He
Loved Paris, The Centre Of Learning, Where He Studied As A Youth,
And Where He Lectured In His Early Manhood.
He paid four long
visits to Rome.
He was Court chaplain to Henry II. He accompanied
the king on his expeditions to France, and Prince John to Ireland.
He retired, when old age grew upon him, to the scholarly seclusion
of Lincoln, far from his native land. He was the friend and
companion of princes and kings, of scholars and prelates everywhere
in England, in France, and in Italy. And yet there was no place in
the world so dear to him as Manorbier. Who can read his vivid
description of the old castle by the sea - its ramparts blown upon
by the winds that swept over the Irish Sea, its fishponds, its
garden, and its lofty nut trees - without feeling that here, after
all, was the home of Gerald de Barri? "As Demetia," he said in his
"Itinerary," "with its seven cantreds is the fairest of all the
lands of Wales, as Pembroke is the fairest part of Demetia, and this
spot the fairest of Pembroke, it follows that Manorbier is the
sweetest spot in Wales." He has left us a charming account of his
boyhood, playing with his brothers on the sands, they building
castles and he cathedrals, he earning the title of "boy bishop" by
preaching while they engaged in boyish sport. On his last recorded
visit to Wales, a broken man, hunted like a criminal by the king,
and deserted by the ingrate canons of St. David's, he retired for a
brief respite from strife to the sweet peace of Manorbier.
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