The Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through
Wales
by Geraldus Cambrensis
Book I
Chapter I
Journey through Hereford and Radnor
In the year 1188 from the incarnation of our Lord, Urban
the Third11
being the head of the apostolic see; Frederick, emperor of
Germany and king of the Romans; Isaac, emperor of
Constantinople; Philip, the son of Louis, reigning in
France; Henry the Second in England; William in Sicily; Bela
in Hungary; and Guy in Palestine: in that very year, when
Saladin, prince of the Egyptians and Damascenes, by a signal
victory gained possession of the kingdom of Jerusalem;
Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, a venerable man,
distinguished for his learning and sanctity, journeying from
England for the service of the holy cross, entered Wales
near the borders of Herefordshire.
The archbishop proceeded to
Radnor,12
on Ash Wednesday (Caput Jejunii), accompanied by Ranulph de
Glanville, privy counsellor and justiciary of the whole
kingdom, and there met Rhys,13
son of Gruffydd, prince of South Wales, and many other noble
personages of those parts; where a sermon being preached by
the archbishop, upon the subject of the Crusades, and
explained to the Welsh by an interpreter, the author of this
Itinerary, impelled by the urgent importunity and promises
of the king, and the persuasions of the archbishop and the
justiciary, arose the first, and falling down at the feet of
the holy man, devoutly took the sign of the cross. His
example was instantly followed by Peter, bishop of St.
David's,14
a monk of the abbey of Cluny, and then by Eineon, son of
Eineon Clyd,15
prince of Elvenia, and many other persons. Eineon rising up,
said to Rhys, whose daughter he had married, "My father and
lord! with your permission I hasten to revenge the injury
offered to the great father of all." Rhys himself was so
fully determined upon the holy peregrination, as soon as the
archbishop should enter his territories on his return, that
for nearly fifteen days he was employed with great
solicitude in making the necessary preparations for so
distant a journey; till his wife, and, according to the
common vicious licence of the country, his relation in the
fourth degree, Guendolena, (Gwenllian), daughter of Madoc,
prince of Powys, by female artifices diverted him wholly
from his noble purpose; since, as Solomon says, "A man's
heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps."
As Rhys before his departure was conversing with his friends
concerning the things he had heard, a distinguished young
man of his family, by name Gruffydd, and who afterwards took
the cross, is said thus to have answered: "What man of
spirit can refuse to undertake this journey, since, amongst
all imaginable inconveniences, nothing worse can happen to
any one than to return."
On the arrival of Rhys in his own territory, certain
canons of Saint David's, through a zeal for their church,
having previously secured the interest of some of the
prince's courtiers, waited on Rhys, and endeavoured by every
possible suggestion to induce him not to permit the
archbishop to proceed into the interior parts of Wales, and
particularly to the metropolitan see of Saint David's (a
thing hitherto unheard of), at the same time asserting that
if he should continue his intended journey, the church would
in future experience great prejudice, and with difficulty
would recover its ancient dignity and honour. Although these
pleas were most strenuously urged, the natural kindness and
civility of the prince would not suffer them to prevail,
lest by prohibiting the archbishop's progress, he might
appear to wound his feelings.
Early on the following morning, after
the celebration of mass, and the return of Ranulph de
Glanville to England, we came to Cruker Castle,16
two miles distant from Radnor, where a strong and valiant
youth named Hector, conversing with the archbishop about
taking the cross, said, "If I had the means of getting
provisions for one day, and of keeping fast on the next, I
would comply with your advice;" on the following day,
however, he took the cross. The same evening, Malgo, son of
Cadwallon, prince of Melenia, after a short but efficacious
exhortation from the archbishop, and not without the tears
and lamentations of his friends, was marked with the sign of
the cross.
