ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to examine, through the writings and actions of contemporaries, how the universal mission of the Church served to affect, and was in turn affected by, the changing political and cultural frontiers which pertained in the British Isles in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. How were such frontiers perceived by churchmen, and how did these clerics negotiate them? No better starting point for an investigation of such issues suggests itself than the works of that most marginal of men, Gerald of Wales.1 Examples of self-deprecation in Gerald’s writings are elusive, but a rare instance is to be found in his History and Topography of Ireland, first written in 1188, wherein Gerald relates an exchange which occurred after he had criticized the Irish clergy for not preaching to their flock:
When once upon a time I was making these complaints and others like them to Tatheus, the archbishop of Cashel, a learned and discreet man, in the presence of Gerald, a cleric of the church of Rome, who was then on some mission or other in those parts, and was blaming the prelates especially for the terrible enormities of the country, using the very strong argument that no one had ever in that kingdom won the crown of martyrdom in defence of the church of God, the archbishop gave a reply which cleverly got home – although it did not rebut my point: ‘It is true’ he said, ‘that although our people are very barbarous, uncivilized, and savage, nevertheless they have always paid great honour and reverence to churchmen, and they have never put out their hands against the saints of God. But now a people has come to the kingdom which knows how, and is accustomed, to make martyrs. From now on Ireland will have its martyrs, just as other countries.’2
