troy,452 to Thebes453 or Athens,454 or to what happened on the coast of Latium?455 Besides, just to do again what had been done already would be to achieve nothing. That is why I have decided instead to write the history of my own country.

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