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Gerald of Wales

New Perspectives on a Medieval Writer and Critic

Editor(s) A. Joseph McMullen,Georgia Henley

Hardback - £90

Paperback - £29.99

Language: English

Genre(s): Welsh and Celtic Studies

February 2018 · 336 pages ·234x156mm

· Hardback - 9781786831637
· Paperback - 9781786831644
· eBook - pdf - 9781786831651
· eBook - epub - 9781786831668

Gerald of Wales (c.1146–c.1223), widely recognized for his innovative ethnographic studies of Ireland and Wales, was in fact the author of some twenty-three works which touch upon many aspects of twelfth-century life. Despite their valuable insights, these works have been vastly understudied. This collection of essays reassesses Gerald’s importance as a medieval Latin writer and rhetorician by focusing on his lesser-known works and providing a fuller context for his more popular writings. This broader view of his corpus brings to light new evidence for his rhetorical strategies, political positioning and usage of source material, and attests to the breadth and depth of his collected works.

List of Abbreviations
List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Gerald of Wales: Interpretation and Innovation in Medieval Britain - Georgia Henley and A. Joseph McMullen
Section 1: Appropriating the Past
2 Gerald of Wales and the Welsh Past - Huw Pryce
3 Gerald and Welsh Genealogical Learning - Ben Guy
4 Gerald of Wales, Walter Map and the Anglo-Saxon History of Lydbury North - Joshua Byron Smith
5 Gerald of Wales and the History of Llanthony Priory - Robert Bartlett
6 The Early Manuscripts of Gerald of Wales - Catherine Rooney
7 Giraldian Beavers: Revision and the Making of Meaning in Gerald’s Early Works - Michael Faletra
8 Style, Truth and Irony: Listening to the Voice of Gerald of Wales’s Writings - Simon Meecham-Jones
Section 3: Gerald the Thinker: Religion and Worldview
9 Gerald of Wales’s Sense of Humour - Peter J. A. Jones
10 Fere tirannicus: Royal Tyranny and the Construction of Episcopal Sanctity in Gerald of Wales’s Vita Sancti Hugonis - Peter Raleigh
11 ‘A Priest Is Not a Free Person’: Condemning Clerical Sins and Upholding Higher Moral Standards in the Gemma ecclesiastica - Suzanne LaVere
12 Elements of Identity: Gerald, the Humours and National Characteristics - Owain Nash
Section 4: Reception in England, Ireland and Wales
13 Gerald’s Circulation and Reception in Wales: The Case of Claddedigaeth Arthur - Georgia Henley
14 The Transmission of the Expugnatio Hibernica in Fifteenth-century Ireland - Caoimhe Whelan
15 Did the Tudors Read Giraldus? Gerald of Wales and Early Modern Polemical Historiography - Brendan Kane
Afterword
Bibliography
Index

Author(s): A. Joseph McMullen

A. Joseph McMullen is Assistant Professor in English at Centenary University.

Author(s): Georgia Henley

Georgia Henley is an Associate Professor of English at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, USA. Her work focuses on the literature and history of medieval Wales and the March of Wales, and she is the author of Reimagining the Past in the Borderlands of Medieval England and Wales (2024).