Descriptio Cambriae
medieval treatise on Wales and its people written by Gerald of Wales
The Descriptio Cambriae or Descriptio Kambriae (Description of Wales) is a geographical and ethnographic treatise on Wales and its people dating from 1193 or 1194. The Descriptio’s author Gerald of Wales (or Giraldus Cambrensis) was a prominent churchman of Welsh birth and mixed Norman-Welsh ancestry. It is divided into two books, the first concentrating on the virtues of the Welsh people, and the second on their faults.
Summary
In the First Preface Gerald justifies his decision to write on the subject of his own country, describing those things around him that have hitherto gone unrecorded, rather than treating of classical subjects which have been better dealt with by others. In the future he plans to write an unspecified magnum opus, but for the time being he will describe Wales, taking the 6th-century writer Gildas for his model. In the Second Preface Gerald praises his dedicatee, and asks him to read the Descriptio. He declares his love of literature, which has inspired him to undertake the hard work needed to research and write such a book. He hopes to be rewarded with the attention and praise of readers, now and in the future.
Book 1 begins with a description of the geographical extent of Wales, and of the country's physical ruggedness. Wales is, says Gerald, divided into the principalities of Gwynedd, Powys and Deheubarth, and has been since the kingdom of Rhodri Mawr was split between his three sons, each of whose descendants down to the present prince are then listed.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q21999654. VIAF identifies the subject as 188125803. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1193 and 1194.
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This entry incorporates text from “Descriptio Cambriae” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.