Description

Cadw: Welsh Historic Monuments [Published Date: 1988]. Soft cover, 104 pp. In good+ condition. Glossy black illustrated paper covers have light bumping and creasing to edges and light overall scuffing. Binding tight. Pages clean and unmarked. NOT Ex-Library. NO remainder marks. [From back cover] Eight centuries ago, Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury rode round the four comers of Wales, gathering recruits for the Third Crusade. Accompanying him through the disputed eastern borderlands, the Norman- dominated south and the mountainous native strongholds of the north and west was his friend Gerald the Archdeacon — better known as Gerald of Wales, one of the most fascinating characters of the Middle Ages. Scholar, churchman and courtier, descendant of Norman Marcher barons and Welsh princes, this tireless traveller, naturalist and gossip compiled an account of their eventful journey which remains as fresh today as when it was first written. It mirrors a land of quicksands and mountain passes; of demons and vengeful saints; of Norman knights and feuding Welsh rulers; of battles and kidnappings; and of shrines, monasteries and castles.This publication sets the journey against a background of the still visible traces of Gerald’s Wales — which include many monuments in the care of Cadw: Welsh Historic Monuments — and in the context of his long turbulent and varied career as reformer, royal agent and champion of the Welsh Church. Lavishly illustrated by photographs of the places Gerald knew, and by revealing and colourful manuscript illuminations, it celebrates a man and a land long-vanished yet still vividly alive.