GIRALDUS CAM BRENS IS (literary name of GERALD DE BARRI) (1146?-1220?)

—Geographer and historian, was b. of a Norman family settled in Wales, which intermarried with the Royal family of that country. He was an eminent scholar and Churchman, whose object of ambition was the Bishopric of St. David's, to which he was twice elected by the chapter, but from which he was kept out by the opposition of the King. When travelling in Ireland with Prince John (1185) he wrote Topograph i a Hibernica , a valuable descriptive account of the country, and in 1188 he wrote Itinerarium Cambriæ , a similar work on Wales. He left several other works, including an autobiography, De Rebus a se Gestis (concerning his own doings).