(b Manorbier, c1146; d ?Lincoln, c1223). Welsh-Norman ecclesiastic and author. Educated in arts and canon law at Paris, he was archdeacon of Brecon from about 1175 to 1203; from 1184 to 1194 he was also in royal service. After visits to Ireland in 1183 and 1185–6 he wrote a Topographia Hibernica (c1187) and Expugnatio Hibernica (c1188). Likewise, after his travels around Wales in 1188 he wrote Itinerarium Kambriae (1191) and Descriptio Kambriae (1194). His later works include the largely autobiographical De rebus a se gestis (c1204). His writing is characterized by fascination with detail, vigorous expression of personal opinion and a fondness for controversy and debate.
Both the Topographia and the Descriptio contain passages referring to music which have been variously translated and interpreted by scholars musicologically untrained or nationalistically motivated, but which have latterly been subjected to more critical examination. The extent of Giraldus's musical training is unknown, so the accuracy of his use of musical terms is not certain, but the passages are nonetheless a unique source of information about the music that they describe. He stated (Topographia, III, ix) that Irish instrumentalists were more skilled than any other people; their music was characterized by rapidity of the fingers, ornamented measures or melodies (‘crispati moduli’) and extremely intricate polyphony or counterpoint (‘organa multipliciter intricata’). He referred to the intervals of the strings, which, whether they sounded 4ths or 5ths, always began from ‘B mollis’ and returned to it; the significance of the note name is not known. He stated that Scotland and Wales imitated Ireland in musical style. Ireland used only two instruments, the harp (‘cithara’) and the timpán or lyre (‘tympanum’); Scotland used these as well as the chorus (a type of wind instrument, or perhaps, the crwth), and Wales the harp, chorus and pipe (‘tibia’). He noted that brass strings (rather than leather/gut) were used; this remark may refer to Ireland, or to Wales, or to all three countries.
In keeping with the affinity that he noted between Irish and Welsh music-making, much of the account of Irish string-playing is repeated verbatim in the Descriptio (I, xii). Another passage (I, xiii) describes a Welsh practice of part-singing (for an alternative interpretation see Rondellus):
When they make music together, they sing their songs not in unison [uniformiter], as is done elsewhere, but in parts [multipliciter], with many modes [modis] and phrases [modulis], so that in a crowd of singers … you would hear as many songs and differentiations of voices [discrimina vocum varia] as you could see heads, coming together finally in one consonance and organic melody [organicam melodiam] with the enchanting sweetness of B mollis.
He compared this practice with a similar one in northern Britain, where the polyphony was confined to two parts; in both districts the skill was acquired not by training but by long usage. He speculated that since the English south of the Humber did not share the habit, the northerners may have learnt it from the Danes and Norwegians. Hibberd interpreted the passage to mean heterophony for a group of singers, whereas Burstyn suggested controlled improvisation on a known, perhaps traditional, pattern of vertical sonorities.
Aside from these clues regarding practical music-making, later recensions of the Topographia included a lengthy exegetical passage on the effects of music and its earlier practitioners and theorists; in it, Giraldus referred to a practice of funeral lamentation characteristic of both Ireland and Spain, which he called planctus.
ed. J.F. Dimock: Giraldi Cambrensis opera, v–vi (London, 1867–8/R)
ed. and trans. L. Thorpe: The Journey through Wales – The Description of Wales (Harmondsworth, 1978)
ed. and trans. J.J. O'Meara: The History and Topography of Ireland (Harmondsworth, 1982)
Ll. Hibberd: ‘Giraldus Cambrensis and English “Organ” Music’, JAMS, viii (1955), 208–12
Ll. Hibberd: ‘Giraldus Cambrensis on Welsh Popular Singing’, Essays on Music in Honor of Archibald Thompson Davison (Cambridge, MA, 1957), 17–23
M. Richter: Giraldus Cambrensis: the Growth of the Welsh Nation (Aberystwyth, 1976)
R. Bartlett: Gerald of Wales (Oxford, 1982)
B.F. Roberts: Gerald of Wales (Cardiff, 1982)
S. Burstyn: ‘Gerald of Wales and the Sumer Canon’, JM, ii (1983), 135–50
S. Burstyn: ‘Is Gerald of Wales a Credible Musical Witness’, MQ, lxxii (1986), 155–69
P.J. Nixon: ‘Giraldus Cambrensis on Music: How Reliable are his Historiographers?’, Medieval Studies: Skara 1988, 264–89
R. Crocker: ‘Polyphony in England in the Thirteenth Century’, NOHM, ii (2/1990), 679–720
P. Weller: ‘Gerald of Wales’s View of Music’, Welsh Music History, ii (1997), 1–32
ANDREW HUGHES/ANDREA BUDGEY