GLENDALOUGHof John’s rebellion against Richard, and the failure of
that rebellion meant the end of Gerald’s career as a
courtier-cleric. Not even by dedicating the first edition
of The Description of Wales (c. 1194) to Hubert Walter
(the king’s choice as justiciar and archbishop of
Canterbury) could he ward off Hubert’s anger. For a
few years, Gerald led a quiet life at Lincoln pursuing
his theological studies and writing saints’ lives. In
1199, however, he not only accepted election as bishop
of St. David’s, he also revived its old claim to be the
archbishopric of Wales—an assault on Canterbury’s
rights over the Welsh churches, rights which he himself
had previously upheld, notably in 1175 and 1188.
This fight for a form of Welsh independence won
him the support of some of the Welsh princes, for a
while at least, and it involved him in several journeys
to the papal court. Whereas as researcher and author
he may have won Pope Innocent III’s admiration, he
was no match for Hubert Walter’s political skills and
financial resources. By 1203, the cause was lost, and
Gerald once again retired from the fray, disillusioned
with Welsh princes, and announced (again) that he
preferred literary immortality to worldly success. Not
even the offer of the archbishopric of Cashel, made,
Gerald claims, by his cousin Meiler FitzHenry, justi-
ciar of Ireland, during the course of a third visit to
Ireland to see his friends and relatives, could tempt the
sixty-year-old to take up high office. But from that
time on, Gerald emphasized the Welsh side of his
ancestry and insisted that throughout his life his ene-
mies had used his Welshness to bring him down. It
was this that led to him being identified as Giraldus
Cambrensis, or Gerald of Wales. But this is not how
he had identified himself in his earliest works. In the
Topographia he wrote “we English.” In a famous pas-
sage in the Expugnatio, he put a speech into the mouth
of his uncle, Maurice FitzGerald. Besieged in Dublin
in 1171, Maurice tells his followers that they can
expect help from no one, “for just as we are English
to the Irish, so we are Irish to the English.”
During the last twenty years of his life, mostly at
Lincoln, he continued to write, especially about the
St. David’s case, and to produce new editions of his
earlier works. When Prince Louis of France brought an
army to England in 1216 and 1217, Gerald denounced
the tyranny of the kings of England, extolling the liberty
that people enjoyed under Capetian rule. But with the
defeat and withdrawal of Louis’s troops, this too ended
in disappointment. Gerald was dead by 1223, but his
keen eye and his fine Latin style had won for him the
immortality he craved, above all thanks to his four Irish
and Welsh books, ironically the ones written while
worldly ambition kept him busy in the service of
English kings.
JOHN GILLINGHAM
References and Further Reading
Gerald of Wales. The History and Topography of Ireland. Trans-
lated by J. J. O’Meara. Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics,
1982.
———. Expugnatio Hibernica (The Conquest of Ireland). Trans-
lated by A. B. Scott. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1978.
Bartlett, Robert. Gerald of Wales, 1146–1223. Oxford: Clarendon,
1982.
See also Anglo-Norman Invasion; Annals and
Chronicles; FitzgeraldGLENDALOUGH
An ecclesiastical settlement had developed at
Glendalough (Glenn-dá-Locha, valley of the two
lakes), County Wicklow, before the mid-seventh century,
as shown by the obits recorded for bishops Colmán
(660) and Dairchell (678), both of whom were proba-
bly also abbots. The foundation is ascribed to Cóem-
gen (St. Kevin; d. 618), who is genealogically linked
to Dál Messin Corb, a proto-historical dynasty of the
Laigin, and who is the subject of Latin and Irish “Lives,”
but about whom little of historical worth is known.
The earliest settlement was at the upper lake, where
the foundations of a beehive hut survive; terracing may
be traced on the adjacent hillside. Located here are the
churches of Templenaskellig and Reefert (Ríg-fert),
the burial ground of Leinster kings. Expansion towards
the lower lake was apparently underway by the eighth
century, and was facilitated by the dynasty of Uí Máil,
the influence of which is discernible in the record of
abbatial succession. However, before 800 C.E., as the
wealth of the settlement increased and its network of
dependencies expanded, Glendalough had attracted the
rulers of Uí Dúnlainge, whose role in its affairs is
clearly reflected in hagiographical tradition. By the
eleventh century, the ecclesiastical center and its
dependencies were dominated by Uí Muiredaig, a
branch of Uí Dúnlainge, whose most distinguished
churchman was St. Lorcán Ua Tuathail (d. 1180).
Meanwhile, Glendalough was attacked by Vikings
in 834 and 836—later coming under pressure from the
Scandinavian kings of Dublin. By the eleventh century,
however, it seems that a peaceful Hiberno-Scandinavian
presence had been established there, as attested by
finds of a coin hoard and of a grave-slab carved by
a stone-mason named Gutnodar. The settlement was,
by this time, well developed commercially. Twelfth-
century annals mention a watermill, while a market
cross (which formerly stood in a flat open space beside
the river) may date to the same period. Most of the
surviving ecclesiastical remains, especially those in the
lower valley, certainly date to this time and owe much
to Uí Muiredaig patronage. Near the cathedral are the
churches of saints Cóemgen and Ciarán, the “Priest’s