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GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS OR GERALD OF WALES (continued)
Contents of this section
Part II
Faults in the Welsh Character
The Welsh in battle
The Welsh as landowners
The fostering of sons
Geoffrey of Monmouth
Part II
The previous notes are taken from Part 1 of Giraldus's 'Description of Wales',
which dates from the 12th cent. In them he describes some of the more acceptable
traits of the Welsh, but he continues in Part II to detail some of the bad points
of the Welsh national character.
In the preface to Part II Giraldus says: the natural propensities of the Welsh may
well have been corrupted and changed for the worse by their long exile and their
lack of prosperity. Poverty puts an end to many of our vices, but it has been known
to encourage us in our wrongdoing.
Faults in the Welsh Character
The inconstancy and instability of the Welsh; and their failure to keep their
word or carry out their promises.
The Welsh people do not keep their promises, for their minds are as fickle as their
bodies are agile. It is very easy to persuade them to do something wrong, and just
as easy to stop them once they have started. They are always quick to take action,
and they are particularly stubborn when what they are doing is reprehensible. The
only thing they really persist in is changing their minds.
A formal oath never binds them. They have no respect for their plighted word, and
truth means nothing to them. They are so accustomed to breaking a promise, held sacrosanct
by other nations, that they will stretched out their hand, as the custom is, and
with this gesture swear an oath about nearly everything they say, not only in serious
and important matters but on every trifling occasion.
They live on plunder and have no regard for the ties of peace and friendship.
It is the habit of the Welsh to steal anything they can lay their hands on and to
live on plunder, theft and robbery, not only from foreigners and people hostile to
them, but also from each other. When they see a chance of doing harm, they immediately
forget all treaties of peace and friendship. They think more of material gain, however
shameful.
In his book called the Downfall of the Britons, Gildas, who revered the truth, as
every historian must, was not prepared to gloss over the weakness of his own people.
'In war they are cowards,' he said, 'and you cannot trust them in times of peace.'
What do you think then of Julius Caesar, who when in the reign of Aurelius Ambrosius,
he fought against them under their leader Cassivelaunas.
'In terror showed his back to the Britons he'd attacked?'
Were they not brave on that occasion? What about Belinus and Brennius who captured
Imperial Rome and added it to all their conquests. Were they not brave in the days
of our own famous king Arthur, call him fabulous if you will.
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The Welsh in battle
In war the Welsh are very ferocious when battle is first joined. They shout,
glower fiercely at the enemy, and fill the air with fearsome clamour. In the first
onslaught they are more than men, and the shower of javelins which they hurl, they
seem most formidable opponents. If the enemy resists manfully and they are repulsed,
they are immediately thrown into confusion, with further resistance they turn their
backs, making no attempt at counter-attack, but seeking safety in flight.
Although beaten today and shamefully put to flight with much slaughter, tomorrow
they march out again, no whit dejected by their defeat or their losses. They may
not shine in open combat and in fixed formation, but they harass their enemy by ambushes
and night-attacks. In a single battle they are easily beaten, but they are difficult
to conquer in a long war, for they are not troubled by hunger or cold, fighting does
not seem to tire them.
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The Welsh as landowners
The Welsh people are more keen to own land and to extend their holdings than
any others I know. To achieve this they are prepared to dig up boundary ditches,
to move stones showing the edges of fields and to overrun clearly marked limits.
So prone are they for this lust of possession, from which they all seem to suffer,
that they are prepared to swear that the land which they happen to occupy on some
temporary or longer established tenancy agreement of lease, hire, renting or any
other similar arrangement is their won freehold and has always belonged to the family,
even when they and the rightful owner or proprietor have publicly sworn an affidavit
about his security of tenure. Quarrels and lawsuits result, murders and arson, not
to mention frequent fratricides. Things are made worse by the ancient Welsh custom
of dividing between the property which they have. (This is the law of 'gavelkind'
where brothers in a family are entitled to an equal share of land or property at
the death of the family head, as different to the law of 'primogeniture' when the
eldest son inherits the land).
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The fostering of sons
Another cause of dissension is the habit of Welsh princes and other nobles of
sending away from home each of their sons to be fostered and educated separately
in other families. (Again this is a typical custom among Celtic nations). If the
prince happens to die, each nobleman plots and plans to enforce the succession of
his own foster-child and to make sure he is preferred to other brothers. Frightful
disturbances have occurred in their territories as a result, people being murdered,
brothers killing each other. Everybody knows that it is very difficult to resolve
disputes of this sort.
You will find that friendships are much warmer between foster-brothers than they
are between true brothers. They will persecute their living brothers until they even
bring about their deaths; but when their brothers die, especially if someone else
happens to have killed them, they will then move heaven and earth to avenge them.
Giraldus Cambrensis, though himself a Welshman has a vitriolic tongue when he derides
his fellow countrymen, was an educated churchmen, who had studied at Paris and Oxford.
But he was ambitious and saw himself as the archbishop of Wales in deference to the
English Archbishop of Canterbury.
But nevertheless the descriptions of his journeying through Ireland and Wales are
very useful indications of everyday life following the Norman invasion of Britain.
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Geoffrey of Monmouth
Some time before Giraldus Cambrensis was born, and believed to be between 1135
and 1139 Geoffrey of Monmouth completed his Historia Regum Britanniae, an
attempt to establish for the Celts a historical identity greater than in any other
work.
The writing, which translated as History of the Kings of Britain, followed a trend
of the time - the theme found in Virgil's Aeneid, in which a noble group of
people were guided by the gods towards a splendid destiny. Like others it began tracing
the nation back to the Trojans, and then through a series of heroic conquests to
what was then the present day.
Although it was denounced by many, including the prominent historian of the day,
William of Newburgh, as a tissue of absurdities, many considered it true.
Believed to be from Monmouth and of Breton descent, Geoffrey, who spent much of his
life as an Oxford cleric, alleged that the Historia was translated from a
'very old book in the British tongue'.
Historia begins with the settlement of Britain by Brutus the Trojan, great
grandson of Aeneas, and moves through the reigns of early kings to the time of the
Roman conquest, and on through the Saxons to Uther Pendragon and his brother Aurelius.
But it is Geoffrey's account of the Arthur legend which to this day provided the
basis of the legends that surrounded that mysterious king. Although Arthur only occupies
a fifth of Geoffrey's work, he took what was believed to have been a defiant Celtic
leader who stood firm in the face of barbarian invasions and transformed him into
Britain's most enduring myth.
Along with aligning the history of Britain so that it could be compared with those
of Greece and Rome, Geoffrey also attempted to create in Arthur a figure whose deeds
were only matched by those of the French king Charlemagne. William of Newburgh was
equally scathing in his denunciation of the work.
'Whatever Geoffrey has written is a fiction invented either by himself or others,
and promulgated either through an unchecked propensity to falsehood, or the desire
to please the Britons, of whom vast numbers are said to be so stupid as to assert
that Arthur is yet to come, and cannot bear to hear of his death.'
Other academics such as the present day Arthur historian, Michael D. Fraley, believes
that such a dismissal of Geoffrey's work would be a mistake.
'Although the History can no longer be treated as pure history, it is still one of
the most important books of the Middle Ages. It's a book that has been much loved.'
It has also sparked the debate, still raging today, as to whether Arthur was a Welsh
or English-based Celtic king.
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