But here it is proper to mention what
happened during the reign of king Henry the First to the
lord of the castle of Radnor, in the adjoining territory of
Builth,17
who had entered the church of Saint Avan (which is called in
the British language Llan Avan),18
and, without sufficient caution or reverence, had passed the
night there with his hounds. Arising early in the morning,
according to the custom of hunters, he found his hounds mad,
and himself struck blind. After a long, dark, and tedious
existence, he was conveyed to Jerusalem, happily taking care
that his inward sight should not in a similar manner be
extinguished; and there being accoutred, and led to the
field of battle on horseback, he made a spirited attack upon
the enemies of the faith, and, being mortally wounded,
closed his life with honour.
Another circumstance which happened in
these our days, in the province of Warthrenion,19
distant from hence only a few furlongs, is not unworthy of
notice. Eineon, lord of that district, and son-in-law to
prince Rhys, who was much addicted to the chase, having on a
certain day forced the wild beasts from their coverts, one
of his attendants killed a hind with an arrow, as she was
springing forth from the wood, which, contrary to the nature
of her sex, was found to bear horns of twelve years' growth,
and was much fatter than a stag, in the haunches as well as
in every other part. On account of the singularity of this
circumstance, the head and horns of this strange animal were
destined as a present to king Henry the Second. This event
is the more remarkable, as the man who shot the hind
suddenly lost the use of his right eye, and being at the
same time seized with a paralytic complaint, remained in a
weak and impotent state until the time of his death.
In this same province of Warthrenion,
and in the church of Saint Germanus,20
there is a staff of Saint Cyric,21
covered on all sides with gold and silver, and resembling in
its upper part the form of a cross; its efficacy has been
proved in many cases, but particularly in the removal of
glandular and strumous swellings; insomuch that all persons
afflicted with these complaints, on a devout application to
the staff, with the oblation of one penny, are restored to
health. But it happened in these our days, that a strumous
patient on presenting one halfpenny to the staff, the humour
subsided only in the middle; but when the oblation was
completed by the other halfpenny, an entire cure was
accomplished. Another person also coming to the staff with
the promise of a penny, was cured; but not fulfilling his
engagement on the day appointed, he relapsed into his former
disorder; in order, however, to obtain pardon for his
offence, he tripled the offering by presenting three- pence,
and thus obtained a complete cure.
At Elevein, in the church of
Glascum,22
is a portable bell, endowed with great virtues, called
Bangu,23
and said to have belonged to Saint David. A certain woman
secretly conveyed this bell to her husband, who was confined
in the castle of Raidergwy,24
near Warthrenion, (which Rhys, son of Gruffydd, had lately
built) for the purpose of his deliverance. The keepers of
the castle not only refused to liberate him for this
consideration, but seized and detained the bell; and in the
same night, by divine vengeance, the whole town, except the
wall on which the bell hung, was consumed by fire.
The church of Luel,25
in the neighbourhood of Brecheinoc (Brechinia), was burned,
also in our time, by the enemy, and everything destroyed,
except one small box, in which the consecrated host was
deposited.
It came to pass also in the province
of Elvenia, which is separated from Hay by the river Wye, in
the night in which king Henry I. expired, that two
pools26
of no small extent, the one natural, the other artificial,
suddenly burst their bounds; the latter, by its precipitate
course down the declivities, emptied itself; but the former,
with its fish and contents, obtained a permanent situation
in a valley about two miles distant. In Normandy, a few days
before the death of Henry II., the fish of a certain pool
near Seez, five miles from the castle of Exme, fought during
the night so furiously with each other, both in the water
and out of it, that the neighbouring people were attracted
by the noise to the spot; and so desperate was the conflict,
that scarcely a fish was found alive in the morning; thus,
by a wonderful and unheard-of prognostic, foretelling the
death of one by that of many.
But the borders of Wales sufficiently remember and abhor
the great and enormous excesses which, from ambitious
usurpation of territory, have arisen amongst brothers and
relations in the districts of Melenyth, Elvein, and
Warthrenion, situated between the Wye and the Severn.
The Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through
Wales
by Geraldus Cambrensis
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